APPLETON, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – The City of Appleton proposal to slow down a speeding problem is not sitting well with everyone.
City leaders are proposing traffic circles at two different intersections, where they say speeding is a problem.
But not everyone is happy about the change.
“That doesn’t sound good to me!” said Lynn DeWall of Appleton. “I don’t like it at all.”
Lynn DeWall and her husband live right next to the Glendale Avenue and Summit Street intersection in Appleton. She’s not thrilled about a city proposal to build a traffic circle there.
“I don’t like the traffic circles,” she said. “I know it might slow up traffic some, but it’s going to be a problem.”
A second traffic circle will be on Glendale Avenue and Locust Street.
“Really, the point of them is to try and kind of react to what we’ve heard from residents continuously over the years, is speeding issues,” City of Appleton traffic engineer Eric Lom said.
The DeWalls have lived in the neighborhood for almost 50 years.
“In all the years that we’ve been here, we’ve noticed maybe a handful of fender benders, you know, but major accidents? No,” Dave DeWall said.
The traffic circles would be 12-feet wide.
Dave DeWall is concerned about the road being too thin.
“It’s gonna get a lot narrower in the wintertime, because at least three, sometimes four feet, depends on the snow, on each side, so you’ve got that really narrow,” he said.
His wife shares the same concerns.
“In the wintertime and in leaf picking up time, and stuff, it’s gonna be rather difficult,” Lynn said.
Traffic circles look like roundabouts, but Appleton traffic engineer Eric Lom says they’re not the same.
“Roundabouts are intended to control two kinds of high flows of traffic, where they come together, kinda an alternative to a traffic signal,” Lom explained. “A neighborhood traffic circle really isn’t intended to do that at all, it’s really intended to put in, essentially, an obstruction.”
Another big difference between traffic circles and roundabouts is that traffic circles, like the ones already in Greenville, can have stop signs, whereas roundabouts cannot.
The city wants to see how traffic circles impact speeding. If it goes well, there could be even more in the future.
The proposal will be discussed at the city’s Municipal Services Committee meeting on Nov. 11.
Construction for the street project would begin in 2021.
