The former Gifford Street and College Green Drive roundabouts may have left some motorists with traumatic memories, but city officials said a new roundabout at the Highland and Lyle Avenues intersection will be different.
“Some people just have a general dislike of a roundabout design. They prefer traditional intersections,” Public Services Director Mike Pubentz said. “It can take some time to get used to driving. The first time you go through it might be a little tricky.”
Typically, the flow of traffic through a roundabout is much more continual and smoother, Pubentz said.
He gave the city council an update Wednesday on the progress of a plan to turn the intersection into a roundabout.
The city started looking at the intersection in 2020 when an internal committee asked officials to study it, Pubentz said.
An engineering study found there were 26 crashes between 2019 and 2023, Pubentz said. It also found 75% of those crashes involved broadside collisions. He said 80% of crashes occurred during the day.
Pubentz said four-way stop intersections have 32 vehicle conflict points. Conflict points are where roads intersect and paths cross, creating circumstances for crashes, according to the Federal Highway Administration website.
A roundabout reduces the number of conflict points to eight, Pubentz said.
“Just by the nature of removing all those potential conflict points, you increase the safety,” Pubentz said. “The goal is to improve safety and reduce the frequency and intensity of crashes.”
The new roundabout is a single-lane roundabout, and, unlike multi-lane designs, it shouldn’t be too confusing for drivers, Pubentz said. It’ll also be safer for pedestrians, he said.
“As an engineer and someone who works in traffic movement, I think it can be an excellent solution. They are not cookie-cutters. They don’t work for every intersection,” Pubentz said.
Elgin removed two roundabouts, on Gifford Street and College Green Drive, in 2024. The Gifford Street one came down after a neighbor pleaded with the city to remove it after a series of accidents. City officials acknowledged at a council meeting that it was poorly engineered.
“We tried a few of them many years ago here in Elgin. They were well-intentioned but not built to current design standards. Most importantly, I think they were put in for the wrong reason. They were put in to stop cut-through traffic. That’s not what roundabouts are designed to do,” Pubentz said. “They are designed to calm traffic, eliminate conflict points, and improve safety overall.”
Using this design doesn’t guarantee there won’t be any accidents here,” Pubentz said. “We are all imperfect drivers,” he said. “I’m confident it will perform much better than the current four-way intersection.”
Councilman Corey Dixon said the city removed the two roundabouts due to a number of issues. “Hopefully, we won’t encounter it in this situation,” he said.
Dixon said there’s one roundabout on Longcommon Parkway that works. “There is a lot of room, and it isn’t a tight fit compared to the one on College Green,” he said. He asked Pubentz if the Highland and Lyle Street roundabout will be a tight squeeze.
“I do not worry about the size of this. We were focused on making this design on the proper dimensions,” Pubentz said. While there isn’t a “lot of wiggle room,” it’s going to be built to state and federal standards and fit the space, he said.
It will also accommodate box trucks, school buses, and emergency equipment, like fire trucks, Pubentz said.
The city applied for a federal grant that provides funding for state and local transportation programs through the Kane Kendall Council of Mayors for the $1.4 million project. Pubentz said the grant is for $1.2 million, and Elgin will fund the rest.
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Public information meetings held in August generated feedback from neighbors and addressed concerns.
Highland and Lyle Avenues will be closed for about three months. A detour will be set up.
Elgin will seek bids for construction at the end of this month. Construction is slated to start in May.
Gloria Casas is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.