Sedona AZ – Drivers in the city of Sedona will soon notice temporary modifications to the Y roundabout at the intersection of State Route 89A and State Route 179. The changes will be put into effect during the week of May 4, 2020 while the Arizona Department of Transportation and city of Sedona work together to enhance safety and improve mobility through this highly trafficked area.
The following are the temporary modifications to northbound SR 179 as part of the SR 89A – SR 179 Roundabout Improvement project:
For northbound SR 179 drivers approaching the roundabout:
- The right lane will become a right-turn only lane that will take motorists to uptown Sedona.
- The left lane will allow drivers to make “through turning movements” from the roundabout – whether turning left toward west Sedona or continuing straight to hotel properties and nearby shops and restaurants.
- As part of the temporary changes, ADOT crews will install additional signage to designate which travel lane drivers should use to get to their destinations from both SR 89A and SR 179.
The trial modifications will be in place through mid-summer 2020 to help state and city traffic engineers gauge the benefits of modifying turning movements for drivers on SR 179 and SR 89A. The results of this trial period will be used to assist in determining the possible permanent improvements to the roundabout.
Construction of the permanent modifications to the Y roundabout is not expected to begin until summer 2021.
Nothing you do will make the tourists any better in a roundabout.
Be Safe in all of your travels !!!
Better sane than “safe” any day of the week.
Where’d you go?! Everybody talking they missed you.
The recent traffic pattern change at the “Y” is not working!! Throughout my three years as a permanent resident of W. Sedona, I have never seen the kind of traffic backups it’s causing. Nearly every Saturday since the pattern change, my drive home to W. Sedona from a VOC golf course has taken over an hour in what’s normally a twenty-minute drive. It’s been bumper-to-bumper from the Chapel Road roundabout on Hwy 179 North all the way to the Schnebly Road roundabout at Tlaquepaque and up to the “Y.” I have not witnessed any delays caused by road construction along 179 (not even the construction near Hillside Shopping Center since there’s no work conducted there on Saturdays) or the pedestrian crossing at Tlaquepaque. There are occasions during the drive that motorists sit for at least 10 minutes without moving.
In addition to frustrated Sedona residents like myself, I expect it will negatively impact our tourist business from Phoenix and other points south of town. Last but not least, the idle and slow-moving vehicles are also causing considerable pollution in our beautiful town.
Thanks Scott for saying something. I hope people vote these city do-nothings out
That only tax and spend on pet projects and people. The museum is worth more than others in town and they do it on their own dime.
I understand the attempt to improve traffic flow but agree it has made things even worse.
First, I think for the most part putting in traffic circles in a mostly tourist town is just a disaster, visitors never seem to know who has the right of way and it backs things up even more. Secondly, blocking the right lane from going straight may be of some help but I want to suggest a slight change there. Currently the right lane in the traffic circle is completely blocked until the opening for south bound traffic on 89A. I think the right lane should be initially blocked but then it should be opened up to allow vehicles in the circle to move over sooner. The current design is an accident waiting to happen for those wanting to exit up the Hyatt exit or the post office. Many a time I have to go to the post office from West Sedona and am always worried someone will plow into me from 89A because I have little time to change lanes. If I could begin changing lanes before the 89A traffic enters the circle, it should be much safer.
Our roundabouts are tourist traps.
Ditto Barbara! The village too.
Why does this city continue to build ugly garage and other structures imitating past poor city decisions like that godawful ugly concrete alien space ship shell in Barbara Antonsen park that ultimately fell down?
I told you twelve years ago, that these silly little things would not move traffic. Greed won over logic. Most who pushed for roundabouts – have ‘moved-on.’ Now looking up at you – with evil grinning.
I warned all of Sedona, VOC, et al., – 15-years ago, that these silly roundabouts would be a debacle.
I told you so. Just add an hour x 2, to your local trips & errands. You good.
I told you 15-years ago – these traffic-circle thingys wouldn’t work.
We should have listened to the professionals 15 years ago, and built a roadway for the future.
Appreciate your told you so’s but it’s too much traffic and it’s not the roundabouts.
You never did anything Shobert to keep traffic manageable. There should be signage at 17 that relays back up times, like they do in any road with predictable weekly traffic slowdown issues.
You don’t give a damn about the quantity. Towns like Bisbee and others dont cater to tourists. Towns like Prescott don’t cater to tourists. You get what you get or stay the hell in your home town and piss in your own nest. Every town has the same junk in its shops as Sedona.
Should make it that privately owned transport busses only in town originating from the rest stops or Cottonwood and camp Verde where people leave cars not city shuttles. The city of Williamsburg doesn’t allow cars and the city of Springfield Illinois doesn’t allow cars or Macinaw island in Michigan. Doesn’t impact their businesses. Nobody building bridges or putting in roads for tourists.
