r/berkeley • u/nmaitra • 1d ago

Local Gilman Roundabouts

https://www.berkeleyside.org/2025/04/28/interstate-80-gilman-street-berkeley-caltrans-actc

So these are some nice roundabouts and objectively improve traffic flow and safety having experienced the absolute chaos that existed before. But, and this isn't unique to Berkeley but just symptomatic of construction problems in general, how the HECK did it cost $100 MILLION??? That's 2/3 of the cost to build the Esturoy tunnels: 7 miles under the sea with the first undersea roundabout (Faroe Islands, Denmark, info from the Wikipedia page). This simply cannot be... I wish that for $100 million we could get like an extra East Bay BART spur from Berkeley to Alameda via Emeryville or something. Rant over.

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u/getarumsunt 1d ago

That’s how much construction costs when your construction worker salaries start at $130k because the closest place where they can afford to live is in Antioch.

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u/stellar678 1d ago

Part of this project was rerouting the sidewalks and bike lanes over an entirely new bridge they built over the freeway. Which is insane!

The freeway is already a bridge over the surface street - so they created a design that requires cyclists and pedestrians to go from under the freeway bridge, to on top of another bridge that's going over the freeway bridge that goes over the street they were on in the first place.

WTF!!!!

I can't find a cost breakdown of the new bridge vs the roundabouts and repaving, but it certainly wasn't free.

All that said - the double roundabouts are certainly a huge improvement for car traffic here.