Morro Bay council should make a U-turn on foolish roundabout decision | Opinion

The Morro Bay City Council flip-flopped last week in a stunning display of misinformed short-sightedness when it voted 3-2 to pull out of a roundabout project designed to improve safety and traffic flow at an intersection in the heart of the city.

It came two years after the council signed off on the roundabout in 2023 on a 3-2 vote. But since then, the makeup of the council changed.

The decision to potentially abandon the project ran completely counter to what traffic experts recommended, and it could wind up costing the city as much as $12 million in lost grant revenue. That’s the amount that Caltrans and the San Luis Obispo County Council of Governments (SLOCOG) had committed to get the roundabout built.

This was an excellent financial opportunity for the city to improve traffic flow and safety at the busy intersection of Main Street, Highway 1 and Highway 41, for next to nothing from Morro Bay taxpayers. It may not come again.

So why backtrack now? What, exactly, has changed to justify pulling out of a project in which multiple agencies — including Caltrans, SLOCOG and the city of Morro Bay — have already invested time and money?

Pedestrian safety a sticking point

Morro Bay’s financial obligation was minimal — while it had initially committed to as much as $2.5 million, that was substantially reduced. Instead, the city was required only to cover the cost of the environmental study.

It has already spent about $350,000 on that study, and had just $81,000 left to pay when the unthinkable happened.

Last week, Mayor Carla Wixom and Councilmembers Zara Landrum and Jeff Eckles voted to halt the study, even though it was 96% complete.

Their reasoning? They don’t believe a roundabout would improve pedestrian safety at that location.

“I’m not willing to risk the safety or even possibly the life of one of our high school students,” Eckles said in a convenient display of ignoring facts.

Study after study shows that roundabouts dramatically reduce accidents involving both vehicles and pedestrians. According to Caltrans, national studies show that roundabouts have reduced fatalities by 90%. And it’s easy to understand why, because roundabouts substantially slow the speed of traffic while also removing the potential for head-on and T-bone collisions.

That safety improvement is a remarkable statistic, but what’s more remarkable is that it somehow wasn’t good enough to convince three members of the Morro Bay City Council.

What the experts said

Mayor Wixom, who also voted against the project in 2023, says there are other ways to deal with traffic at the intersection, such as high visibility crosswalks and pedestrian signals.

“I don’t believe there’s congestion there that validates $12 million to alleviate it,” she said in 2023.

Traffic engineers disagreed.

When a traffic study was presented to the council in 2023, it predicted that by 2025, congestion at the intersection would have degraded the level of service down to a “D” or “F” at most times of the day.

Engineers did look at several alternatives, including flashing beacons, raised sidewalks, speed bumps, rumble strips, a crossing guard and a pedestrian bridge or tunnel, and concluded the a roundabout was the best solution.

Yet based at least in part on personal observation, the council majority just ignored the recommendations of the experts.

Roundabout project isn’t dead yet

We recognize that not everyone is a fan of roundabouts — they do take some getting used to — but that’s not a good enough reason to reject an improvement that will make our streets safer.

Besides, like or not, roundabouts are becoming common in California, and there’s already one in Morro Bay, so it’s not like city residents are unfamiliar with how to navigate one.

There’s also one on Highway 46 West, a unique double circle in Paso Robles and others in San Luis Obispo. Another major roundabout is coming to the intersection of Avila Beach Drive, Shell Beach Road and Highway 101.

And while traffic at this particular Morro Bay intersection may be bearable now, what about 10 or 15 or 20 years from now? By then, costs will have escalated and other sources of funding may have dried up.

The project isn’t completely dead yet. The City Council will vote at a future meeting on whether to officially end its involvement in the project.

We strongly urge the council to reconsider. At the very least, gather more information about pedestrian safety before making a final decision. Maybe that will change their minds.

If the city does withdraw its support, SLOCOG’s Board of Directors could vote to finish the environmental study and partner with Caltrans to complete the roundabout.

But it should not have to come to that. This is primarily a city issue, and the City Council should take the lead in decision making.

If the council insists on squandering its responsibility in the face of expert opinion and full outside funding, those two agencies should definitely do what’s right for the citizens of Morro Bay, even if its own council will not.

Morro Bay is lucky it has the opportunity to get a substantial infrastructure improvement at almost no city cost, and passing it up would be a gross failure of leadership.

If you’re a resident of the city, you shouldn’t stand by and let that happen.

Write to your councilmember, show up at a meeting and let the council know that the safest and smartest course on this roundabout is a prompt U-turn.

A forward-looking council would recognize that and recommit to the project.