2003-09-08 04:00:00 PDT San Francisco -- In San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, a place made famous by experimentation in the 1960s, an experiment in traffic control has motorists, pedestrians and bicyclists dazed and confused -- and divided.

Residents and drivers who pass through the neighborhood are awhirl over a city test of traffic circles -- a miniaturized version of Europe's dreaded roundabouts and East Coast rotaries -- on Page Street.

Page is a popular route for bicyclists, but it's also a favored shortcut for motorists trying to avoid the tour buses on Haight Street and the traffic on Fell and Oak streets.

In an effort to encourage bicycling, improve air quality and slow speeders, San Francisco's Department of Parking and Traffic took out the stop signs in mid-August and installed temporary traffic circles -- a collection of plastic lane markers and rubber tire stops -- at five intersections on Page and one on Waller Street. Six more intersections on the two streets could also get traffic circles if area residents decide they like them.

The result, for many drivers, is confusion. As motorists approach the 15- foot-wide circles -- smack in the middle of the intersections -- they slow, sometimes stop and proceed cautiously. When two or more drivers arrive at the same time, they often stop, look at each other quizzically, wave their arms at each other, then continue.

Some drivers figure it out and veer right at the island, traveling around it counterclockwise. Others, perplexed or impatient, turn left in front of the circle.

"People don't know what to do," said Daryle Goldfarb, a contractor who lives in the lower Haight. "The common reaction is people shrug their shoulders and look confused and come to a stop because they don't know who has the right of way."

And while confusion is not the goal -- city officials say they're trying to educate people how to navigate traffic circles -- it does slow cars down. And traffic engineers say slower speeds and fewer crashes are among the biggest benefits other cities have seen after installing traffic circles.

"They're a widely used traffic engineering tool," said Diana Hammons, a spokeswoman for the Department of Parking and Traffic. "DPT is in the process of trying new ways of calming traffic."

"Traffic calming," a traffic engineering buzz phrase for slowing down cars, is nothing new in the Bay Area. Berkeley has been doing it for three decades with its infamous street barriers that prevent people from using residential streets as thoroughfares. The city has kept up the experimentation using oversized speed bumps, streets that weave and narrow and street designs that divert traffic and give preference to bicyclists.

Other Bay Area cities, including Palo Alto and El Cerrito, have introduced traffic circles to slow drivers.

San Francisco has installed some traffic circles in the neighborhoods near San Francisco State University and in St. Francis Wood. And while they've generated some controversy, they haven't produced the debate that's emerged along Page Street.

Almost everyone in the area has a heartfelt opinion about the traffic circles, and there are fans and foes among motorists, pedestrians and bicyclists alike.

Some pedestrians, like Richard Wingart, who was walking his Jack Russell terrier Emily to Golden Gate Park, support the circles, saying they make it safer to cross streets.

"Having something in the middle of the road makes people more cautious. They slow down instead of just flying through," Wingart said. "People roll through stop signs. It got to where it was so bad in this neighborhood that it was too dangerous to cross the street where there wasn't a traffic light."

Skateboarder Stuart Gomez says the circles make it easier for pedestrians to see approaching vehicles, since cars have to slow down and turn slightly. And because drivers have to pay more attention, he says, they're more likely to see people crossing the street or cruising through the intersection on a skateboard.

"Because they have to go around," Gomez said, "they can't just cut in front of you."

But Debbie Gish, who commutes by bike on Page Street from the Mission District to UC San Francisco, says the traffic circles make her feel invisible -- and unsafe.

"Since no one is stopping, everyone thinks they have the right of way," she said. "Drivers don't notice me far more in (traffic circles) than at a regular four-way stop."

Ann Marie Villias, a professional delivery driver who lives in the neighborhood, detests the traffic circles and can't understand how they could possibly be an improvement over four-way stops.

"I walk, I bike, and I drive around the neighborhood, and I don't think they're safe," she said. "People just think, 'Oh, I have the right of way,' and go ahead. It gives people a false sense of security."

The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition backs the traffic circles as the first step toward transforming Page Street into a "bicycle boulevard," a street engineered to accommodate bike riders and discourage drivers. Coalition project manager Josh Hart, however, acknowledges the circles may need some fine-tuning to better protect pedestrians and bicyclists.

"People should give them a chance," he said. "It would be really sad to see this experiment fail."

In the end, democracy will decide whether the traffic circles become permanent. The Department of Parking and Traffic will mail ballots, probably in the next three weeks, to everyone who lives within a block of the test traffic circles. Each block will decide whether to keep its traffic circle. An affirmative vote would touch off a public hearing process. A negative vote would bring back the quartets of stop signs.

"We're not going to do anything the neighborhood is against," the agency's Hammons said. "At the same time, we're trying to educate people about methods of traffic calming."


Round or circular intersections, long popular in Europe and some parts of the East Coast, are becoming increasingly common in California. But despite their common shape, not all rounded-off intersections are the same.

-- Traffic circles: Although sometimes used as a generic term for any circular intersection, modern traffic circles are small raised islands placed in the center of an intersection, often in a residential neighborhood, to force drivers to slow down to navigate around them comfortably. Drivers are expected to yield to vehicles already in the circle or to their right.

-- Roundabouts: Carefully engineered circular intersections with small diameters and curved approaches from intersecting streets. They are typically designed to handle relatively high volumes of traffic without stop signs or signals by slowing traffic to 30 mph but keeping it flowing. Vehicles entering the circle wait for a gap to enter.

-- Rotaries: Old-style, helter-skelter circular intersections that usually have large diameters and straight approaches, often with stop signs or signals at entry points. Traffic often travels at high speeds, though cars also tend to get backed up, turning the rotaries into circular parking lots.