Roundabout in works for Bretzville Junction
Along with a roundabout planned for State Road 56 west of Jasper, the Indiana Department of Transportation has plans for a roundabout at another busy intersection in Dubois County.
Sometime in the first quarter of 2025, INDOT plans on adding a roundabout at the intersection of State Road 64 and 162 (Bretzville Junction) north of Ferdinand.
According to INDOT, The 64/162 intersection has been one of Southwestern Indiana’s most dangerous over the years. In the three-year period of 2017 to 2019 alone, 116 traffic collisions occurred at the intersection, of which nine involved incapacitating injuries, 19 with non-incapacitating injuries and 88 with property damage only. Property damage has run into tens of thousands of dollars.
The frequency and severity of crashes at 64/162 rates it well above normal for a rural highway intersection. Based on two common highway safety rating systems that measure crash volumes and economic impact, 64/162 rates a 2.74 on the Index of Crash Frequency and a 2.85 on the Index of Crash Cost. By comparison, an intersection considered “safe” rates a 1.0 or lower on both indices. Any rating above 2.0 places an intersection on a priority list for reconstruction.
According to INDOT, the roundabout will be designed with large commercial vehicles in mind. The vehicles will fit with ease, they explain. Additionally, the single-line roundabout is built with a low curb for minimal impact on vehicles that need to take wide turns.
A public hearing on the roundabout will occur some time 2023. Questions and comments can be submitted through a website dedicated to the project: https://www.insafepassage.com/.
What, exactly, is wrong with the intersection at Bretzville Junction? Are you kidding me?????? At this point somebody seems drunk on power.
There’s enough wrecks there as is, a roundabout is just gonna make it worse
Roundabouts reduce all forms of crashes, but reduce injury and fatal crashes more.
Modern roundabouts are proven safer than signals with less daily delay.
Yeah. No !
The people that have accidents at 64 & 162 because they don’t know what a stop light is for are really going to have problems with a “round-a-bout”!
Roundabouts are proven safer than signals.
People in Dubois Co. can’t navigate a 4 way stop or a stop light properly for that matter. They’re really gonna have trouble getting through a roundabout.
Modern roundabouts work all over the world. I pretty sure they’ll do fine.
I’m sure semi trucks will love it, not.
Trucks are banned from using them in Carmel because of difficulties they have navigating thru them.
I see trucks using round abouts all the time. There is a rock quarry near 96th street and Hazel Dell Parkway and trucks navigate it just fine.
You comment is opinion, not fact.
Modern roundabouts are designed for trucks, large vehicles, and trailer towing vehicles by including the center flat area around the circle. It’s not a sidewalk, it’s called a truck apron, and it’s for larger vehicles to begin a sharp right or end a left or U-turn on. But they should obey the warning speed and know their vehicle.
Will this be like the small one in Jasper, at the courthouse square…if that’s even called a “round-a-bout”(?)…where vehicles ENTERING have the right-of-way and vehicles already in the “round” must yield (crazy)…? This is backwards from most others I’ve experienced…usually it’s on the vehicles entering to yield (stop if necessary). Either way, doesn’t sound like a good plan for the B-ville location. Agree with just slowing down a bit and paying attention to the current signal…maybe some additional speed enforcement and signage.
Modern roundabouts don’t have buildings in the middle, not pedestrian crosswalks across the circular roadway.
Sounds like transplants from Indy have moved here and want to change our community to look like the messes they have up there. Our traffic isn’t a quarter of what they deal with up north and yet we insist that we have to look like them. If our law makers are so unhappy here, you are welcome to move north!!!
If the college educated “IDIOT” engineers would have designed the intersection correctly when they changed it from a 4-way to a traffic light, there wouldn’t be as many accidents!!! Stupid as hell to only put turn lanes/arrows on 162 and not on 64! The main objective for INDOT to install traffic circles, is to make intersections more maintenance free. Traffic flow and/or accidents are not their main concern!
Roundabouts are proven safer than signals.
We use to have a yield east & west. North & South stop. I was in a serious wreck there Feb. 1969. That wreck claimed 2 lives. Now we have the stop lights. Why put a roundabout at the junction? Now we’ll have more wrecks. I personal do not like roundabouts. Why fix something when it’s already do good. Give it a break. Leave it alone.
Leave it alone. A round-a-bout will only cause more accidents not less.
Traffic control devices don’t cause crashes, bad drivers do. Modern roundabouts make intersections safer to use.
Why spend more taxpayers money to put in a useless roundabout on W. 56! There is already a caution light there so just put in an actual stop light!! That would take care of the problem without shutting down a busy highway! Then have police stationed there to catch all the people who run the red light! While you are at it, stop the ones who run the red light both ways at St. Charles Street and 56 and at top of the Y! I have been almost t-boned so many times because people run the lights! What will be the excuse for serious accidents when the roundabouts fail?? People don’t obey traffic laws!! Jasper is terrible and I have lived here almost 50 years!!
