http://ipraudio.interlochen.org/RoundaboutMesick_WEB.mp3
Driving through the intersection of M-115 and M-37 east of Mesick recently got easier.
Or harder, depending on whom you ask.
The Michigan Department of Transportation has replaced a blinking red and yellow light at this busy corner between Traverse City and Cadillac with a roundabout.
Rich Howes, who co-owns a trucking company north of the intersection, says it’s mostly a good thing.
“The roundabout is all yield signs so there isn’t any dead stop signs, you know unless there’s traffic coming, you don’t have to stop,” he says, while having coffee at Ellens Corner’s, a busy gas station-convenience store at the intersection.
“I think it will move traffic better,” he adds.
Howes is having coffee at Ellens Corners, a busy gas station-convenience store at the intersection.
While Howes says the change is good for local businesses and cars, the turns are too narrow for semis and they often end up driving over the curbs.
“A tire’s $400, so if it’s a loaded trailer and you’ve got 13,000 pounds on an axle, and you drive it up over a curb, obviously it’s going to be hard on the rubber and scuff the rubber and you can blow tires, ” he says.
In fact, there are black skid marks over the curbs on both the inside and outside of the new roundabout in Mesick.
Dale Newsted, a trucker from Grand Rapids, says this is a problem everywhere.
“I have seen no roundabouts yet that are big enough for a semi,” says Newsted. “Whenever you go into it, the trailer winds up running around on the curb of the roundabout, all the way around it.”
This is at least the 12th one the state has developed since 2005, and officials say they virtually eliminate high-speed crashes. Roundabouts are also meant to slow down traffic but keep it from having to stop altogether to avoid delays.
You yield to anyone in the circle, then turn right into it and turn right again into whichever direction you’re heading.
Yet to make it work, you never stop once you're in the roundabout.
The problem is, not everybody’s figured that part out. Jonathan Moore, who rode a motorcycle here from Pinckney, says not everybody does figure it out, even after a roundabout has been there for a few years.
“Down where we’re at there’s a lot of people that are not familiar with them yet, especially the older people, so they’ll stop right in the middle of them,” says Moore.
That’s especially unnerving when you’re on two wheels, he says.
Michigan drivers can expect more roundabouts in the future including one in Acme near a new Meijer store, as MDOT is always looking for new places to build them.