Amarillo City Council approves traffic circle for Amarillo College

AMARILLO, Texas (KFDA) - Traffic flow will soon be changing at the Amarillo College campus.

With goals in mind for renovations, including a European-style roundabout to help prevent speeding and congestion.

Amarillo city council considered the approval during today’s meeting.

The community college was required to dedicate additional rights to the city in order to accommodate construction plans.

Dedicating 235 square feet of land for public use to the city means once the construction is finished—the city will take over its maintenance of it.

The traffic circle will be built east of Washington Street off 24th Avenue near some of the completed projects.

The roundabout will connect to the new gym facility and will also be used to slow down and calm traffic when heading through campus.

“They’re looking at opportunities to make their campus safer and not have people speed through on 24th. So if you put a roundabout it’s one of the more natural roadway options that force people to slow down to make those curves and just makes it a little better for the pedestrian environment; just the traffic coming through,” says Andrew Freeman, Deputy City Manager.

Freeman goes on to say the approval of this in council, allows AC to move forward with their project as planned and estimates that the college will start construction as early as this summer.

Those who frequently visit the community college know firsthand about the traffic flow issues on campus.

“It’s busy. there’s a lot of traffic depending on the time of the day. It’s mainly parking as an issue but normally it’s the same thing with traffic congestion depending on how busy it is based on when the classes are. It can get bad,” says Vijay Serrao, Amarillo Resident.

Some believe pedestrian safety is the most important thing to consider when construction begins.

“I’ve seen people blast through here pretty fast and we’ve got students crossing and so forth. That would be just as important as a roundabout as safety,” says Serrao.

Overall, opinions on campus are positive when it comes to a traffic circle improving traffic flow.

“I think that it would be great to have a roundabout because parking can sometimes get a little complicated here. some of the turnings are just a little bit harsh, especially whenever there’s other people trying to pull out and stuff like that. So I think it would be really nice to just have another way to go about things,” says Brooke Lomax, a Student at Amarillo College.

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