Marina goes out to bid for a roundabout that could be the catalyst for its downtown plan.

Erik Chalhoub here, reporting that more than six months after the City of Marina kicked off its downtown visioning process, it took a step toward making that vision a reality.

The Marina City Council agreed to seek bids for a roundabout at the intersection of Reservation Road and Del Monte Boulevard on Tuesday, Oct. 6. Such infrastructure is part of the city’s Downtown Vitalization Specific Plan, a 20-year outlook adopted in 2024 that envisions new commercial space and housing in the vicinity.

How much the roundabout will cost depends on the bids the City receives, but City Engineer Scott Shepard estimates it could cost $4.5 million. The City already has a $1.7 million grant it received from the Transportation Agency for Monterey County that it must expend by August 2027, and to make up the rest, funds could come from development impact fees.

As the recently completed roundabouts on Imjin Parkway proved, people have mixed feelings about them, and those who are against them are especially vocal. But local data shows that while roundabouts don’t necessarily reduce the amount of collisions, they do lessen the severity of them—meaning fewer, if any, injuries.

Marina Police Chief Randy Hopkins used the Beach Road and Del Monte Boulevard roundabout as an example. Collision data from the police department shows that in the three years prior to the roundabout’s construction in 2017, there were five people injured in crashes at the intersection, which lowered to three from 2017-2020 and none in 2023 up to September 2026.

The majority of crashes changed from vehicle-vs.-vehicle to a single vehicle colliding with a fixed object. Over the past three years, more than half of the crashes were due to drivers under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

From September 2023 to September 2026, the signalized intersection of Del Monte Boulevard and Reservation Road saw 11 crashes, with nine people injured, and the majority of the causes stemming from red light violations, according to police data.

Of course, changing people’s perspectives is always an uphill battle. Of the 52 people who attended the March workshop on the downtown plan, most were in favor of a signalized intersection, according to consultant Tripepi Smith. A total of 231 responses were received from an online survey earlier this year, and the results were mixed: about 36 percent strongly supported roundabouts, while 21 percent strongly opposed them.

It’s a small sample size, but it seems representative of the general sentiment toward roundabouts.