Carlsbad to decide if traffic circles are best option for Barrio

Carlsbad residents are going round and round about traffic circles.

Some people love them, others hate them, and a few just haven’t made up their mind.

Transportation planners say traffic circles and their cousins, roundabouts, can be the safest and most efficient way to move vehicles through intersections, especially in neighborhoods where cars share the road with large numbers of pedestrians and bicycle riders. Drivers sometimes disagree.

Carlsbad city officials have worked with residents and consultants for more than a decade on plans to install more traffic circles in the downtown Barrio neighborhood, but the idea is facing new scrutiny. Last month, the City Council placed a construction contract for the project on hold in response to public complaints about the plan and concerns about street parking that would be lost.

The council is scheduled to review the contract again, along with possible alternatives, at its July 29 meeting. If it chooses not to proceed with the plan, the city stands to lose $4 million in federal funds allocated for the project.

David and Barbara Sandwell, 25-year residents of Chestnut Avenue in the Barrio, said the traffic circles would make their neighborhood safer and more pleasant.

“I’m just hoping they go for the circles,” said David Sandwell. He and his wife were walking their dog Pancake on a recent morning on the Chestnut Avenue sidewalk, near the community garden at Pine Avenue Park.

“I know how the city takes care of its parks,” Sandwell said. “We are amazed that they do it so well. They will do the same with the traffic circles, and it will slow people down.”

Speeding has been a problem in the Barrio, especially nearby on Roosevelt Street, he said, where drivers tend to race from one stop sign to the next.

The city installed a single traffic circle a few years ago at Jefferson Street and Chestnut near the Sandwells’ home. That one made their street much more walkable, they said, and the city added flowers and landscaping as part of the project to beautify the neighborhood.

“We just love it,” Barbara Sandwell said.

Another dog walker, Sandy Boyd, took a few minutes to talk while her teacup Pomeranian Jazzy took a break.

She received information and a survey in the mail from the city to fill out about the traffic circle, she said, and, “I’m totally against it.”

Boyd walks her dog every day on Chestnut and surrounding streets, she said. She worries about how pedestrians and bicyclists might navigate the traffic circles and thinks four-way stops or traffic lights would be better.

“This is a very high volume area for all the kids with e-bikes,” she said, and they use Chestnut to access the nearby Coastal Rail Trail that goes along the railroad tracks through the city.

“They don’t understand the traffic like adults do,” Boyd said. “We are going to find more pedestrians and dog walkers at risk (with traffic circles) than if there’s a four-way stop.”

Another pedestrian, Charles Acosta, stopped on the Harding Street sidewalk outside the Pine Street Park Senior Center. He said he was “halfway between” supporting or opposing the traffic circles.

“They should release more information on the pros and the cons,” Acosta said, and maybe that would help him decide, but he favors anything that would slow down the speeders.

City officials have held a number of community meetings to discuss the project, which was first spelled out in the Village and Barrio master plan initiated in 2013 and approved by the City Council in 2018.

The master plan suggested traffic circles at eight intersections. Three of those were later dropped after studies and community feedback showed they would be inappropriate in those places.

The remaining locations are: Jefferson Street and Oak Avenue, Pine Avenue and Harding Street, Pine and Madison Street, Madison and Chestnut Avenue, and Chestnut and Roosevelt Street.

Also proposed for the intersections are curb extensions, sometimes called bulb-outs, which shorten the crosswalk and create more safe space for pedestrians. The city has painted white lines on the pavement at the intersections to show where the circles and curb extensions would be installed.

One location, the Pine-Harding intersection at the corner of the city’s Senior Center and the Carlsbad Community Church, would include a public art installation at the center of the circle.

In December 2024, the city’s public arts advisory subcommittee selected a proposal for a colorful mural by San Diego artist Mario Torero for the spot. The mural would emphasize the character, culture and history of Carlsbad’s oldest neighborhood.

Approval of the traffic circle construction contract was on the City Council’s June 24 agenda’s consent calendar, which is a list of items usually approved as a routine matter without discussion. However, Councilmember Melanie Burkholder pulled the contract to discuss her concerns about the loss of parking.

“I don’t want any parking spaces lost in the Barrio,” said Melanie Burkholder, whose council district includes the neighborhood.

A total of 27 parking spaces will be taken if the five traffic circles are installed, city officials said. Also, with or without the plan, the Barrio neighborhood will lose 11 spaces to the state’s new “daylighting law” that restricts parking near crosswalks to improve visibility.

The City Council unanimously supported Burkholder’s request to postpone the proposed $5.7 million construction contract with Palm Engineering Construction Company Inc. and bring the issue back with details of possible alternatives, such as speed humps and additional stop signs.

“In the last year, it seems to be that traffic circles are not in vogue,” Councilmember Teresa Acosta said at the meeting.  “They are not as popular as they once were.”

In June, the City Council voted unanimously to remove two traffic circles installed in 2013 at intersections on Kelly Drive, where residents said they were a safety hazard. The circles were replaced by all-way stops.

And earlier this year, the City Council hit the brakes on the long-planned installation of a roundabout to replace the traffic signals at the beachfront intersection of Tamarack Avenue and Carlsbad Boulevard. That project also faced widespread community opposition.