Helena Still Eyeing Roundabouts; Drivers Still Eyeing Helena

Tue, 05 May 2026 07:00:00 -0600

The City of Helena announced this week that it is continuing to explore the possibility of installing roundabouts at several major intersections, a process that has now been underway for longer than some of those intersections have existed.

“We’re still in the exploratory phase,” said Helena Public Works director Gail Torrence. “We want to make sure the community is ready.”

The community, by all available evidence, is not ready.

A public comment period last fall yielded 340 responses, 312 of which included the phrase “I don’t know how to drive in a roundabout” or some grammatical variation thereof. Seventeen respondents suggested the city install traffic lights instead. Eleven suggested the city “leave it alone.” One respondent submitted a hand-drawn diagram of what they called a “square-about,” which was a four-way stop.

Roundabouts Are a Coastal Conspiracy and I Will Not Be Moved

Fri, 01 May 2026 08:00:00 -0600

I have driven through Belgrade’s four-way stop at Broadway and Main approximately 11,000 times in my life, and not once has it required a circular intervention imported from Europe.

A four-way stop works on a simple principle: you stop, you look, you go. If the other person got there first, they go first. If you both got there at the same time, the person on the right goes. If neither of you can remember who got there first, you do the little hand wave. This system has functioned without incident for decades, and by “without incident” I mean with a manageable number of incidents.

Roundabouts on The Bozeman Daily Bee

Helena Still Eyeing Roundabouts; Drivers Still Eyeing Helena

Roundabouts Are a Coastal Conspiracy and I Will Not Be Moved