Kevin Riordan: Something old and round becomes something new

A New Jersey icon rumored to be on its way to extinction has instead taken an evolutionary turn.

Like a certain newspaper columnist, the traffic circle refuses to go away. And it, too, has a chic new incarnation. (More about that in a moment).

It's true that the legendary Collingswood, Berlin, and Ellisburg are history - the same fate awaiting the Routes 70/73 mashup, otherwise known as the Marlton Circle. Since the mid-1990s, 20 New Jersey traffic circles, rendered obsolete by ever-rising amounts of traffic, have been eliminated via cut-throughs, flyovers, signalization (love the lingo), or some combination thereof.

But like our equally famous jughandles and concrete medians, most traffic circles aren't going away any time soon - mainly because replacements are too expensive.

So along comes an innovative, still-circular variation with a pleasingly picturesque, Euro-ish name: roundabout.

Or "that thing," in the words of Kim Anderson of Cherry Hill. She's a first-year student at Camden County College in Blackwood, where a handsome roundabout on College Drive is a signature feature of a project to improve campus access from Route 42. When the project is complete, four roundabouts will control traffic.

"I don't like it," adds Katherine Margiotti, 18, also a first-year student from Cherry Hill. She finds the roundabout "scary."

Like its equally new and somewhat more complex counterpart at the eastern entrance to Rowan University in Glassboro, the CCC roundabout is part of a larger project that aims to improve traffic flow, boost safety, and create a landmark gateway to a sprawling campus. Worthy goals indeed.

But roundabouts also are designed to manage traffic by slowing it down. That goal defies New Jerseyans' immutable Law of Physics (if not Nature): Traffic circles must propel us ahead of every driver inside, entering, or approaching them. Particularly drivers in vehicles from Pennsylvania or, worse, New York.

Given how often visitors lose any sense of direction - not to mention decorum - upon entering our circles, they may find comfort in the following declaration:

"A roundabout is not a circle," says Joe Dee of the New Jersey Department of Transportation.

"It's not a circle," agrees Rowan spokesman Joe Cardona. "It's a roundabout."