It's been a long road, but Saint John is closer to getting a roundabout — somewhere

Saint John's proposed budget for next year earmarks $550,000 for the city's first roundabout, but despite much talk about introducing the feature to the local road system, a site still hasn't been chosen. 

In fact, the city has added a location to the list of possibilities: Loch Lomond Road and Route 111, the Saint John Airport arterial.

Roundabouts are now considered warranted at six locations, a city official says, and the money in next year's budget should hasten a decision about which goes first.

"Funding is the first step in terms of making the project happen," Tim O'Reilly, director of public works and transportation, said in an interview Tuesday. "Certainly, this is another step toward achieving the goals that are in our strategic plans."

Calls for a roundabout for various intersections and areas of the city stepped up in 2020.

The $550,000 allotment was part of finance commissioner Kevin Fudge's budget presentation to council on Monday, but it was mentioned without elaboration.

Saint John has long been considered a holdout on the roundabout scene, unlike Fredericton, where they keep growing in number.  

Pans for a Saint John roundabout have fallen through for "one reason or another," O'Reilly said." Recently,  the delay has been about identifying where the need is for such a roundabout, he said.

"There have been situations in the past where a specific location has been looked at, and in those cases — and there's been a few of them around the city — a roundabout just wasn't a good fit . … Let's actually pick out locations [that are] good locations for a roundabout."

MoveSJ, a transportation study, has identified six locations. Five had been previously identified, and the Loch Lomond Road / Airport Arterial spot was added after further review. The five other sites are:

• Ashburn Road / Rothesay Road

• Manawagonish Road / Gault Road

• Sandy Point Road / Foster Thurston Drive

• Millidge Avenue / Somerset Street

• Simms Corner

O'Reily said now it's just a matter of funding and prioritization "as to which ones get done."

Roundabouts, he said, provide a cost-effective method of even traffic control.

"So maybe a situation where you get demand on all corners of the intersection, a roundabout will provide a better level of service for all directions," he said.

"Speeds can be relatively high through an intersection, but with a roundabout vehicles have to operate at a much lower speed. So the risk of collisions, as well as the severity of collisions that would occur in a roundabout is much less than a traffic light."

Roundabouts are also much easier to maintain over time than traffic intersections, he said.

"There's a lot of electronics involved with a set of traffic lights that have to be maintained year over year. Whereas beyond the initial construction of a roundabout, those electronic costs go away because you don't have to have them in the future."

Simms Corner, a very complicated project

Five of the six sites on the list are being considered equally, but Simms Corner in west Saint John, though it may be a larger focus of public concern, is unlikely to get the first installation.

"Simms Corner is going to be a very complicated project and very costly, out of all six locations," O'Reilly said. "So that'll be the one that will take the most planning and most investments to complete.

"The other ones are, in relative terms, smaller in scale and certainly more doable than Simms Corner. So with the ones that will be coming up, with that $500,000 investment, will be one of those five initial locations."

Deputy Mayor John MacKenzie agreed.

"Simms Corner is definitely on the list, but it just wouldn't be the first one you do because you try to do the simple ones first."

MacKenzie said road conditions of the sites would also be a factor.

"You don't want to tear up a nice new paving job to do this," he said. "You want to do it in a place where you need [a roundabout], but it also needs roadwork, to make it worthy.That decision will probably be made when we get closer to having some funding available."

Saint John council will make a final decision on the proposed budget on Dec 11.