Roundabouts grab most attention at listening sessions, Facebook page

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Wisconsin’s transportation budget is facing a $1 billion shortfall and many argue the state needs to put more money toward rebuilding its highways and bridges. Yet, at least one lawmaker is finding that constituents’ road rage is mostly directed at something entirely different: Roundabouts.

Rep. Bob Kulp, a Republican from Stratford, recently held a series of listening sessions ostensibly to gauge public opinion on the state’s next budget. But in a listening session in Neillsville, rather than discuss various topics related to revenue and spending, most of the people who attended wanted to talk roundabouts, Kulp said. The topic also came up again during a listening session in Marshfield.

Often extolled by designers and engineers as a safer alternative to standard intersections, roundabouts are also sometimes viewed as scarcely needed innovations that pose perhaps unknown risks.

Kulp said that some constituents also use roundabouts as a “scapegoat” when trying to solve transportation funding issues. He has heard people argue that eliminating the construction of new roundabouts could go a long way toward balancing the budget.

“It’s basically the understanding, or misunderstanding, that people have about them,” Kulp said.

In a post on his Facebook page last week, Kulp said roundabouts proved to be “the most recurring topic” during his recent listening sessions. Kulp noted that was true even though the state budget contains no proposal related to roundabouts.

Kulp, who represents parts of Marathon, Clark and Wood counties, has a handful of roundabouts either within or near his district’s borders, including a series of three roundabouts just south of Marshfield near U.S. Highway 10.

The roundabouts were installed in 2010 amid expansion work on the same stretch of highway, said Scott Larson, executive director of the Marshfield Area Chamber of Commerce & Industry.

Larson said that, even before the roundabouts were built, various trucking companies had expressed concerns. One goal among those with complaints was to ensure the intersections were large enough for trucks carrying trailers to pass through them safely.

To better accommodate trucks and other large vehicles, each roundabout was built with two lanes and an inner paved area.

Larson said he’s under no illusion that roundabouts have become acceptable to everyone. Still, it has been a long time since he has heard complaints about them at his office.

“We understand why the DOT has gone to utilizing roundabouts,” Larson said. “It’s primarily a safety issue, trying to eliminate head-on and T-bone collisions.”

In his Facebook post, Kulp asked his friends and followers to leave comments containing two pieces of information: Their age and whether they support roundabouts. Kulp also theorized that older people tend to dislike roundabouts, while younger people viewed them more favorably.

By Monday, the Facebook post had elicited more than 450 comments. According to an analysis of the post’s responses by The Daily Reporter, among those comments that met Kulp’s criteria — that they include the person’s age and a yes/no vote — 265 people said they viewed roundabouts favorably, while 132 said they didn’t.

The analysis — which was admittedly informal and unscientific — further broke down the responses by age, grouping them by decades. In each age range, the people who responded tended to favor roundabouts more often than those who did not.

Kulp said that the roundabout discussion is in part encouraged by the larger issues facing the transportation budget this time around. He said that lawmakers will have to make some tough decisions on whether to further cut spending on roads or to raise revenues.

Noting that the department has been working with largely the same amount of revenue since 2006, he said it may be time to provide more funding.

“When is it time to at least acknowledge inflation?” Kulp asked. Follow @alexzank