The New Jersey Department of Transportation is planning more than a dozen new roundabouts. Modern, state-of-the-art roundabouts are replacing old, poorly designed traffic circels (a circle is not a roundbout). The multilane roundabouts planned in Sarasota and Venice (the latter at Jacaranda Boulevard and Venice Avenue) will benefit from the latest advances in roundabout design.
People will be safer (no head-on or broadside crashed). Fender benders will be more easily removed from the flow, with all drivers moving to the right. No crystal ball is needed to show safety improvements because today's roundabout accident-reduction data are so profound. The Insurance Institute of Highway Safety seems to like roundabouts (www.iihs.org).
Drive through the success of the highest volume multilane roundabout in the United States in Clearwater. (There are lots of seniors up there.) Tourists destinations like Clearwater have roundabout that double as attractive entryways (see Vail or Avon, Colo., which one enters off the interstate through roundabouts). Check out other U.S. roundabout experiences at www.roundaboutusa.com.
Again and again, objections come up before roundabouts are built 9such as Monday's letter to the editor Herald Tribune). Then, once a roundabout is opened, users petition for more roundabouts in the area (as happened in Clearwater).
Expect that is South County. Another source of information is the Nov. 25 New York Times article "A shift, but for some drivers, a vicious circle" (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/25/nyregion/nyregionspecial2/25circlesnj.html?pagewated=1&_r=2).
Rod Warner, Sarasota
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