BY ANA RISANO
Staff Writer
Few things have been more cyclical in discussion than the Pinehurst Traffic Circle, with an ongoing debate between state transportation officials and Pinehurst about the future design of the five-spoke intersection.
But the Department of Transportation has been clear: The design it unveiled in 2025 is the final iteration and what it plans to construct to increase current and future travel capacity through the Circle.
“We’ve been in conversations for years with the Traffic Circle, trying to work out a solution that everybody is kind of amenable with,” said local DOT engineer Reuben Blakley.
The latest pitch from Pinehurst is spearheaded by Councilman John Taylor, who was elected in November 2023. Recently, he presented an alternative design to DOT’s final concept. It’s a spinoff of a previous design that the DOT studied and ultimately passed on, called the “Flyover with Turbo Hybrid.” Taylor’s twist is to dig down, creating a below-grade “trench” rather than an elevated bridge to connect N.C. 211 and U.S. 15-501 — the Circle’s most traveled spokes.
Taylor and Councilman Jeramy Hooper met with DOT officials this past week to discuss the idea, calling it an efficient and safe alternative. They also sought answers to questions the council continues to field from residents.
“What we’re really trying to do is try to engage your interest in what opportunity there is on your side to increase the safety of the circle from your design,” Hooper told DOT officials.
But DOT staff described the trench problems and why their final design makes sense. The DOT has gone through similar discussions the last three decades with more than a dozen designs — and varying iterations of the Village Council.
This council is also not the first to sign a proclamation stating its opposition to the circle design. which it did in February. In response, DOT board member Pat Molamphy wrote a letter last month to the village saying the department is moving forward with the 2025 design.
Final Plan
The final design is tamer than the DOT’s 2024 proposal, which would have scrapped the entire circle for a continuous flow intersection — dubbed “shifted pillow.” That idea drew visceral opposition from Pinehurst residents and others despite it being what the engineers deemed the most efficient design at moving traffic and handling anticipated increased volume looking out to 2050.
The 2025 design addresses the main concerns raised from the proposal: reducing property impacts, tree removal and retaining the aesthetic circular flow of the area. Blakley has emphasized that it retains the geometry of the circle while increasing travel capacity, similar to the continuous flow proposal. It also does not require any potential home relocations.
The prospective plan features three intersections controlled by traffic lights. Circle elements are retained with the U.S. 15-501 north and southbound movements, which separate into one-way roads. N.C 2 toward Southern Pines would connect directly to N.C. 211 toward Pinehurst by cutting through the current circle. Midland Road and Pinehurst are also accounted for without disrupting the flows. A smaller roundabout is planned at N.C. 2 and Airport Road.
Crunching Numbers
Consulting engineer Craig Scheffler with HNTB walked through a final memo with Taylor and Hooper that compared the final design with the CFI idea, the flyover and a “no-build” alternative based on previous data. Scheffler has been involved with this project for about a decade.
The ultimate goal of the circle redesign is to address capacity and functionality in 2050, anticipating growth in Moore County and surrounding areas. It would also help manage backups and delays felt by drivers through the circle today.
The first table Scheffler walked through looked at the improvement percentage of each design concept over the no-build alternative for peak hours, considering throughput, vehicle hours traveled and the average vehicle delay in seconds.
The final design, also called Concept 19, shows a 40 percent improvement throughout, 57 percent improvement for vehicle hours traveled, and 86 percent improvement for the average delay during the morning peak hour. It showed better improvement than the flyover concept but was similar to the CFI design.
But the heart of the discussion boiled down to delays and how long a driver would need to be stopped at one light — if not multiple — when navigating the updated intersection.
Scheffler showed a second table that indicated the final design and CFI had the shortest delays during the morning peak hour at an average 54 and 52 seconds per vehicle, respectively. The flyover concept had an average 157 second per vehicle delay in the morning. The evening peak hour had similar results.
The table also compared data collected from 2023, which showed an average delay of 143 seconds per vehicle — about 2.4 minutes. The no-build alternative for 2050 showed a 400 second delay or 6.6 minutes.
“As I said before, ‘no-build’ is very poor for a lot of these statistics — lots of stops, lots of delay, low speeds,” Scheffler said. “The turbo-hybrid, the flyover concept, is better and improves on the no-build, but the concept 19 and 17 are significantly better.”
Taylor asked about delays caused by the traffic lights during non-peak hours, saying someone would have to wait at one of these new signalized intersections rather than merging into the circle with minimal pause. He gave an example of the U.S. 15-501 and Morganton Road intersection, which is a large signalized area handling volumes of traffic between Southern Pines, Pinehurst and Aberdeen. At 10 a.m. on Sunday — when there is light traffic — he said you have to wait through the two-minute signal cycle to move if you miss the green light.
