Rockford moves into next phase of Auburn and Main street roundabout changes on Monday

By Kevin Haas
Rock River Current
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ROCKFORD — The city will remove the orange traffic control barriers at the approach to the Main and Auburn streets roundabout on Monday after more than three months in place.

The barriers were setup to alert motorists to the change at the roundabout from two lanes to a single lane of traffic. The roundabout will still operate as a single lane and the striping for one lane remains in place.

“While the roundabout will still operate with a single lane, removing the barrels will allow emergency vehicles to navigate the area more efficiently,” the city said Friday in a news release.

The city said when it put the barriers up in June that it would leave them in place for roughly three months to help drivers acclimate to the new pattern.

It’s part of a pilot program between the city and the Illinois Department of Transportation that aims to reduce the number of crashes at the roundabout.

The multilane roundabout opened in October 2013 and was the site of multiple crashes each month, the majority of which were due to improper lane usage and failure to yield, according to the city.

The decision to re-stripe the intersection for one lane was made because of what traffic engineers had noticed about the roundabout after its first months in operation in 2013. It was open for three months as a one-lane roundabout while the finishing touches were made on the project, and no crashes happened at that time.

“We got our first accident the day it opened as a two-lane roundabout,” Jeremy Carter, the city’s traffic engineer, told the Rock River Current in May.

Carter said in a news release on Friday that since June, when the roundabout was reduced to one lane and traffic control barriers were put in place, the number of crashes has dropped by 50%. There were also no crashes that resulted in injuries, he said.

The city said longer delays are expected during certain times of the day because of the switch to one lane. That’s apparent during high traffic times when the line to enter the roundabout can stretch multiple cars deep, with some drivers using Myott Avenue south of the roundabout to avoid it altogether.

The city said it will continue to monitor the intersection to see if the changes put in place are working.

It issued a news release Friday to prepare drivers for the change and remind them to continue to obey the one-lane configuration once the barriers are gone.

This article is by Kevin Haas. Email him at khaas@rockrivercurrent.com or follow him on X at @KevinMHaas or Instagram @thekevinhaas and Threads @thekevinhaas