Photos by Kyle Green | The Roanoke Times

A $3 million initiative is under way to install a roundabout at the intersection of Penn Forest Boulevard and Colonial Avenue in Southwest Roanoke County. The area, which has been closed to drivers since June 18, is expected to reopen Aug. 27.

Prior to installing the roundabout, the Virginia Department of Transportation is working to put a concrete pipe in place to carry Mudlick Creek underneath the intersection of Penn Forest Boulevard and Colonial Avenue.

Frank Bond, VDOT's senior construction officer for the project, looks at plans for the site. "When you put a roundabout in, you don't have to pay for a traffic light," Bond said. "The cost might be the same, but the maintenance is better, and it'll move traffic more efficiently."

Jason Saunders assists with preparations late last month to install a concrete pipe to carry Mudlick Creek beneath the intersection of Colonial Avenue and Penn Forest Boulevard. The Virginia Department of Transportation hopes the roundabout will improve safety at the intersection.

Crews in Southwest Roanoke County are moving earth, streets, utilities and even a bridge and stream in preparation for a new traffic junction due later this summer.

The county is getting a roundabout, an intersection governed by a concrete circle and yield signs, which the Virginia Department of Transportation says will calm the notoriously tricky meeting of Penn Forest Boulevard and Colonial Avenue.

The $3 million initiative, expected to be open to vehicles Aug. 27, is the first in a series of similar projects planned for the county and city and for Blacksburg.

And although the principle behind roundabouts is fairly simple -- in this case, a T-intersection will be widened and modified -- the work eventually will affect about a half-mile of land and public streets.

"It's a lot of work in a little bitty area," said Frank Bond, the operation's senior construction inspector. "We're going to be moving the intersection out."

To expand that area where the two roads meet, crews in late April cleared trees and stumps from land adjacent to both Colonial and Penn Forest. Over the next few weeks, crews will reconfigure existing utilities and various inclines in the area. They also will install a storm drain to replace a small bridge that carries Colonial over Mudlick Creek. The creek will exit through a large-mouthed concrete structure called an endwall in a nearby yard.

VDOT spokeswoman Heidi Underwood said the organization acquired 3.1 acres of land in the neighborhood and approximately 3 acres of permanent easements for utilities and construction. She said 17 property owners are affected by the roundabout plan and the upcoming modifications along Colonial.

Work on the roundabout itself isn't expected to start until the middle of this month.

The structure, composed of concrete, stone and synthetic asphalt, will be flanked in three directions by traffic islands. Its center will be landscaped.

"When you put a roundabout in, you don't have to pay for a traffic light," Bond said. "The cost might be the same, but the maintenance is better, and it'll move traffic more efficiently."

Road closures have been in place since June 18. Penn Forest is currently closed just northwest of Topping Hill Drive, and Colonial Avenue is blocked to the west and east of the construction site, at Hazel and Vest drives.

Most of the residents interviewed said the closures are an inconvenience that they hope will eventually improve traffic in the area.

"You hear a lot of crashes down here," said Wade Sutherland, who lives on a hill above Colonial.

Underwood said there were 44 wrecks near the intersection between Nov. 1, 2005, and Oct. 31, 2008, or about 14 a year, which she said is above the state average. No collision was fatal, she said, but in order for one to be reported means it involved bodily injury or more than $2,500 in property damage.

"I think something needed to be done, I just don't know if that was the right solution," said Carl Padgett, who has lived on Colonial Avenue for 12 years. "My wife doesn't like it because she says it doesn't feel like we're out in the country so much anymore."

Some residents have complained of drivers taking shortcuts, or of traffic flowing too quickly through normally quiet outlying streets.

"We have people pulling in our driveway, in and out of our yard," said Cassie Huskey, who lives on Colonial near the roadblock. "I think one of the things they need to do is lower the speed limit."

Huskey's next door neighbor, Kevin Howlett, who posted a sign by his yard asking detour-foiled motorists not to turn around in his driveway, agreed. "People drive 55 in a 35 mph zone," he said.

The house that's perhaps the closest to the intersection is home to Chelsea Downs, who said the project will reduce her lawn by six feet.

"It's ridiculous. My daughter won't have a front yard to play in, and it [the roundabout] won't make any difference," she said. "People are still going to fly up and down here."

Downs thinks increased police patrols would be a better solution.

Marcia Weis lives across from the work zone and said she feels the upgrades are necessary but hates to see so many trees taken away.

"It's been a real mess, but we're hoping by the time it's finished, it'll be an improvement," Weis said.

Although the road should reopen by the end of the summer, planned construction and curve-straightening on Colonial Avenue will necessitate additional closures in the area in June and July next year.

Last year, Walter Pribble, VDOT's senior transportation manager, said roundabouts had become the department's preferred alternative to intersections and more than 40 have been constructed in the state.

Another roundabout has been proposed to integrate Riverland Road with Mount Pleasant Boulevard and Bennington Street in Roanoke. A public hearing was held in March, but the project is not scheduled to solicit construction bids until late 2011.

Two more roundabouts could potentially land on North Main Street and at Givens Lane in Blacksburg. Construction bids for both are not expected to go out until 2010 and 2012, respectively.