Matt Lamb and Ana Risano
Staff Writers
Pinehurst Village Council members have expressed at least an initial interest in a new design for the village’s iconic Traffic Circle, but urge residents to step up and share their views.
After more than three decades and scores of proposed configurations for what has been called the “Gateway to Pinehurst,” the village and its residents were seemingly at an impasse last year with the state Department of Transportation’s penultimate design.
The previously announced continuous flow intersection — also known as the “shifted pillow” — may have been DOT’s “nuclear option” for the Pinehurst Traffic Circle, but the public overwhelmingly rejected the idea.
While a decision on the circle’s future is, for all intents and purposes, unilaterally DOT’s to make, the agency seems to have heard Pinehurst’s frustrations. Now, with a new proposal on the table that maintains the historic integrity of at least part of the circle, council members are seemingly amenable to DOT’s rudder change. Lauding DOT for its response to the community’s input, the council recognizes that nothing is yet totally set in stone and has urged residents to continue being engaged partners in any future discussions regarding the circle.
Last month, DOT surprised attendees at an otherwise ordinary Sandhills Metropolitan Transportation Organization meeting by sharing renderings and video clips of the new design. Local DOT engineer Reuben Blakley emphasized that the new design retains the “geometry” of the current circle while increasing travel efficiency and safety.
“This design incorporates community input and balances historic preservation with future traffic demands,” Blakley said in a statement.
The redesign features three intersections controlled by traffic lights. Circle elements are retained with the U.S. 15-501 north and southbound movements, which would separate into one-way roads. N.C. 2 from Southern Pines would connect directly to N.C. 211 toward Pinehurst by cutting through the current circle. Midland Road into Pinehurst is also accounted for without disrupting the flow.
The Pinehurst Traffic Circle has long been discussed for a revamp to meet increasing capacity needs and improve safety. But Pinehurst and its residents have battled to conserve the historic circa-1956 circle despite motorist frustrations over long queues.
Last year, the state DOT held three meetings for the public to respond to the then-proposed design of the Traffic Circle. That plan called for scrapping the five spokes for the continuous flow intersection, which would have included a series of synchronized lights and turn lanes to control movements.
The DOT received a mix of feedback — with the majority of opinions opposed — and decided to re-examine the design. Blakley said the new plan is a response to several concerns about property impacts, tree removal and the retention of the circular flow.
“We were able to come up with something that reduced the tree (removal),” he said. “One of the other concerns was just trying to understand the discord from Pinehurst to keep some semblance of a circle there.”
Elements of the new design preserve the character of the circle while accommodating future traffic volumes. It would feature native plantings.
Nearly 55,000 vehicles use the circle daily, according to 2023 traffic counts. It’s projected to increase to roughly 80,000 by 2050. If nothing happened at the intersection, a 2024 traffic study states delay times could triple by 2050, with roughly 12-minute waits. The alternative was a 1.5-minute delay with the continuous flow intersection.
While he didn’t have exact numbers at the meeting, Blakley said the new design would have a similar capacity as the continuous flow intersection. After the meeting, he said the delays would be reduced from minutes to seconds in most situations. And in areas that now have a queue of more than a mile, it could be reduced to a few hundred feet.
Blakley said the design function is similar to the CFI, which the engineers were happy about because there was concern over doing away with a design that did well according to capacity analyses.
“But in this situation,” Blakley said, “(the design) is as good, and in some ways better than the CFI.”
While the earlier design showed the most significant impact from a traffic engineering aspect, it drew visceral opposition from many in the greater Pinehurst area. It would have involved cutting down the trees in the center of the circle and removing about five homes to accommodate the varying lanes.
Blakley said the new design might impact one home, but the DOT is working to mitigate that through final engineering. The new design is also estimated to be significantly cheaper, though there are no firm costs yet. The last design was earmarked at more than $77.8 million.
While the Village Council may have been caught off guard by the revamped design, members took time in recent business meetings to express some preliminary opinions.
Regarding a meeting with representatives from DOT, Mayor Patrick Pizzella said, “We had a constructive meeting and made some progress. We plan to meet again before the public meeting DOT plans to hold in October.”
“The CFI ‘shifted pillow’ — you may recall, last August, the council unanimously adopted a resolution in opposition to that proposal,” he said. “So, we will now need to focus on this new proposal — hear the thoughts of our residents once again. I encourage people to go to our website, as Doug (Willardson) mentioned, stay tuned, stay involved. We are familiar — this is a process and it’s important that there be community input because that helps us as members of this council and helps the community in the long run.”
Council member Jeff Morgan seconded Pizzella’s sentiments regarding public participation.
“I encourage all of our citizens who have input to give, please give it. Don’t hold back on that. It made a significant difference previously, and it may make a difference this time also, but we need to hear the input from our citizenry — see if we can mold this in a direction for Pinehurst.”
Last week, council member John Taylor added his initial thoughts regarding the new proposal, saying, “Overall, there are certainly some very positive things in it, things they heard from public input almost a year ago and have removed from the plan.
“It’s going to require some additional study; I wouldn’t say it’s perfect,” he added.
As for the recent sit-down with DOT, Taylor said, “It was certainly the kind of dialogue that I think we have been looking for, a very good exchange of views. ‘Why this? Why that? Why not something else?’ They had a representative from the state Transportation Board sitting in on it, and I thought it was very useful dialogue, and it was a good first step down that road.”
While DOT has indicated that the new plan is largely final, save for minor engineering tweaks, Moore County residents will have an opportunity — much like last year — to ask questions of DOT officials in the coming fall.
Ultimately, changes or not, construction is scheduled to begin after the 2029 U.S. Open in Pinehurst.
Contact Matt Lamb at (910) 693-2479 or mlamb@thepilot.com. Contact Ana Risano at (910) 585-6396 or ana@thepilot.com.
