Quote:
Originally Posted by upthesaukee
The Alton Circle is not a "circle, roundabout, or rotary" and was not intended to be so. Perhaps an elongated intersection helps to explain it, and as to who yields and who doesn't ( or at least is supposed to), Rte 11 is the right away and rte 28 and Old New Durham road are the streets/roads that need to yield.
That being said, and having lived in this town for 12 years, driving through the circle 5 days a week at a minimum, I have seldom seen many cars backed up on 28 or New Durham Rd. Even after Hannafords went in, it seems to have little effect. As such, I would rather see the money to improve the traffic flow at the circle go to other roads. In fact, a few years back, they re-paved route 11 from around Alton hardware to the bay, putting in sidewalks and drainage. Only problem is, there is more water running across rte 11 on the hill coming down to the Letter S road than there was before the construction, which creates a nice icy situation in the fall/winter/spring. Take the money and fix that.
Alas, it is probably not to be the way.
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If you want to be technical about it, semantically speaking, you're probably right but since we all seem to associate making continuous left hand turns with a "circle" then we refer to it as a the "Alton Traffic Circle".
And I agree with you that it is a rather efficient setup and there are probably better ways to fix the roads. I'd be happier if the darn speed limits on the roads were enforced - never mind the conditions of the roads!
That reminds me...
If you're ever on Route 11 coming from the Gilford or West Alton area, look out for a section of the road just before the lane splits into the travel/passing lane section of Route 11. There's a drop off in the pavement there that is going to make for some nice front end alignments later on! There's no "Bump" sign - from the size of the drop off it should say "Parachutes On!"