Traffic circles to replace stoplights, signs on Key Street

Graphic by NCDOT - This image from the North Carolina Department of Transportation shows the intersections of the ramps off U.S. 52 with N.C. 268/Key Street in Pilot Mountain. The intersections will be changed from stoplight and stop signs to traffic circles during the next several months.

PILOT MOUNTAIN (By Wendy Byerly Wood, The Pilot) — The intersections of the U.S. 52 ramps with N.C. 268/Key Street will soon see a drastic change from the stoplight and stop signs that now guide traffic.

By around June of next year, travelers will be following traffic circles at both intersections on either side of the bridge over 52.

“N.C. 268, what are we going to do?” said Pilot Mountain Town Manager Blair Knox Monday at the November meeting of the town commissioners as he introduced the road project topic, a conversation that has been going on for years in the board room and beyond. “How do you design this thing with stoplights?”

He said state Department of Transportation officials have been going over the project for some time trying to figure out how to make it work. After review the amount of traffic at those two intersections on either side of the bridge, DOT engineers sent the project to its Congestion Management Section.

The solution was to make 268 only three lanes, with lanes running north and south and a center lane for turning, and install traffic circles at the two intersections.

“When I first came, they were talking about four or five laning it,” Knox said, but adding more than one lane to the road will mean added expenses for the town since it is responsible for the cost of moving any water and sewer lines that could be in the way and of securing the right-of-way for the project.

According to a letter from Michael Pettyjohn, division engineer with DOT, “The approach speed was assumed to be 35 miles per hour. Based on existing traffic counts from 1998 and using the 2005 counts as a reference for growth, a roundabout will adequately service existing traffic while providing spare capacity for the roundabout to operate at an acceptable level far into the future.”

With adding just a third lane for turning, the town will not have to move its water and sewer lines, said Mayor Earl Sheppard.

“(A traffic circle) really does handle traffic much better. They’ve been using them in Europe for years,” the mayor said. “According to the district engineer, the money has already been allocated and they hope it will be done by June of the coming year.”

To push the project forward, the town commissioners Monday night after the presentation unanimously passed a resolution supporting the DOT’s plans and agreeing that the work should move forward as soon as possible.