The 70's rock group YES had it surprisingly close with their hit song
Roundabout.
In and around the lake
Mountains come out of the sky and they stand there
One mile over we'll be there and we'll see you.Mere blocks from Lake Michigan and exactly one mile south of the highrise "mountains" of downtown Milwaukee is the Sixth Street roundabout. Because the roundabout is two blocks from where I work I've been through it hundreds of times. I can say from experience that the roundabout is not that bicycle friendly and has seen more than it's share of fender-benders, but it does seem to move traffic.
Giving directions through the Sixth Street roundabout is tricky because there's more than just two intersecting streets. It could have been a lot worse if I hadn't noticed some
unfamiliar street names a few weeks before the roundabout opened. Thanks to my phone calls the city changed two street signs before opening the intersection. We will never have to tell someone "go three quarters of the way around the circle before getting off at Nicholas, or is it Alexander Street, which becomes Florida, or is it Virginia Street?"
Call it morning driving thru the sound and in and out the valley.Milwaukee's second roundabout has been around only a year or so in the noisy Menomonee Valley at
25th and Canal Streets. It's a simpler and smaller intersection than Sixth Street's with no traffic lights nearby to slow people down. I pass through it pretty quickly in the morning whenever I drive to work. I don't know of any accidents there---yet.
I'll be the roundabout
the words will make you out 'n' out
and change the day your wayThe
house I grew up in is the next one to the west of the
State's proposed location for Waukesha's first roundabout at Summit Ave. and University Dr.. I lived in the area for many years and currently use the intersection after dropping my son at Waukesha North in the morning so I'm familiar with the situation; traffic on Summit doesn't stop and cars on University Drive get backed up. It leads to people taking chances and some of those chances become serious accidents.
I don't think we need a traffic light at University and Summit, cars would still back up there. We need a gateway to the City of Waukesha, a roundabout.
The roundabout at Sixth Street in Milwaukee took some getting used to (and some will never get used to it) but I feel Waukesha drivers would adapt pretty easily.
