City Reps Give Up On One Roundabout, But Not All Of Them

Plans for an East Side roundabout at an intersection near Eastwood High School are dead.

But the plans for other El Paso roundabouts are still very much alive.

Residents of the Eastwood High School neighborhood shot down City traffic engineers and three city representatives Wednesday night when they attempted to convince them a roundabout at the intersection of Montwood and Wedgewood was a good fit.

City representatives Dr. Mike Noe, Steve Ortega and Emma Acosta have since backed off on the roundabout plans for that intersection and will keep the existing traffic lights there. But with a lack of education appearing to be the biggest obstacle, they plan to continue the fight for roundabouts.

Most drivers in the Borderland seem to react to roundabouts much like Chevy Chase did in the movie “National Lampoon’s European Vacation,” where he got stuck in a roundabout in London for what seemed like hours.

“It’s something that’s new, it’s something that’s not familiar and a lot of people fear it, they really do,” Noe said. “We need to look at this as a possible safer alternative and not fear it so much. I don’t think they’ll ever really realize what an opportunity they have missed to have a beautiful, well-functioning intersection there.”

The roundabout at UTEP, which was not a City project, has been here for almost three months. Iin that time, UTEP police said they’ve had five accidents, all of them minor. They say the biggest problem seems to be educating people how to drive around a roundabout.

“A lot of people don’t yield like they’re supposed to,” UTEP student Christi Amato said. “Then they get mad when other people don’t yield and they start honking at them.”

These are the three main rules of roundabouts:

First, slow down as you approach. Second, yield to the traffic in the roundabout. And third, don’t stop or change lanes.

“I think the biggest issue is just not yielding,” UTEP student Marco Sanchez said. “I’ve been stuck in one in Mexico City. I think we were in it for about eight minutes. It was pretty bad.”

Noe said, despite the setback, he will fight for three more proposed East Side roundabouts.

Acosta said the biggest concern residents have with roundabouts is pedestrians, especially so close to a school.

“We at the city have a public education gap that we need to fill before roundabouts are accepted by the community,” Ortega said.

Related Links:East El Paso Residents Oppose Plans For RoundaboutHow To Drive A RoundaboutFederal Highway Administration Roundabout Website