Centennial Circle is a five leg

roundabout A roundabout is a type of circular intersection or junction in which road traffic is permitted to flow in one direction around a central island, and priority is typically given to traffic already in the junction.''The New Shorter Oxford E ...

in downtown

Glens Falls Glens Falls is a city in Warren County, New York, United States and is the central city of the Glens Falls Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 14,700 at the 2010 census. The name was given by Colonel Johannes Glen, the falls re ...

, a

city A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be de ...

Warren County, New York Warren County is a county in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2020 census, the population was 65,737. The county seat is Queensbury. The county is named in honor of General Joseph Warren, an American Revolutionary War hero of the Batt ...

. The circle is at the intersection of U.S. Route 9 (Glen Street),

New York State Route 32 New York State Route 32 (NY 32) is a north–south state highway that extends for through the Hudson Valley and Capital District regions of the U.S. state of New York. It is a two-lane surface road for nearly its entire length, with ...

(NY 32, named Warren Street), NY 9L (Ridge Street) and Hudson Street. Centennial Circle is the site of a formerly signalized

intersection In mathematics, the intersection of two or more objects is another object consisting of everything that is contained in all of the objects simultaneously. For example, in Euclidean geometry, when two lines in a plane are not parallel, thei ...

, which was replaced with the current layout in 2007.

History

In 1873, the intersection — then consisting of Warren, Ridge and Glen Streets — became known as Fountain Square on account of an ornate fountain having been built in front of the Rockwell House. This fountain was removed, however, in 1898 to make room for brick street paving and a

trolley Trolley may refer to: Vehicles and components * Tram, or trolley or streetcar, a rail vehicle that runs on tramway tracks * Trolleybus, or trolley, an electric bus drawing power from overhead wires using trolley poles ** Trolleytruck, a trolleyb ...

line. Thus lacking the fountain, the name was changed to Bank Square because the then–village's three banks were located in this area. Downtown Glens Falls was once a robust commercial center, but due to

urban sprawl Urban sprawl (also known as suburban sprawl or urban encroachment) is defined as "the spreading of urban developments (such as houses and shopping centers) on undeveloped land near a city." Urban sprawl has been described as the unrestricted growt ...

much of the city's commerce had vacated downtown in the latter part of the 20th century. In a determined effort to reattract business to the downtown area, the city secured funding for a reconstruction and streetscape project, which included the proposed roundabout to replace the inefficient five-way intersection. The intersection was rated by traffic engineers as having a

Level of Service Level of service may refer to: * Levels of service in asset management * Level of service (transportation) in transportation and traffic * Something agreed on in a Service-level agreement (SLA) {{Disambiguation ...

of "F" which is worst on a scale of "A" to "F". The city of Glens Falls began the public outreach process in 2004 to gauge citizens' support for the plan.

Creighton Manning Engineering Creighton Manning Engineering, LLP is a multi-discipline civil engineering and surveying firm located in Albany, New York. The firm has been in business since 1965. Creighton Manning Engineering claims to be one of the top 10 civil engineering ...

was contracted by the city to prepare final design plans of the roundabout. The city mayor noted that there were no banks at Bank Square and that it seemed contradictory to refer to a roundabout intersection as a square. As a result, the name Centennial Circle was chosen from among submissions to a name-the-roundabout contest, the name having been submitted by Diane and Jon Swanson of Queensbury. The roundabout opened to traffic on May 6, 2007. According to a 2008 study, the traffic volume of Centennial Circle has increased twenty percent compared to the intersection it replaced, while at the same time providing drivers with reduced wait times.

References

{{Reflist, 2 Glens Falls, New York Roundabouts and traffic circles in the United States Transportation in Warren County, New York