You say to put in a signal, then you say people run red lights and don’t obey laws. Roundabouts are proven safer than signals. People run red lights, as you say, and those crashes are deadly.
If you don’t like spending tax dollars, then how do you think police are paid for?
Putting in a signal would also cause construction delay.
Ok, I’ll get off your lawn…
You have your opinion and I have mine! Putting in a traffic light would take much less time then constructing a roundabout! People just drive too fast and run red lights! Putting in a roundabout will not change that problem!! I am not so super educated like you ? but I have driven in Jasper since 1973! Drivers have only gotten worse!
Whatever happened to people being responsible? And paying attention putting their phones down. Indot has taken the big job of protecting people from themselves.
The old way of always blaming drivers for crashes doesn’t really fix any problems. The Safe Systems approach recognizes that there are multiple factors that help or hurt when it comes to road safety. Certainly we need better drivers, but also better laws and enforcement, and better roads, among other things.
Modern roundabouts are the safest form of intersection in the world.
This would be a great location for a round about and will increase safety and traffic flow.
Finally, someone doing something smart. It should have been a roundabout in the first place.
Driving from Ferdinand to Jasper late last night the traffic light was red as I slowly stopped and waited.
About 10-15 seconds later a car was heading from Jasper to Ferdinand and also stopped to wait.
Then I saw the oppposite direct lights changing from green, yellow to red.
Then both cars had to wait for a protected left turn signal to process.
Then ….. 2 lonely ships finally passed at night.
I would have been through Maltersville with around about.
3rd and Newton in Jasper is sometimes almost as silly.
Signals have built in delay in order to make them safer. The yellow phase is typically 3 seconds minimum, but more if the approach speeds are above 45 mph. Signals also have a half second to full second of all-red, again for safety since we know people run red lights or try to beat the end of the yellow.
So if the signal is on a 60 second cycle that’s 26 seconds of green for east-west, 3 seconds of yellow and 1 second of red before north-south gets to go (repeat the phases). 8 seconds (13%) of every minute lost attempting to keep conflicting users safe, and that is without protected turn lanes that have their own time. And even without turn lanes, this delay is constant, no matter how much traffic. A more up to date signal might shorten the green time based on detected vehicles, but it does not change the built in delay.
It seems there are “detectors “ in the roadway for turning and through traffic.
It doesn’t seem a left protected turn with delay was needed with no traffic detected.
Also the light was red the complete time of my approach. I don’t know how long before the other traffic triggered their green.
Simply said- roundabouts have a chance of human control. Still have to look and be engaged. But not stopped by a process.
Again- 3rd and Newton. Grrrr
There are a lot of bad intersections all designed by INDOT even very recent ones . Now the “savior” is a roundabout everywhere . Sounds to me like Mr. Batson may work for INDOT .
Wrong again.
I have no affiliation with your state DOT or any financial interest either.
I am an actual traffic engineer though, which you clearly are not.
That explains it.
Indeed on the bad intersections…and the one at Main (231) and 14th in Huntingburg is one of them…about the worst in terms of how it’s configured, even after they returned for “improvements.”
I’m not Mr Batson so I can’t speak for him but I can say I don’t work for INDOT or the state or the city. I’m not a civil engineer I’m just a person that drives to get places like everyone else. I have lived in Hamilton county and Dubois county. I might have been skeptical of found abouts too but I saw first hand how installing a round about where a 3 or 4 way stop immediately solved traffic backup during peak traffic times. After Hamilton county started replacing 3/4 way stops they started to replace stop lights with round abouts and then too and I also was skeptical. But I can tell you from driving in Hamilton county where there are a lot of round abouts and in Indianapolis where they don’t hardly have any that traffic doesn’t backup at round abouts like it does at stop lights. And when there is no traffic you don’t just sit at a red light waiting for it to change. Every time I’m in Jasper during high traffic times I always think how better off it’s citizens would be if half the stoplights could be changed to round abouts. For sure the ones at the Y would be so much better if they were converted over.
Mr. Batson, I am just curious, what exactly are your credentials? You say you are a “traffic engineer” but do not work for INDOT. Yet you are commenting, and rather regularly on a website for a rural county in Southern Indiana. So do you live in Dubois County? And if so, how is the “traffic engineering” business in Southern Indiana? Or are you just fighting for the cause of roundabouts? That sounds like a lonely cause.
Not that lonely. There are more than 9,000 modern roundabouts in the US, compared to France’s 30,000 plus. If the US had them in the same density, we’d have over 100,000. You can bet there will be more in the future. Also, as more are built, public opinion switches from majority against to majority in favor, so the fan base will only grow as well.
Where I live is not relevant to the science of traffic engineering. Traffic is the same the world over and a belief otherwise is false.
Roundabout crusader works, if you like.