Sunday, September 18, 2011

The Roundabout Runaround

Readers of this blog will recall when, back in July, Lake County was in the grips of roundabout fever:
Roundabout Trips
At the time, the county seemed all hell-bent on constructing roundabouts at intersections where most drivers typically expect to find traffic signals. As reported by the Daily Herald, two of the three county roundabouts are for Hunt Club Road:
New way of getting 'round
A straight line can be drawn from roundabout #1 at Hunt Club & Wadsworth Rd to roundabout #2 at Hunt Club & Millburn Rd; and from there to the equestrian tunnel, south of Millburn on Hunt Club.

Sharp-eyed operatives who like to connect the dots will recognize the same tunnel, reported on this blog, being dug by the village of Old Mill Creek:
Pipe Smoke
That equestrian tunnel is being built because of the roundabouts. Horse traffic is unable to cross these intersections, because vehicular traffic does not stop.

Your LakeCountyEye understands that Old Mill Creek (Pop 178) was, nonetheless, quite happy to see roundabouts built on the county highway that divides that village. Trucks and commercial vans, it is hoped, will stay away from Hunt Club in favor of the more heavy-traffic friendly Routes 41 & 45 to the east and the west. In fact, planners were certain enough that no truck would ever cross Hunt Club Road that the roundabout at Hunt Club and Millburn was built to accommodate vehicles no larger than automobiles. Apparently no one remembered that fire trucks and emergency vehicles are larger than automobiles. This explains the delay in the construction of the Hunt Club & Millburn roundabout. It is being rebuilt. It goes without saying that the county taxpayer is -- ha ha -- footing the bill.

For those stuck in construction traffic -- particularly at the intersection of Hunt Club & Millburn -- your LakeCountyEye has constructed a skill test for passing the time:

Which One Does Not Belong?
Circle the Intersection that is Different.

Hunt Club &
Route 173

Hunt Club &
Wadsworth

Hunt Club &
Stearns School
Google Maps

Lucky winners will receive round-trip tickets to, you guessed it, Roundout.

2 comments:

Ditrict116 said...

About a month ago I shot a video of the Hunt Club & Wadsworth Road roundabout that was recently completed. It's about six minutes long just to show how drivers are currently treating it like nothing more than a curve in the road. Once traffic can continue South to Milburn Road, things should change drastically as in "CRASH-EM-UP-DERBY" if they don't start treating the intersection like an intersection.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyAx3W4kyqc

District116 said...

Guess I didn't hit the 's' key hard enough. It should read "District116 said..."