PROGRESS: Sioux City motorists go round and round first roundabout

About two weeks before the traffic circle officially opened to motorists, bikers caused $15,000 in damages according to the Sioux City Police Department which meant contractors had to tear cement out and repour it. 

Once it did open, a number of residents complained, repeatedly, online, about the price tag for the broader project the roundabout was a part of ($1,419,784.22) and questioned the need for it while also showing some misunderstandings about usage. (The city put out tips for handling a roundabout when it first opened. One of the suggestions: Enter the roundabout when there is a safe gap in the traffic flow. Another: Drivers inside the roundabout have the right-of-way over any driver entering the roundabout.)

Since the perhaps inauspicious debut, it's been relatively smooth sailing through the circular intersection at Old Lakeport and Elk Creek roads.

"During the times I have driven through there it seems to have the same amount of volume as it did prior to construction," Sioux City Engineer Gordon Phair said. "However, I have had people tell me that they have used that route just so they could go through the roundabout."

Phair said that in May 2024, when a traffic volume measure was taken for Lakeport from Singing Hills Boulevard to Southern Hills Drive, the annual average daily traffic figure was calculated to be 2,291 vehicles. That did not measure Southern Hills Drive or Christy Road which intersect with Old Lakeport and Elk Creek roads as well. 

When the project first came before the council, Phair told members that a roundabout was one of the best solutions for a five-way intersection where one of the roads, Old Lakeport, has a dead-end section. Along with the creation of a new stop, the Elk Creek Road construction project included: paving on Elk Creek Road as well as construction of new water mains, storm sewer and sidewalk crossings. The measure passed 4-1 before the Sioux City Council with Mayor Bob Scott being the lone "no" vote.

"I'm not for that roundabout. I know the rest of you are," Scott said before the vote in April 2024. "I think there's places for roundabouts and that's just not one of them. I think the citizens out there have spoken about that, but yet we don't seem to want to listen."

In early January, the Woodbury County Board of Supervisors approved new speed limits that set 45 miles per hour as the high for the newly paved portion of Elk Creek Road with the first 1,200 feet off the roundabout being 35 miles per hour. Country Engineer Laura Sievers told the board at that time that a speed study was conducted on the portion east of Old Lakeport Road and that the limits were "typically what people are driving."

Phair said the 85th percentile for a speed study was 33 miles per hour. 

"I thought it would have higher because south of Singing Hills Boulevard to Hawthorne Drive on Old Lakeport the 85th percentile was 45 miles per hour during the same time frame," he said. "I would have thought those two roadway segments would be closer in speeds. This speed study was done because a stop sign was requested at Singing Hills at Old Lakeport. That intersection does not warrant a 4-way stop."

A roundabout database from the transportation engineering and planning consulting firm Kittleson & Associates shows more than 10,000 roundabouts for the United States through March 2025. The Des Moines area has the highest total anywhere in Iowa with 46. Second is the Cedar Rapids area with about 26. 

The closest roundabout to Sioux City is the one at US 75/US 77 in Thurston County, Nebraska. Orange City, Iowa lays claim to a roundabout as well at SR 10 (Eighth Street SE)/Jay Avenue.