Richard Eats’s ornamental roadway plan offers alternative to speed bumps

Schenectady. Circles are popping up all over Schenectady. Not the crop kind, but the cobblestone, brick and concrete type.

Jay Street. Seward Place. The latest is planned for upper Union Street, where the road is being torn up to install a pedestrian circle at Dean Street.

"It's just an attribute we try to get into paving designs that we do," said Eats, a principal with Synthesis architects, who was hired by the city to redesign a number of streets.

Circle at intersection of Seward Place and Huron Street

Eats' first pedestrian circle appeared at Seward Place and Huron Street, where it's a focal point of the $1.2 million project that put new sidewalks, curbing, street resurfacing and historic lighting in a neighborhood near Union College.

The brick circle built into the center of the pedestrian walkway on Jay Street is strictly for ornamental purposes. Eats has also incorporated a circle as part of the centerpiece of a Sept. 11, 2001, memorial that is expected to be built next year on property near Schenectady County Community College between the Mohawk River and the Western Gateway Bridge.

A pedestrian circle — an ornate alternative to speed bumps — is also at the heart of a $950,000 project to refurbish a busy intersection of the city's Upper Union Street shopping district. The project, started in mid-2002 and slated for completion by July, incorporates concrete bricks to pave the intersection, historic lighting to illuminate it and metal-and-concrete trellises that will tower over it. Milton G. Mitchell, the city's public works commissioner, said the intersection will serve as an entryway into the northeastern region of the city.

"It signifies to the driver that there's something different going on here," Mitchell said. "Hopefully, they'll slow down and find out what it is."

Mitchell, who is spearheading several roadway projects in Schenectady, including the $12 million effort to rebuild State Street in the downtown, said the city and Synthesis started to incorporate pedestrian circles in Schenectady after examining similar rotaries in Ithaca and Burlington, Vt. The circle on Seward is cobblestone, but Mitchell said the project on upper Union will rely on concrete paving stone.

"They're designed as a traffic controlling device," Mitchell said.

The circles provide a unifying image around the city, but Mitchell said the overall designs for Upper Union and Seward are different, noting the trellises that will adorn the Upper Union Street project. "We wanted to create a different feel for that environment," Mitchell said.

The project has been embraced by some Union Street business owners.