Council directs staff to pursue roundabout design at Hayden and Hutter after engineer recommends it

Hayden City — The Hayden City Council voted Nov. 12 to direct staff to advance final design for a roundabout at the Hayden and Hutter intersection following a presentation from Welch Comer Engineers.

Melissa Cleveland, project manager for Welch Comer Engineers, told the council the intersection, now a two-way stop, is experiencing increased traffic and driver decisions that have produced crashes. "In the last 4 years, you've had 4 injury crashes," Cleveland said, noting the city’s design horizon to 2046. She summarized an alternatives analysis comparing a signal and a roundabout and said both could meet the city’s level-of-service standard by 2046, but "the roundabout outperforms the signal on most of the criteria" — yielding lower delay, shorter queues in AM and PM peaks and superior off-peak performance.

Cleveland also discussed safety trade-offs. She said roundabouts tend to reduce speeds and therefore produce fewer severe injury and fatal crashes, while cautioning they can be less clear for pedestrians with visual or hearing impairment and that mitigation (such as RRFBs) would be considered. She recounted open-house feedback and the comment forms: 11 preferred the roundabout and 5 preferred a signal at the time of the presentation, with a few additional forms submitted and added into the record.

Council members pressed staff on fiscal impact and right-of-way. City staff (Dulce) said the design action being requested tonight has no immediate fiscal impact beyond previously accounted-for design work and that construction costs for the two options were "in the same ballpark." Staff said the city is seeking contributions from developers (and potentially the Post Falls Highway District) for a component of construction. Cleveland reported that much of the necessary right-of-way is on open farm fields, though some corners have dwelling units; impacted property owners had been contacted and responses were generally neutral or amenable.

A councilmember moved to approve the roundabout design and adopt it into the city’s master plan. After brief discussion focusing on safety and resilience during power outages, council took a roll-call vote and authorized staff to proceed with roundabout final design and right-of-way acquisition work required for the project.

Next steps outlined by staff include preparing final construction drawings and completing right-of-way acquisition; the project schedule lists a 2026 deadline for subsequent milestones and staff will return with engineering documents and acquisition materials for further action.