The signals at that intersection are radar-activated and coordinated, so the cycle can change depending on the traffic flow. Blakley said if the light is not changing for someone looking to make a left turn when there is no other traffic, then that means the radar needs to be adjusted. The signal is defaulted to stay green on the main roadway unless something triggers it to change in non-peak hours.
Safety Concerns
Many of the concerns raised by Taylor and Hooper came from residents worried about their safety navigating the new lights and additional lanes. But the DOT cannot control or predict human behavior like running a red light.
“The worst possible outcome would be to put these left turn lanes in and then the first week somebody does something stupid,” Taylor said. “That’s going to be a bad look for everybody.”
He asked how introducing left-hand turns reduces the safety of an area, saying they are fundamentally more dangerous and will cause an increase in accidents. Taylor also read part of a statement from AARP noting roundabouts are safer. But the engineering officials emphasized the circle is not a roundabout — it’s bigger with a higher speed.
“I think that’s the root of the problem of the crashes and the capacity issue, that you’ve got this circulating roadway at 30 mph and a roundabout, you’re circulating at 15 to 18 mph,” Scheffler said.
As for crashes, a traffic study from 2024 noted there were 840 reported crashes from 2018 to 2023. Roughly half that number, 421, were reported between 2012 and 2017. And there were fewer crashes — 309 — between 2007 and 2011. It was clarified that the crash data counts accidents within 150 feet of the Circle.
Part of the issue with crashes — which are mostly fender benders — is that they can lock down the intersection waiting for emergency response vehicles. The circle has never recorded a vehicle fatality.
Hooper asked about crash data predictions with the new design. But that’s difficult to assemble, Scheffler said, because it’s a unique rotary situation as is, and the final design is also unique. So, the DOT did not have much to compare it to.
But Scheffler pulled a couple of crash studies for signalized intersections handling the same amount of daily traffic as the circle. His findings were that there were fewer crashes and no fatalities in the compared time period.
“They are way, substantially, lower than Pinehurst’s. And then look at the fatalities and the injury crash classes. And maybe it’s surprising and maybe they are outliers but they were at least available information that we could use,” Scheffler said. “You’re not seeing at a major signalized intersection that all of a sudden you have 25 fatalities in five years.”
Trench Tribulations
The trench idea was the last topic of discussion. Taylor pointed out that one of the weaknesses of the final design is that it connects N.C. 211 and N.C. 2, not the most heavily trafficked throughput. His proposal would connect N.C. 211 and U.S. 15-501 — roads that carry more than 20 percent of peak-hour traffic — by an “express lane” below grade. He suggested it being restricted to cars only and estimated it would take about 23 percent of the peak hour traffic out of the circle.
But, in short, the DOT officials said the trench is not a viable option due to issues like drainage, bridge design, retaining walls and more. The idea of a tunnel had been previously discussed by the DOT and not pursued.
Blakley said the DOT cannot restrict trucks on primary roads, and that it would be difficult for emergency vehicles to access the trench. He also said the DOT would need to install roughly 150 feet of guardrail where the circular flow goes over the trench, something that would then block other entrances to the design because of the closeness of some of the spokes.
Local DOT maintenance engineer Matt Kitchen also chimed in on the realistic space needed to create a trench — roughly 225 feet — to accommodate not only the lanes but also shoulders and the bracing needed for retaining walls.
“The width of that trench encompasses the whole footprint of all the lanes going in and out of that circle. So in order to do that, you’ve got to basically build bypass lanes around the outside of the circle, significantly farther away,” Kitchen said. “Now you’re talking eminent domain. Now you’re talking about taking up homes.”
He said it wouldn’t be bad if they could construct it overnight, but that’s not possible. It would take months — if not years — to complete.
Blakley noted the DOT can build the final design with minimal impact to drivers using the circle, doing work that would be more disruptive at night. There’s also limited right of way needed outside of the existing footprint. The construction is planned between 2031 and 2033.
Taylor said he would need more time to understand all of the variables impacting the construction of the trench design. He and Hooper plan to bring what they learned back to their council on Tuesday for further discussion.
Toward the end of discussion, Molamphy also emphasized that the DOT has spent $2.5 million on design work over the last 10 years “trying to come up with what we think would satisfy Pinehurst, and we have not seen from Pinehurst anything that would help move the traffic forward.”
“If there was some obvious solution, we would have uncovered it by now,” Molamphy said. “We really do think so. If there was an obvious solution that was different from that, we would have found it by now.”
Contact Ana Risano at (910) 585-6396 or ana@thepilot.com.
