Roundabout coming to 20th Street near community center

Above: The intersection of 20th and Meyers in Batesville, the future site of the city’s first roundabout. Images of intersection: White River Now

By Andrea Bruner, White River Now

The city of Batesville’s first roundabout is coming and should be in place before the beginning of the next school year.

The Batesville City Council met in a special session at noon Thursday and accepted a bid from White River Materials for the Myers Street improvement project.

Alderman Landon Reeves was absent.

The bid is for $2.88 million.

“This has been going on for a while, since pre-Covid,” Mayor Rick Elumbaugh told the council.

“It took a while to get the utilities, and there was also an agreement with the county judge that had to be signed, and we finally got that implemented. It’s been a while, and I wish we had taken care of this three or four years ago – it probably would have been less on the bid.”

“Putting the foresight on the intersection is good for the long-term development, but the improvement of the traffic, with all the improvements in that area, and the traffic volumes going to the high school, the roundabout is going to improve that intersection.” — Public Works Engineer Damon Johnson

This will be a new type of junction for the city of Batesville, although other cities have installed roundabouts. Traffic is designed to keep flowing, rather than coming to a stop and having vehicles take turns proceeding through the intersection.

Elumbaugh said he felt like a roundabout at 20^th and Myers would be beneficial in moving traffic.

“A lot of people don’t realize how much traffic is there, especially with the school there, and this does go all the way to St. Louis Street.”

Public Works Engineer Damon Johnson said that a traffic study was done and counted an average of 7,000 cars moving through the intersection per day.

Right now, the intersection of 20^th and Myers streets has three points of ingress/egress, including two from 20^th and one from Myers, but a fourth is coming.

“There is a new easement that goes through the country club property,” Elumbaugh said. “At some point, we will have another turnoff there.”

Johnson said Lance Lamberth has purchased some property and has been getting some of it rezoned for a mix of uses, including commercial and residential (which could possibly mean both high-density residential and low-density residential).

“I don’t think he has something specific planned,” but he’s getting some lots ready for future use. “He’s just kind of preparing. Eventually, he’ll submit a subdivision plan to the planning commission.”

Johnson said right now, the city is not planning any further roundabouts.

He also said the city had been saving some money from the Street Fund for this particular project, with about $1 million saved. The city will borrow the rest, he said.

“Putting the foresight on the intersection is good for the long-term development, but the improvement of the traffic, with all the improvements in that area, and the traffic volumes going to the high school, the roundabout is going to improve that intersection. … And there’s a lot of people that will cut through as they come across the bridge, they’ll hit 20^th instead of going up to St. Louis and Harrison.”

Above:  An example of a roundabout from ARDOT. Click here to watch a video from ARDOT regarding roundabouts.

He said with a roundabout, drivers don’t stop. “You traverse through it slowly, but you don’t stop,” whereas the wait time stacks up when multiple people stop at a stop sign.

He said the roundabout would be similar to the ones in Conway.

“It’s just like when we go to Conway and we have to figure out how to drive them – they’ll have to do the same,” Johnson said.

The roundabout could mean some traffic snags at Christmas, when the city hosts thousands of visitors to the holiday lighting display, which incidentally will be moved this year due to construction at Riverside Park.

The traffic plans were “greatly altered” for the lights, Johnson said, noting, “That intersection will be highly traveled. It is always is, that time of year, especially.”