You be crazy bats
California get rid of newsom
the anti Californian
Vote Jenner
Biden losing control of country like ?
conversation takes a turn about the roundabouts when they’re here to stay and will be here after we’re not and the traffic doesn’t have to be here and what are we doing about it is nothing
Not a fix-all solution, but reinstating Red Rock Crossing should be a no brainer. After all, wasn’t that an existing alternate route long before the idiots who prevented the reopening after the washout in 1978 came to the area?
Incidentally the other dumb jerks here that seem to think four lanes on SR179 would solve the Y backups, get a grip! All that would do is double the gridlock from one lane on 179 to two! EVEN ADOT engineers SAID IT and MADE IT apparent when the big controversy was under way. Arm chair solvers remain clueless and their uneducated advice is inane when it comes to getting down to facts.
Lets start with roundabouts The reason you see then all over the Verde Valley is because they are the cheapest….I have been told that more than once at transportation meeting….They say a stop light cost 20 million and upkeep…A roundabout 1 million….Its about the money PERIOD!
As for any crossing over the creek, Sedona has no say, The land is either, state, county, or federal land…All Sedona can do is support it.
And then it comes down to the normal cry babies…..They want everything fixed, pay no tax to fix it, but just complain and complain….Thats why city council stop listening to the same old goats who say they have all the solutions but never have a good idea or want to help and be a solution, just add to the problem.
Same people complaining about a transportation solution….Time for all you complainers, sit down, shut up, or move….Your a big part of the problems, not the people trying to improve it!
Oh Mandy, Oh Mandy…
You are right, – but a NEW Red Rock Crossing and a ‘real roadway’ – sans roundabouts – between the Village and Uptown, would surely be a major improvement for general traffic-flow, and overall public safety!!! A nice circular flow, in lieu of three dead-ends. Enough with the ‘now that I’m here, close the gates!’ Time to update this little burg. Selfishness, greed, ignorance, apathy – are bad personality traits – and a good majority of Sedona – lives by these standards. Good riddance.
Mike, since you were a key figure in Voice of Choice back then why not educate us armchair solvers?
MSNBC announced that Canada is closing down Greyhound because people don’t ride busses any more after decades of dwindling riders. Pay attention Sedona idiots at city hall. It’s the same here as there. The bus services have never made it and won’t.
(SedonaEye.com editor: Use Anonymous when submitting if you prefer to remain anonymous. Thank you.)
What would you do now with Tlaq and the Schnebly hills across from it? What would you have done with that creek that floods every year? Divert it? Blow up the rocks to dust across from Tlaquepaque? You people whine about the roadways and you are the problem. You whine and whine for more and more asphalt while you keep advertising for more and more cars that pollute. Cut the ads. Cut the cars. Limits. You’re the post war babies of the 40s and 50s and you don’t know how to have limits. If society goes all electric, that will cut the tourists to nil. It’s 2 plus hours without traffic to get to Sedona from civilization and it’s up a mountain, electric cars won’t make it w/o stopping on 17 and refueling with electric power and no sane person will do that for pleasure. Whine on.
There was a man who owned electric cars a decade ago in town. They couldn’t get to the VOC downhill from Sedona before pulling out a cord and needing to plug it in. After a time people said no to helping supply plug in. People don’t like getting told no around here. Makes them mean.
Mr. O’Donnell do you realize that all of those issues have been caused by a small group of people who knew more than ADOT, right? I remember back a few years when you ran for city council didn’t you say that you had an engineering degree? So you have some background in road design?
There were so many roadway experts. VOC and the Voice of Choice – had many roadway experts. One of them was a Californie Retired School-Teacher; he was also a fire service expert. Most were old – 15 years ago, – and have moved on to the good place.
@mshoert
I remember the guy you speak of…..thought he was an expert in all things Sedona. Especially the fire service.. his EGO was larger then his knowledge . Funny how things turned out for him(karma).
Hi Chief:
Was that the same guy who (one of three) ran for the fire board a few years ago and said that SFD should shut down a fire station and stage idling trucks along 179 during high traffic days?
@HiChief
Indeed, he and his arrogant buddy, thought they ruled the earth, and were stalwart fiscal conservatives. In the end, they were not. The one even got caught using fire district funds to watch pornography in his fire district funded hotel room. This was a news story in a competing newspaper, circa – 2008. Perhaps they were conservatives! The one fought pensions – while he retired on his. Now they are all old & infirmed, – or worse. Imagine spending your “Golden Years” causing strife, for the masses, just for kicks? I do not get it. And as they tried to burn down the FD, 15-years ago, I knew at some point soon, they’d rely on the FD for emergency care. Karma is “patient and kind.”
Time was you could run for office and be judged on your actions and behaviors whist in office but now people pick bits and pieces like carrion. Democracy works best when people realize there’s no saints but normal and average people that make a hell of a lot of mistakes to learn something.
Oh-fo-sho! Arrogant Cowards.