Texas drivers already have complicated feelings about roundabouts. Now, TxDOT is adding a fidget spinner-like traffic design at one of San Antonio’s busiest interchanges, and residents already have big feelings about it.
The Texas Department of Transportation is about halfway through a massive revamp of Loop 1604. A series of sky-high connector ramps between 1604 and I-10 already soar high above highways. But there’s something even more curious happening down below, and it’s got locals in a tizzy.
“We should all be like 1604: Keep working on yourself, regardless of how much it inconveniences others,” one angered local, Doc Owens, quipped over a MySA story confirming plans for partial roundabouts where the two highways’ access roads converge.
Deemed the “fidget spinner” by TxDOT engineers for its unique shape, the traffic pattern features four partial roundabouts at each corner of the intersections. The lights currently in place under the layers of highway will soon be replaced with yield signs intended to keep traffic flowing.
The announcement sparked outrage among some locals. Many pointed to examples of true roundabouts already in place that aren’t exactly fun to drive through. The roundabout at Olmos Drive and McCullough can get treacherous, with drivers unsure when to use their blinkers or how to yield. And have you ever been on the three-lane roundabout in downtown New Braunfels? It’s scary at the best of times.
Folks are predicting some chaotic results once the new intersection is completed sometime next year. TxDOT is expected to wrap up Phase 2 of the $1.4 billion Loop 1604 overhaul, which includes the I-10 interchange, in 2027.
“There are going to be accidents on this ‘roundabout,’ lots of them. Every single one is going to happen not because someone was confused, but because they think everyone else is supposed to give them the right of way,” Jason A Wade-Wojnicz wrote. “The design team on this never once played City Skylines, and it shows.”
It’s a sentiment echoed repeatedly — roughly 80 times, in fact — by frustrated locals who say yielding is a difficult concept for San Antonio drivers to wrap their heads around. There have been lots of comparisons to the challenging nature of the diverging diamond intersection that opened in late March.
And, of course, folks used this controversial traffic plan as an opportunity to criticize San Antonio for its lack of a train system.
“Americans will do anything to avoid building trains,” Nazareth Sando jabbed.