Local residents last week weighed in on future traffic projects around Burlington.

Some commented on the Washington State Department of Transportation’s plan to put two roundabouts at the Interstate 5/State Route 11 interchange. Others came to Burlington’s City Hall to learn about a joint project between the state and the city to redesign Nevitt Road as part of the State Route 20 widening project.

Information was also available on the city’s plans to widen N. Burlington Boulevard, and a future Skagit Transit park and ride.

WSDOT is still accepting questions and comments via its Web site at http://www.wsdot.wa.gov.

The roundabouts received the most attention at the March 4 open house.

WSDOT engineering manager Jay Drye said the roundabout concerns are usually presented by people who are unfamiliar with the traffic control structures.

Roundabouts are being used in increasing numbers throughout the state, he said, but only where they appear to be the best solution.

“You have to have the right tool for the problem,” he said, and sometimes a signalized intersection is still the best tool for certain spots.

The two traffic signals at that interchange were installed in 2000 as an interim solution while Cook Road was being rebuilt, Drye said.

He said when WSDOT looked at how to give the interchange a long-term fix, “the roundabouts emerged really quickly as a solution.”

The department chose roundabouts for the I-5/SR 11 interchange because signals wouldn’t allow for projected traffic increases in the next 20 years.

In order to provide enough room for cars to wait at a light, the bridge over I-5 would have to be widened, Drye said. Roundabouts won’t require cars to stop and wait, so they proved more cost-effective, he said.

When approaching a roundabout, cars must yield to circulating traffic already in the roundabout, said WSDOT designer Mikkel Lamay.

Bow resident Randy Dannenmiller said he wasn’t sure people would use the structures correctly, and has observed near-miss accidents at roundabouts he has seen.

“It just takes a little bit of education,” Lamay said. “They’re out there and people are learning how to use it.”

He said a roundabout in Bellingham that is near a community college and a retirement home has experienced success, so he would expect the same for these ones.

Drye said pedestrians, bicyclists successfully use crosswalks at the Bellingham roundabout. He also said the Whatcom Transit Authority public bus system had to reschedule its routes because college-bound routes were making better time than ever with the new roundabout.

A large projector screen showed cars using roundabouts in Bellingham and other cities in Washington. When a demonstration car used it incorrectly, a giant circle with a line through it blinked on the screen with a message like, “Choose a lane,” or “No left turn from right lane.”

Mount Vernon residents Al and Joan Udd said they support the use of roundabouts because they cut down on wasted vehicle emissions when cars are forced to idle at a stoplight.

“Every place there’s a stoplight, you’re wasting fuel,” Al Udd said.

Joan said on their way to the open house, they were stopped for four minutes on the bridge at the I-5/SR 11 interchange.

Dannenmiller asked what kinds of construction impacts would result while the roundabouts are being built.

Drivers will experience very few delays, because most of the construction will occur outside the existing roadways, Drye said. Businesses in the area are supportive of the idea, he added, because it allows easy access to their lots.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety endorses roundabouts because of the reduced number of collisions and injuries resulting from them.

The institute found that at signalized intersections that were replaced with roundabouts, fatal and disabling collisions reduced by 90 percent, injury collisions in general reduced by 76 percent and total crashes reduced by 39 percent, said WSDOT traffic engineer Dina Swires.

Swires said this is for two reasons.

For one, the structures have eight conflict points — spots where a collision is possible between vehicles and/or pedestrians — compared to 32 at a traditional signalized intersection, Swires said.

Also, vehicles drive slower through roundabouts because of the curves and visual cues engineered into them.

Swires said drivers also slow down because they don’t have a red light giving them the okay to stop paying attention.

When drivers approach a roundabout and start looking for a way to merge into it, “they’re paying attention and that’s the key really,” Swires said.