Round and round about roundabouts

QUINCY DECIDED MONDAY night to not give $2.6 million for a roundabout at 48th and State. This is not surprising. The money would have matched Adams County's commitment. We can't have the city and the county working together! Then it would be cats and dogs communing as one and Quincy can't handle too much getting along.

Wait a second. It costs $5.2 million to build a roundabout? Are the weeds choking the intersection corners tipped with gold? I'm naive about construction stuff, I guess. No wonder aldermen were concerned and the vote was 9-5 against.

The mayor of our fine town told the press he was disappointed. Yikes. I'm agreeing with him. The mayor should form a citizen's shareholders committee, have meetings to set up meetings, and hijack the whole thing to make the city pay for the roundabout.

Hang on! Didn't the mayor already try that tactic? Didn't it fail miserably and blow up in his face but ultimately work out for the best? Right. Never mind.

The roundabout will eventually get built out there, and it's needed, but now the city will have to pay for the whole thing. Who cares? Let the people who are living here 10 years from now figure it out. By then the riverfront development stuff will be in full swing and quality of life will be better, so let our future taxpayers and residents deal with it.

Roundabouts work. They decrease wait time, they make intersections safer, and they are cool. I drive through one four times a day when going to Blessing Health Hannibal (formerly the Hannibal Clinic) for work. It's right by the entrance to BHH and Hannibal Regional Hospital. It's a high-traffic area. I never have to wait. You just make sure nobody is coming in from the left, and you slide into the circle. 

It's. Easy. People. 

Look. We can't just pay massive amounts of money for being cool and being safe, not when our water bills are about to double again and there are a lot of other projects to finance. Plus it would make us rock too fast, and Quincy is the quintessential Rocking Chair Community - don't rock too slow, but don't rock too fast.

That wouldn't be cool.