People keep telling me that roundabouts are designed to keep things moving. They say the flow is circular and natural, like a creek bed. I say a creek bed doesn’t have three lifted trucks from out-of-state sitting perfectly still because they can’t figure out who has the right of way.

I’ve spent the better part of this Tuesday morning watching the intersection near the interstate. It’s a marvel of modern geometry that manages to be both perfectly efficient and entirely broken. You have people who treat the yield sign like a stop sign, and you have people who treat the speed limit like a personal suggestion.

The real problem is the lack of a designated left-hand turn lane within the circle itself. If you want to head toward Belgrade and you find yourself in the wrong lane, you’re essentially committed to a scenic tour of the frontage road until you can circle back. I watched one fellow in a pristine Land Cruiser go around the center island four times. He looked very focused, but he certainly wasn’t going anywhere.

Some say we need more lights. I say we need a clearer path for those of us who just want to get to the hardware store without performing a ritual dance in traffic. We keep building these fancy concrete islands that look nice next to the new apartment buildings, but they don’t seem to account for the fact that people actually have to drive through them to get to work.

If we are going to build the future of the valley, we should at least build it with enough paint to tell us where to put our tires. It’s not asking for much. It’s just asking for a line.

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