DOTD's I-10 plans explained

With town officials, business owners and residents expressing doubts about a plan to replace traffic lights with roundabouts at the I-10 exit here, the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development (DOTD) held an “open-house” public meeting Thursday, Nov. 19, to clarify the plan and solicit public comment.
Last month’s announcement of plans to replace traffic lights with roundabouts on La. 347, the Grand Point Highway, north and south of the I-10 exit, and to remove the traffic light at the nearby intersection of La. 347 and La. 352, the Henderson Highway, created doubts.
At Thursday’s meeting, state engineers and project managers explained the revised plan. Most concerns that were voiced centered on potential problems to drivers trying to turn left from southbound 347 onto 352, or into the businesses northwest of the intersection from 347. In either case cars will have to cross traffic lanes without the aid of a light, the feeling being that in rush-hour traffic, drivers could be stuck for long periods of time.
DOTD traffic engineers and Project Manager Nicholas Olivier said that, in fact, the traffic light is the reason that traffic backs up at those locations in the first place. Their experience with roundabout intersections, they said, indicates that when drivers get used to negotiating the roundabouts, traffic flows through them quickly and cars are not compressed together by red lights, so bigger gaps exist between vehicles, making turns across oncoming lanes easier.
Henderson Mayor Sherbin Collette and Councilman Bill LeGrand both told the Teche News that they were more optimistic about the plan after the presentation and that most residents they had spoken to seemed more receptive to the idea than before.
In Thursday’s presentation and in published literature, DOTD touts many advantages of roundabouts over light-controlled intersections. With 18 of the interchanges built or now being built in Louisiana over the past ten years, the record does seem to bear their assertions out. They are claimed to have reduced fatality collisions by 90 percent at intersections where they are installed, and reduced injury crashes by 76 percent. They also are said to improve traffic flow, reduce fuel consumption and emissions, and save $5,000 per year in electricity and maintenance.
Also working in favor of the planned roundabouts is the necessity to curve and narrow the path of LA 347 as it passes under the I-10 overpass. This is made necessary by the addition of supports for the widened west-bound lane of the bridge.