The Town of Eagle sought to develop a transformational corridor plan to improve mobility, establish a sense of place, and create interconnectivity for the downtown commercial core. Roundabouts were selected for their ability to achieve these goals and accommodate the necessary through-traffic along the Grand Avenue corridor.

Roundabouts in series and corridors require analyzing and designing the roundabouts as a system, not just individual roundabouts, to ensure correct lane assignments, efficient operations, and optimal safety facilitation.

To achieve the Town’s goals that included maximizing community benefits and minimizing adverse impacts, the project team relied on MTJ’s extensive experience designing roundabouts in series within existing complex corridors.

MTJ’s concept designs were developed to a high level to ensure sound decision-making with respect to feasibility related to operations, adherence to safety design principles, and understanding costs and impacts. Each roundabout’s compact size and shape were developed to maximize the available design envelope, minimize adverse effects on the railroad ROW, the environmental (Eagle River), and maintain the viability of adjacent businesses.

Our performance-based design approach integrated 6 roundabout designs—2 existing and 4 new—with alternative corridor cross-section assessment, resulting in a preferred multimodal Complete Streets design alternative focused on pedestrian safety principles.