Low-key ceremony greets roundabout

SANDPOINT — No speeches, no rain and no crunch of fender benders marked Friday’s opening of the roundabout.

Approximately 50 people gathered at the intersection of Larch and Boyer  at 10 a.m. to watch as Mayor Gretchen Hellar and Super 1 Foods owner Ron McIntire used very large scissors to snip the ribbon.

Even before city workers cleared the barricades, a northbound semitrailer hauling dirt made the sweeping turn from Boyer onto Larch, its rear wheels riding the curb.

Ka-bunk.

The spectacle caused a rumble from the sidelines.

“A 52-footer coming through here won’t make the corner,” Butch Brackett of Sagle, said.

Others nodded.

“If I come around that corner where are my poles going to go?” Brownie Balison, 80, a logging truck driver all his life, said.

Frank Malone drove his yellow Dodge Rumblebee pickup around the circular track a few times as onlookers snapped pictures.

Malone, who lives a few houses south on Boyer, knew he was not the first vehicle to make the loop.

“People have been driving through here since they started working on it,” he said. “The cops were down here all the time.”

Driving on the sweeping roundabout was pleasant, he said.

“It was easy going around,” he said. “I don’t think trucks will like it.”

A semi-trailer truck with a Pepsi logo that entered the intersection heading west on Larch, slowed for the loop and exited south on Boyer without incident.

People waved.

The $360,000 construction project, which began in March was set to be finished earlier in the month, but stormwater issues delayed its opening, and signs that were supposed to be installed last week did not arrive until Thursday.

The roundabout was paid by Super 1 Foods, which is getting ready to open its $5 million, 54,000 square-foot Sandpoint store, will keep traffic flowing through the intersection at a uniform rate, according to proponents.

It allows traffic through an intersection without stop signs or lights. Motorists entering the roundabout must yield to cars or trucks moving inside the circle. Once inside the roundabout, traffic moves at 15 mph until exiting.

Boyer Avenue resident Alice Vroman liked the lack of traffic when the street was closed during construction. She will have to adjust to the sound of traffic, she said.

“I’m sorry to see it finished,” she said.

She expects the roundabout is a better solution than traffic lights and thinks it will allow traffic to flow.

Most of the audience at Friday’s ribbon-cutting thought a roundabout was a better solution for the intersection than traffic lights.

“I think this is way better,” said B.J. Biddle. “This will make it reasonable.”

Mayor Gretchen Hellar is happy the work is done.

“It’s been a while,” she said.

Neighbors living on the detour route are probably elated to see the main streets re-open, she said.

The next work slated for the site includes landscaping along the Super 1 store parking lot, and the city is working on an art project for the center of the round about.

“Once that center part is planted, it will be attractive,” Hellar said.

Vroman likes it as is.

“It looks beautiful,” she said.