A busy and confusing intersection in downtown Grass Valley is getting an upgrade. In an effort to make the area safer for drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists, the city will install a roundabout.
The area, known as “The Triangle,” under the Highway 49 overpass at Neal and South Auburn streets, has roughly seven total streets converging from different angles.
“It’s kind of coming into this one area we call The Triangle, or even The Devil’s Triangle, as it might be known,” said Bjorn Jones, city engineer for the City of Grass Valley.
For six years, the city has been working on a plan to make the area safer and easier to navigate. That plan includes a roundabout.
“We’ve kind of narrowed it down to five options,” Jones said.
Jones said those options will be presented and discussed during Wednesday’s special council meeting. The city wants the community to weigh in, but is recommending either option two or option five.
“Two: an oblong roundabout with a stop sign. Five: right in, right out, with the same oblong roundabout,” Jones said.
The roundabout will most likely not be round, but peanut-shaped. The $6.8 million project is fully funded, mostly through state grants.
“I think we need no roundabout, just traffic lights, no yielding,” Grass Valley resident Kaylie Dunster said. “I don’t think enough people know how to use a roundabout.”
“We really can’t go back on the roundabout at this point because that’s the grant-funded option,” Jones said. “I think there is a learning curve to anything new, especially roundabouts. They are still relatively new to our country as a whole and California.”
Jones said the city’s last roundabout project, on East Main and Idaho Maryland, also received pushback, but he said most people like it now.
“It’s more efficient, it’s safer. There’s so many benefits to roundabouts that are proven. If people can get over their initial dislike or hesitation with them, I would say I think ultimately it’s a great solution,” Jones said.
Construction for this project is expected to begin in 2028.
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