Council Committee to Discuss $120,000 Feasbility Study of West Main Street Roundabout

Ohio Department of Transportation wants feasibility study of potential roundabout to be built in 2028.

Back in September of 2023, this publication talked about the possibility of having a new roundabout placed at one of the busiest intersections in the entire community, the West Main Street/Experiment Farm/South Stanfield Road intersection on the city’s bustling west side. By the way, this particular publication still stands as one of the most popular pieces that this publication has ever written.

This potential roundabout will be a topic of conversation at Monday night’s Streets and Sidewalks Committee as the committee will be asked to make a recommendation to council to spend an additional $120,000 to further study the potential roundabout now scheduled for construction in 2028, according to a city memo.

In 2024, the roundabout project was approved to receive federal funding from the Miami Valley Regional Planning Commission. As the project was developed, the Ohio Department of Transportation informed the city that the project wasn’t reviewed against the ODOT Analysis and Traffic Simulation (OATS) Manual, a set of regulations published by the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT). The city believed that since there was no state funding involved and since the project started before OATS was written, the manual didn’t apply.

It appeares that the State begs to differ with that interpretation. ODOT will not allow the city to begin a more detailed design of the roundabout until a feasbility study is completed in accordance with the OATS Manual.

Now the city is at the point where they need to amend their previous design services agreement with American Structurepoint to add a feasibility study to the proposed roundabout project at a cost not to exceed $120,000.

What Does the OATS Manual say about Roundabouts?

The OATS Manual does provide discussion on the topic of roundabouts and outline several situations where they may not be recommended: Roundabouts may struggle in locations with very high traffic volumes, especially if the traffic is heavily directional. They are also less suitable for intersections with significant imbalances between approaches, such as when there is heavy through traffic on a major road combined with minimal side street volumes. In dense urban areas where space is limited, roundabouts may not be appropriate due to their larger footprint compared to traditional intersections.

The manual emphasizes the importance of geometric constraints when considering roundabouts.For intersections with a high percentage of heavy vehicles or large trucks, roundabouts may present challenges. While they can accommodate large vehicles, they require careful design considerations and may necessitate larger roundabout designs, which might not be feasible in all locations.

Additionally, in areas where pedestrian and bicycle traffic is significant, roundabouts may pose difficulties for these vulnerable road users. The manual mentions the importance of considering pedestrians and cyclists in intersection modeling, suggesting that in locations with high non-motorized traffic, roundabouts might not be the best solution.

Lastly, in corridors where signal coordination is crucial for traffic flow, roundabouts may disrupt the ability to create coordinated signal timings, potentially making them less desirable in such situations.

Given that some of these constraints exist at the West Main Street/Experiment Farm/South Stanfield Road intersection, it will be interesting to see if the proposed roundabout can meet the guidelines of the OATS Manual, or if the design will look drastically different than the one that was originally put out by American Structurepoint eighteen months ago.

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