Residents concerned for safety as a roundabout linked to multiple crashes in Champlin

Concerns are growing from residents in the north metro over a roundabout in their neighborhood that caused a number of crashes.

Michelle Holte has lived in her Champlin home for nearly 30 years near Douglas Drive North and 117th Avenue North, right next to the roundabout.

"It seemed like it was working, and then all of a sudden, it’s been one accident after another," Holte said.

In early May, a car came through the roundabout, jumped the curb, severed three 5-inch privacy fence posts, hit a resident’s shed and came to a stop in their backyard.

"If it wasn’t for their shed, I think she would’ve been further into their yard," Holte said.

Holte has had her fair share of cars end up in her yard as well.

"We’ve had a couple in the backyard, somehow one hit the telephone pole and ended up backwards in our backyard, and if it wasn’t for the garden, I think that they would’ve come straight through," she recalls.

As an in-home daycare provider with children out back, she is constantly watching out for them.

"It’s very worrisome," she said.

Neighbors wonder if putting in speed bumps or rumble strips leading up to the roundabout might help slow traffic down.

"We’re trying to weigh all that out right now, obviously with the frequency of the occurrences, it’s got everybody’s attention," Champlin City Administrator Bret Heitkamp said.

He says the roundabout has been there about 10 years and there have been improvements over the years.

"We’ve implemented alternatives involving increasing signage and going as far as capital investments with increasing the lighting on the roundabout, but we’ve got to look beyond that right now," he said.

The city is now in the process of pulling police crash reports and working with Hennepin County to come up with a fix.

"We understand there’s a problem when it (vehicles) start going through privacy fences and so on, it’s alarming, so it’s on everybody’s radar we’re working together to find a solution and we hope to do that as expeditiously as possible," Heitkamp said.