Columnist Susan Snyder: New columnist says hello in roundabout way

Sunday, Jan. 9, 2000 | 8:43 a.m.

Susan Snyder's column will appear Sundays and Tuesdays in Accent. Reach her at snyder@vegas.com or 259-4082.

Well, here we are.

New year. New columnist's face. Same old Las Vegas Valley.

Or is it?

We'll take a look -- twice a week, right here. We'll meet people, visit places, ponder the preposterous and hopefully see this valley from as many views as there are people.

People who have lived here a month. People who have never lived anywhere else. People who work in casinos. People who never set foot in them. People who are tied together because they call this arid, bustling valley home.

People like you.

From Summerlin to Overton, Indian Springs to Goodsprings, Mesquite to Boulder City, on the Strip or off, we'll look at the view.

We'll look for what used to be here and see how life is affected by the new stuff.

Let's start by exploring roundabouts -- those circular swaths of pavement used instead of four-way stops on some of Summerlin's thoroughfares.

On Town Center Drive these feats of traffic engineering funnel 20 lanes of traffic into a circle of asphalt where all lane markings suddenly disappear.

It's typically a traffic-slowing device eliciting images of quaint villages where people are polite and life is happy and good.

Not here.

"It's like, 'You idiot! Watch out!' You get blocked into the left lane, and you can't get out," said a Summerlin resident whose name is being withheld because she works for the county and needs the job.

Bobby Shelton, of the Clark County Public Works Department, says engineers use roundabouts to slow traffic flow in hopes drivers will stay within posted speed limits.

BAHAHA. These are the same people who hope four-way stops are intersections where motorists wait their turns.

In reality we slow to rolling, count to one, hit the accelerator and pray. Roundabouts simply allow us to cut straight to the praying part.

County traffic engineers recently explored the option of using roundabouts in another western neighborhood, but residents would have nothing to do with the idea, Shelton said.

"Some people like them. Some people don't," he said. "It's an education process, I'm sure."

It's definitely a wild learning curve.

In theory, roundabout right-of-way means yielding to those already in the circle.

In practice, right-of-way is determined by weight.

A fully-loaded rock truck rolling downhill gets to go first every time. Count on it.

A school or CAT bus that maneuvers with all the finesse of a barge rates a close second.

And woe to the motorist seeking right-of-way over a driver yapping on a cell phone and balancing a triple-decaf-mocha-skinny-latte with the "free" hand.

Roundabouts require the slower, thoughtful driving styles of little country towns. Developers just hope the image sticks to the rest of the place.

And in a town where a hotel can pretend to be Paris and a shopping mall can play Grand Canyon, why can't a circle of asphalt bring a cookie-cutter community some character?

Sheesh. Climb in, hang on, keep your hands and feet in the car. This is going to be some ride.