Estes Torque

Aerial view of abandoned Estes Park, circa 2039

Gather around, children, and listen to the true story of a Colorado town that lost itself in novelties.  2020 was the first year they went in, "they" being traffic roundabouts, in the mountain community of Estes Park.  No other town of similar size had a roundabout prior to that, but Estes Park was envious of its larger neighbors, and had a volunteer organization known as TAB, as outmoded and unpopular as the diet drink of the same name, reintroduced in the same century, which craved justification for the long hours it put in studying parking tickets, and deciphering exactly what they meant and how to implement them using a phased-in approach over the ensuing 200 years.

I was there that night, when the town board yielded to TAB pressure and placed Estes Park's first ever roundabout at the east entrance to town.  There was no stoplight at this location, it wasn't even a true four-way intersection, but TAB members gleefully stood in front of the town and provided meaningless data about how roundabouts decreased fatalities at intersections, and how, despite the fact they were initially much more expensive to install, they were easier to maintain, because things like snowplows become curvilinear as they approach the speed of light, or somesuch nonsense.

In truth, TAB could have said "we want this traffic circle at this spot because we want a reward, a treat, for all our volunteer efforts, sitting around discussing things and making life-altering decisions about roads when none of us have a transportation background or city planning or engineering degree, but are mostly bored and watching too much television and have spouses, those of us not divorced or living in subsidized housing as registered sex offenders, who encourage us to get out more", and the town board would have voted unanimously to approve a traffic circle at this location anyway, a location that can't improve on fatalities, because none have ever occurred there, but no matter, those kinds of statistics aren't even kept, or if they are, hadn't been obtained or even requested prior to the meeting, because what did it matter, we at TAB talk to hear the dulcet sounds of our unified groupthink voice, and if accidents and fatalities increase after the installation of this traffic circle, no one will measure them anyway, because look at this beautiful traffic circle, closely, almost a hypno-spiral, yes?  Have the lambs stopped screaming?

In fact, children, fatalities and major accidents at this traffic circle DID increase (because 1 > 0), and when this was pointed out to TAB in 2024, their answer was to demand more traffic circles leading up to and beyond their initial traffic circle.  They blamed the increase on mortalities and accidents on the speed people used to enter the traffic circle, to admire the roses that had been planted in such a way they not only welcomed people to Estes Park, but also spelled out the names of all the TAB members responsible for these wonderful, entirely vital, life-affirming things.

When that stopgap failed to decrease the number of accidents, and instead further increased them, TAB went slightly bonkers, implementing cantilevered traffic circles over the river in the Big Thompson Canyon, and floating traffic circles on Lake Estes, and, in their crowning achievement, a traffic circle within a traffic circle, the first ever designed, built by Manchurian Candidate Contractors, LLC, because no rational individual or construction company would agree to such a proposal.

Estes Park July 4, 2027

Why were TAB members so enamored of roundabouts, you ask?  Some traced it to Belle Morris, TAB president, who admitted years later, after Estes Park had become a ghost town through her misguided efforts, of memories of feeling "good down there" while riding merry-go-rounds as a teen.  Some blamed Tom Street, TAB Steve Zissou impersonator, whose inner-ear problems were only alleviated by driving in circles, over and over, while his wife sat in the back seat, flailing at bears.

Whatever the reason, Estes Park solved imaginary traffic problems with real roundabouts, discouraging tourists from returning, ignoring the metrics, and lacking even a basic interest in cause-effect relationships that provided a simple explanation for why visitors were turned off by unnecessary road geegaws that increased the likelihood of accidents at places that had never witnessed accidents.  And if that doesn't convince you of the state of play operating in Estes Park and the U.S. in general at the time of the Dark Ages Redux, children, a travesty of excess and instant wish gratification brought on by bored, spoiled, silly adults and those who indulged them, nothing can.