Despise driving the Bluffton traffic circle? This may make you hate it a little less

If you can’t stand driving through the traffic circle at the intersection of Bluffton Parkway and Bluffton Road, you’re not alone.

After driver complaints, Beaufort County is planning to bring in experts to study the roundabout’s design to figure out ways to reduce accidents and improve traffic flow.

During a discussion earlier this week at a meeting of the Beaufort County Council’s Public Facilities Committee, Councilman Mike Covert said he “has received an “unbelievably numerous amount of complaints.”

Other county leaders have long echoed his sentiment and have remarked during past discussions that some Bluffton drivers even go out of their way to avoid the seven-year-old circle.

Nearly 1,000 people have signed an online petition called “Fix the Bluffton Parkway Roundabout.” The petition was launched in 2013 by a local driver whose vehicle was struck inside the circle.

But what can be done to make locals feel more confident navigating the busy intersection?

That’s precisely what the county hopes a consultant can help determine.

Once a consultant is brought on, he or she will take about six to eight weeks to “look at traffic counts, look at accident reports, interview police officers and others involved” in order to develop ideas for potential design changes, county traffic engineer Colin Kinton said earlier this week.

Interim county administrator Josh Gruber said the goal is have “a neutral third-party who is an expert on roundabouts” bring County Council “a list of what can be done and (council) can choose what (it) wants to do.”

Some council members already have ideas for potential improvements.

Councilman Tabor Vaux supports an idea to eliminate the outside lane of the roundabout and force the right-hand lane to go right at all entry points, similar to the Sea Pines Circle on Hilton Head Island.

“I drive that intersection everyday,” he said. “… It needs to be changed.”

“The problem is people are (turning out of the circle) from either lane,” Councilman Rick Caporale said. “It doesn’t seem to matter which (lane) they enter on they are going to exit however they please.”

While changing the design of the circle could help reduce accidents caused by drivers exiting from the wrong lane, the Sea Pines circle has it’s own issues, Gruber said.

Controlling how drivers can enter the circle can result in backups when traffic volumes are heavy, he said.

Councilman Jerry Stewart told other members of the Public Facilities Committee that the best solution to the problems presented by traffic is to simply “eliminate them.”

Regardless of what design changes are recommended, Gruber warned county officials that implementing any alteration “is probably going to be pretty costly.”

“You’re now talking about multi-millions of dollars” just to acquire enough land around the circle in order to make it more similar to the Sea Pines, he said.

The county will likely have to shoulder any cost without assistance from the S.C. Department of Transportation, Gruber added.

“We are doing this on own our because the state says they’ve already studied it and what they put in place is fine,” he said.

This story was originally published December 14, 2017 at 12:57 PM with the headline "Despise driving the Bluffton traffic circle? This may make you hate it a little less."