Athens lets the circle game begin at Richland/Rt. 682

The Richland Avenue/Ohio Rt. 682 in south Athens opened to traffic Sunday afternoon, but the new roundabout, replacing the intersection’s traffic light, may cause some residents to continue going in circles.

Sunday marked the completion of Phase 2 of the Richland/682 Intersection Improvements Project. This means that the intersection of these two roadways is functional once more, after more than three months of construction, said Jessica Adine, project and development manager for the city Department of Engineering and Public Works.

“The circle has been completed,” she said. “The artwork that is set to go into the circle, the installation, will probably go in on Friday… It is a functioning roundabout.”

Improvements to the roadways were considered for two reasons, she explained. In 2003, the intersection was ranked 78th by the Ohio Enhanced Crash Identification Location System, which prompted a safety study that was completed in 2005.

“The safety study started looking at design alternatives for the intersection,” she said.

Athens City Council, though, was concerned about the safety of the intersection before the rankings surfaced, according to Adine. Council considered alternatives nearly 10 years before construction at the site began, she said.

“In 2000, City Council proposed planning at the intersection after a population increase in the 1990s,” she said.

The nearly $4 million project’s completion date is projected for Dec. 31, she said.

“We still have work to do on Richland, north of the bridge,” she said. “And clear out 682 East, finish bikeways and pathways, and finish up Route 682 West.”

As for the safety of the roundabout system, where each car is supposed to merge into the circle when an opening occurs, and then proceed to their “exit” off the circle, things are going well so far, she said.

“Driving around the roundabout is really intuitive,” she said. In addition, the Athens Police Department reported Wednesday afternoon that they had no accidents on file at that location since the roundabout opened.

But for both residents and businesses located on Richland Avenue south of the circle, the roundabout and improvement project has involved more than just negotiating the intersection.

Some businesses south of the intersection have seen a decrease in profits during the construction period.

Jay Shapiro, owner of D.P. Dough, 374 Richland Ave., confirmed that his mainly carry-out/delivery restaurant was one of them.

“In the last couple of weeks, my sales have actually been down about 15 to 20 percent,” he said. “I’m pretty sure it has to do with delivery times.”

Shapiro said that delivery drivers put an extra 70 miles per day on their vehicles, costing them an extra $20 to $25 each shift.

During construction, he added, the six minutes it took for delivery drivers to get back and forth between the restaurant and Convocation Center on campus expanded to 15-20 minutes.

“I did overhear a lot of people saying they weren’t ordering D.P. Dough because it takes a lot longer than it used to,” he said.

On the other hand, Shapiro said he hopes that the roundabout will benefit his drivers because they will not have to wait at the traffic light.

He did note, however, that in the past 10 years, D.P. Dough drivers experienced “zero accidents” at the pre-construction intersection, despite their using it 300 times a day.

Some Ohio University students living in Richland Avenue apartment complexes and housing, said they have been inconvenienced by the construction.

Senior Raymond Moss, who lives in the Summit at Coates Run complex, said he thinks the new roundabout is “dangerous.”

“I almost got hit today (Tuesday),” he said. “Somebody wasn’t paying attention because of the yield sign and just kept going. I think they should’ve improved the roads and kept the lights.”

Moss also said that walking to campus during the construction has been confusing.

“I walked one time, my shoes got messed up through the construction and everything,” he said. “I didn’t know which way I was going and people were working next to me. I was afraid something was going to fall on me. I was done with walking.”

Ebony Porter, like Moss an OU senior, also lives in the Summit. The completion of the roundabout has not yet made her commute to campus shorter because it’s confusing, she said.

“(It’s like) ‘Oh, am I supposed to go that way? Is that blocked off?’” she said. “It’s still a little confusing.”

Along with the roundabout, Porter said she hopes further improvements are made with the construction.

“There’s a lot of potholes,” she said. “I don’t know if a roundabout was the best way to go about fixing the street. I do believe the street needed to be fixed. Maybe it should’ve been repaved but I don’t see the benefit of a roundabout.”

Porter said the roundabout in her hometown makes more sense than to her, because the one in her hometown is surrounded by businesses, unlike the one in Athens.

“There’s nothing really there, just a freeway, (Rt.) 682, the end of Richland and left and right,” she said.

The negative reactions to the roundabout are probably at least partly a result of the novelty of the road feature. People just aren’t used to it yet.

USA Today ran an article last month about states’ increased use of roundabouts for traffic control. The article reported that “engineers say they are safer, quieter, more environmentally friendly, and can be cheaper than building intersections with signs or signals.”

The article cited a 1977 study of 55 sites by the National Cooperative Highway Research Program of the National Academies. The study found that converting a traditional intersection to a roundabout “led on average to a 35 percent drop in crashes and 76 percent drop in fatal or serious injury crashes,” the article said.

A primary reason for fewer and less serious crashes, according to the article, was the fact that in a roundabout, crashes are more likely to be side-swipes than the more dangerous head-on collisions.

The speed limit going into the Richland/682 roundabout is 20 miles per hour. According to the city, pedestrian and cyclist traffic along north-south Richland Avenue is being maintained with an aggregate pathway from Dairy Lane to the crossing south of the Richland Avenue Bridge. Barrier walls are still in place on the bridge to separate pedestrian and cyclist traffic from vehicle traffic.

Ohio Rt. 682 west of the intersection is expected to reopen to traffic at the beginning of August.