I’ve been driving these roads since 1991, back when Four Corners was just a blink and a wave. Now, with all the new folks moving in, it’s a whole different ballgame. And what I want to talk about is that roundabout they put in.

Now, some folks say it’s progress. They say it keeps traffic moving. But I’ve been watching, and what I see is a lot of hesitation. People stop when they shouldn’t, or they go when they ought to yield. It’s like everyone’s trying to solve a puzzle in their head instead of just driving.

My neighbor, Hank Bixby, he commutes into Bozeman every day for his welding job. He says, “Gerald, I just want to get to work without having to out-think every other driver in a 360-degree radius.” And I get that. It adds a layer of stress that wasn’t there before.

I remember when they first talked about putting that thing in. The city planners, they had their charts and their graphs. But they didn’t account for the human element, did they? They didn’t account for the guy pulling a horse trailer or the kid who just got his driver’s license.

It’s supposed to be efficient. But efficiency, it needs people to understand how to use it. And right now, it feels like we’re all still figuring it out, one slow, hesitant circle at a time. Maybe it’ll smooth out. But for now, it’s a daily test of patience, and not everyone’s got a full tank of that.

Gerald Fencepost has lived in Belgrade since 1991 and has strong feelings about most intersections.