Washington State Roundabout Evolution

Brian Walsh

State Traffic Design Engineer
Washington State DOT

Brian is the State Traffic Design Engineer for the Washington State DOT (WSDOT). He has 3 decades of experience in the transportation field, most recently as a traffic and design engineer working statewide on traffic analysis, design, safety, policy and standards as they pertain to striping, intersections, temporary traffic control as well as other modes including transit, bicycle and pedestrians.

With intersection safety, efficiency and sustainability becoming more relevant on the nation’s roadways and the need to implement more balanced intersections for all of the modes, more jurisdictions and their consultants are considering roundabouts and innovative intersections to meet this need. As a result, Brian has been at the forefront assisting his agency and other agencies and serving as a national resource on implementing intersection configurations that improve mobility and safety, most notably roundabouts.

Brian has a B.S. in Civil Engineer from Montana State University, is a registered Professional Engineer in Washington State and currently is serving as the Chair of the TRB Roundabouts and Other Design and Control Strategies Committee (AKD80) as well as Joint Task Force Chair of Roundabouts on the National Committee (NCUTCD). He is a member of ITE.

A handful of U.S State's began planning and actually building roundabouts before 2000 and drafted up design manual guidance to help support the selection and design of a roundabout intersection. Progress was at a snail pace and this "learning curve" was essential in how the Roundabout Program is now implemented. Because this was years before Intersection Control Evaluation policy that actually supports roundabout implementation, it helped shape the policy that many see now in play in a number of states. Being an early adoption state with roundabout implementation will help inform the audience that there is not one way to build a "mousetrap" but a number of ways to accomplish the implementation of roundabouts and the presentation of this evolution will be helpful to many in the audience who are trying to bring along "pockets of the U.S." where roundabouts are not being built, despite their safety and efficiency and sustainability aspects and more importantly their success. This presentation will be fast paced technical and historical lesson on roundabout adoption in the One U.S state and highlight some key milestones such as the timing of the first design guidance, the role local agencies played in this history and how it was trying to overcome less than enthusiastic decision makers/elected officials and how persistence has caused it to morph into a much broader canvas and significant subject at a State DOT. Technical subjects that will be discussed and presented will revolve around policy, standard plans, scalability, modification of multi-lane roundabouts, high speed approach applications, corridors, compact roundabouts, nearby railroad applications, illumination, traffic analysis, modeling, integrating roundabouts into agency project development process, ADA and PROWAG issues, construction staging, public acceptance or lack of....and why community engagement actually assists in getting better educated decision makers.

Learning Objective 1 : Understanding where the planning, traffic and design profession has been, where it is headed as it pertains to roundabouts. - Target audience is the generations that follow the baby boomers and generation X in this transportation field and will find it helpful to be able to tell the broader story when planning and implementing roundabouts and identifying some of this history in the public engagement process. History has lessons that don't need to be repeated and this presentation will share some of those hard learned lessons on the way to good outcomes....both engineering and social dynamics.

Learning Objective 2 : See illustrations of unique characteristics of built and operating roundabouts and how flexible illumination design or curb details can be to accomplish an objective

Learning Objective 3: How a state DOT can work closely with other transportation providers , particularly local agencies and have the leadership from local and state work together for roundabout outcomes.

The goal , especially for large agencies, has been to get more systematic with roundabout implementation because of their effectiveness as intersection control and benefit other modes as well. Hearing from larger agencies that have to manage lots of outcomes based on budget and scope and trying to not let perfect get in the way of "good enough". Pushing through setbacks is essential for future success. Continuing to refine the skill of planning and implementing roundabouts is a huge addition to the Vision Zero movement and these stories are important to help arm future roundabout proponents on what to expect.