Roundabouts in Sebastopol?

[tree14]

THANKS TO BARRY for Wacco and for the chance to discuss the future of the town we love, Sebastopol.!!!

I appreciate how hard the city council has worked and will work in the future to steer Sebastopol's streets, crosswalks and sidewalks in a safer direction, in spite of the reality of the massive crush of traffic that will persist. While some of the council members, Mr. Slayter and Ms. Gurney, in particular, like the idea of building roundabouts, I do not because,

1. They will be expensive to build.

2. There will be more delays and to a much greater extent as you are building them.

3. Once built, like where they have been suggested at Murphy and Healdburg and at Mill Station and Healdsburg (Hwy 116), they almost certainly be more unsafe than the status quo. Americans like to drive fast. Ever try to find your way once you are in a roundabout, and there is some clown behind you who is tailgating as you try to determine which way is the correct one to get where you want to do? Putting up more flashing yellow lights and perhaps even, perish the thought, lowering the speed limit a bit would help a LOT more.

4. How will pedestrians get through roundabouts? That is another expense you have to plan and pay for. Would REALLY like to see or hear what the Sebastopol Police Department's members (cops on the beat) think about new roundabouts at these locations.

[John Eder]

The evil, dangerous roundabout has raised its head in Sebastopol!

In my almost two years on the City Council, I do not believe that we have had even one discussion about roundabouts. It is not my intention to start that discussion at this point, but merely to provide you with some "food for thought".

[Barry]

Here's how the city council candidates addressed roundabouts at the recent Candidates Night:

The first place I'd like to see a roundabout is on 116 at Llano Rd. This would work very well in conjunction of re-signing 116 to go via Llano Rd to Occidental Rd ( with a new short connector from Hwy 12 to Occidental).

Here's a few slides from the SDAT presentation:

Here's the existing traffic flow:

And here's with a roundabout:

The advantage is that rather having to turn on to Llano Road to use the "bypass", vs going straight and through Sebastopol, it become an equal choice to use Llano Rd (the new 116) or Gravenstein Highway South (the old 116).

I think this, along with re-signing 116 to go up Llano Road would help alot to divert through traffic from going through our downtown. Between this and other SDAT proposals, it would lighten the load a bit so that it becomes feasible to restore 2 way traffic on Main Street.

Of course this is under the purview of Cal Trans rather than the Sebastopol City Council, but I imagine a vote of support from the city would be helpful to get this process started.

[Dixon]

I accidentally activated the closed caption feature on that first video, and the captioning is hilariously inaccurate!