When Sarasota, Florida County needed to fix a backed-up intersection, it turned to a solution that many American jurisdictions unfairly ignore: roundabouts. Unfortunately, instead of speeding up traffic, it appears that traffic circles have gone the way of others in Kentucky, where people struggled with their first roundabouts, and Connecticut, where drivers don’t know how to use them, simply unable to understand the mechanics of going around in a loop. Now, Sarasota County is adding traffic lights to the rotary in hopes of cleaning things up, but there’s a slight complication to the plan. The roundabout may not be an issue at all.
Sarasota County’s shiny new intersection is located at the intersection of Apex Road and Palmer Boulevard, just off I-75. This is actually new – construction was approved in 2024, and the roundabout didn’t open until January 2026. After less than half a year for drivers to learn the new route, it appears the roundabout still hasn’t reduced congestion on Palmer Boulevard. Thus, there are now stop lights at each entrance, essentially turning the entire intersection into a standard four-way intersection with a good median.
that’s silly
There are two primary reasons why this is stupid. First of all, adding red lights to an intersection completely negates its traffic-smoothing properties, and makes the entire construction project to build this traffic circle worthless – a construction project that cost $9 million and took 13 months of work, mind you – worthless. However, the second reason is arguably even worse: Some locals say on Reddit r/sarasota The backup is not even from this intersection, but from a conventional stoplight intersection only 900 feet up Palmer.
In short: Sarasota County had a traffic problem, and only one of the many intersections involved was addressed. It turned that one intersection into a deeply awkward intersection, with divided lanes designed to trap drivers going in odd directions — look at the intersection with all the lane markers pictured above, and tell me you wouldn’t be at all confused at first — and then less than six months later decided to put bus stop lights at the intersection, rendering the entire project meaningless. What are we doing here? What’s going on?
