Mini Traffic Circles Date from mid-1980s and were Mostly Abandoned

The Grant Neighborhood project to paint around the mini traffic circles just north of Grant Elementary School led to questions about the origin of those traffic circles and how the conversation and debate might be similar or different from our current talk.

It appears they date from the mid-80s.

February 11th, 1985

In February of 1985 the paper published a picture of one and said

Turning some neighborhood streets into virtual obstacle courses has helped solve traffic problems in other cities and would work in Salem, way the authors of the city's new Neighborhood Traffic Management Program.

The tone and focus was very much in sympathy with drivers and not with other users of the road.

An editorial followed a few days later.

February 15th, 1985

They wrote

While the proposed traffic circles and throating in Salem are modest compared with those in Eugene, these are expensive means of fending off traffic. Because of their permanence, they must not be entered into lightly. 

Such devices should suit the overall traffic pattern of the Salem community, and not just be used as a palliative to satisfy a highly vocal neighborhood.

It appears that six mini traffic circles were constructed here in 1985 and four more in 1986.

Here are six of them (we'll update as we find them all! Do you know where the others are?):

• Bush and Saginaw Streets
• Hood and Winter Streets
• Hood and Cottage Streets
• Maple and Locust Streets
• Kingwood Avenue and Elm Street
  
• Kingwood Avenue and Ruge Street
  

The circles were not always popular.

December 1st, 1986

In December of 1986 the paper cited the principal planner for Salem, John Morgan

Morgan said city workers have received hundreds of complaints since the first six circles were installed a year ago. The last batch of four, installed in September, have been just as controversial....Drivers have played demolition derbe with several....

During budgeting for the next year, the paper reporter "little money is set aside to maintain the unpopular traffic circle program" and "no new ones are proposed."

April 7th, 1987

Yet two years later, in discussion of the "High Street Bypass," neighbors suggested traffic circles on High Street might be useful.

October 9th, 1989

Talk about traffic circles seems to peter out, and in the 1990s they become neglected curiosities scaled for small student improvement projects.

May 29th, 1990

October 9th, 1995

That last note is on the traffic circle at Winter and Hood, one of those being painted this weekend.

Maybe now we will be able to forge stronger community sentiment in favor of traffic calming.