Prefabricated Mini-Roundabouts in Downtown Sundre, Alberta

Phil Weber

Senior Project Manager
CIMA+

Phil Weber works at CIMA+ in Toronto, Ontario, and is a P.Eng. and P.E. with a Masters’ degree in transportation engineering. Over the past 20-plus years he has worked in the transportation field in both the public and private sectors. Disciplines have included transportation planning, traffic engineering, geometric design, human factors, and road safety. Phil is considered a national authority on roundabout planning and design in Canada, and has seen more than 100 roundabout designs through to construction to date.

This presentation will highlight a roundabout project on Highway 27 in downtown Sundre, Alberta, Canada. Highway 27 is a two-lane undivided provincial highway in Central Alberta that becomes a four-lane facility within the Town of Sundre. The Town had long expressed a desire to rejuvenate downtown Sundre by slowing traffic along this section of Highway 27 and making the corridor more inviting for pedestrians. Central to this would be to reduce Highway 27 to two lanes by removing traffic from the curb lane, and to introduce landscaping and other features to create a sense of place and a pedestrian destination.

Through a series of public consultations it was ultimately decided to also construct three mini-roundabouts. They would be removed if they did not meet the objectives of the project, but of high quality so they would not look temporary. If successful they could be made permanent once the section of Highway 27 is reconstructed. The three mini-roundabouts were made using the “Vortex Traffic Control System” comprised of a recycled material that came in pre-fabricated sections that were assembled and bolted in-place in the field.

This presentation will describe the overall project and focus on the pre-fabricated mini-roundabouts, which at the time were the first implementation of the system (which was still in development at the time). It will describe the geometric design process, installation and associated costs, how the system has performed to date (especially through the first winter), how large vehicles are accommodated (including over-dimensional vehicles), and the feedback received from various stakeholders.

This presentation can help roundabout designers and public agency staff learn about the advantages and disadvantages of mini-roundabouts and prefabricated products, and the value of aesthetics and good public outreach.

Public agencies are looking for ways to implement roundabout projects quickly and inexpensively, and this presentation demonstrates that prefabricated roundabouts are one way to do that. Less money spent on one individual project can perhaps mean that more roundabout projects are funded, with a net overall increase in safety for everyone.