Santa Ana is Having a Roundabout Renaissance

The City of Santa Ana public works department has been busy this first half of the year installing street improvements on the city’s west side. Between March until roughly last month, nine roundabouts were installed along three street corridors.

Roundabouts have been popping up throughout the city for a few years. A few temporary roundabouts were installed in Santa Ana’s Southside, and last year the city’s downtown got its first one at Third and Bush Streets. A few months ago, they started making their way west into neighborhood streets.

The roundabouts and accompanying improvements like bulbouts and bioswales are one of the most recent examples of the ongoing culture change in Santa Ana.

The newly installed roundabouts can be found at South Pacific Avenue and Shelton Street between West First Street and McFadden Avenue, and West Bishop/Willits between South Raitt and Flower Streets.

Roughly $1 million was awarded through the state’s Active Transportation Program to design and install these street improvements, said Cory Wilkerson, the city’s active transportation coordinator.

The funding was also used to install bioswales on West Bishop Street. The landscaping has two functions: to collect surface runoff and remove pollutants from it, and, by narrowing the roadway, to encourage drivers to slow down.

The city hasn’t been waiting around for outside funding to come to make improvements. In Santa Ana’s Southside, the Public Works Agency has been responding to concerns about traffic safety, and using what materials they have on hand to create temporary solutions. On Orange and Occidental, temporary delineators and street markings were used to create a roundabout.

Take a look at other roundabouts in the area: