Roundabout in Manitou ready to roll

The capstone to a four-year effort to revitalize Manitou Springs' main street - a controversial roundabout at Manitou and Ruxton avenues - will officially open May 22.

The roundabout is designed, in part, to relieve chronic congestion on narrow, hilly Ruxton, where traffic can back up for blocks during the height of the summer tourism season as drivers attempt to turn onto Manitou Avenue, said Michael Leslie, deputy city administrator.

Leslie and some nearby business owners say the roundabout has been less than fully embraced by locals, with some predicting bedlam when gawking tourists, rushing locals and old RV drivers collide on a hot summer's day.

"I haven't talked to anyone who thought it was a good idea," said Linda Reed, owner of Osburn's Gift Shop, on the southeast side of the roundabout on Manitou Avenue. "I think it's going to be a nightmare."

Art Wanless, sitting on a bench outside his daughter's store on Ruxton Avenue, Hodge Podge, likes what the city has done at the intersection. He said the roundabout seems to make businesses on Ruxton more accessible and visible from Manitou Avenue. He reckons most of the complaints will dissipate when people start using the roundabout, which allows motorists to merge instead of stop.

Leslie said the project's engineering firm, Nolte Associates, looked at various ways to improve traffic flow at the intersection, including multiple stop signs and traditional traffic lights. Computer modeling, he said, showed the roundabout would most efficiently handle traffic.

Michael Hussey, a landscape architect with Nolte, said there were challenges in constructing the roundabout. Designers had to shrink the circumference to 40 feet because of the tight space, which is ringed by buildings with a historic flavor. Also, they had to accommodate buses and semis hauling new train cars to the Cog Railway on Ruxton, designing the roundabout so truckers and RVers can drive over it to make turns either into or out of Ruxton.

Since that precluded putting landscaping or a statue in the center of the roundabout, Nolte came up with a design in the center featuring two quarter moons facing each other in a night sky with stars between them.

Despite the suggestion from some that it looks like an homage to Wiccans, Hussey said the design doesn't have particular meaning.

The $60,000 roundabout is the sixth of a seven-phase project to improve Manitou Avenue, Leslie said.

Earlier phases saw Manitou Avenue narrowed from four to two lanes to slow speeders and new sidewalks and streetlights installed and utility lines buried.

The last phase of the project will happen in 2010, when a teardrop-shaped roundabout is added at Manitou and Park avenues, which locals have long called Tubby's Turnaround.

The project has been paid for with money from the Pikes Peak Rural Transportation Authority sales tax; federal grants; a small amount of money from the state excise tax; and a three-tenths of a cent sales tax increase approved by Manitou voters in 2004. Using that future sales tax revenue as collateral, the city borrowed $1.8 million to use as matching funds for the federal grants.