RACINE - When the dust settles this month from road construction projects near Park High School, the city will have its first roundabout.

Just don't let Wisconsin Department of Transportation officials hear you call it a roundabout - they're very particular about the use of that term.

Racine's first "modified traffic circle," to use one DOT official's preferred parlance for this particular intersection, will replace the complicated triangular intersection of Bluefields Drive, Valley Drive and 13th Street just southeast of Park High School.

City transportation officials used roundabout design principles to address poor safety conditions at the existing intersection. It has been the site of a high number of crashes compared to other intersections, said John Rooney, assistant commissioner of public works and engineering.

The resulting one-way, circular roadway going around a curbed central island won't be perfectly round, Rooney said. To fit into the existing right-of-way, it will be oval-shaped.

But the intersection will function similar to the roundabout being constructed where highways 38 and K meet in Caledonia. Traffic will enter counterclockwise, yielding to traffic traveling around the circle, and exit to the right at the desired street.

Patrick Fleming, standards development engineer with the DOT, said he won't call this intersection a roundabout because it doesn't follow all the design principles for one. For example, the approach off 13th Street won't force traffic to slow as much as the DOT's standards, he said.

The casual use of the term roundabout, Fleming said, would do a disservice to DOT efforts to promote roundabout use elsewhere as a safer and less costly alternative to traditional signalized intersections. People could be resistant, applying a dislike based on intersections that aren't really roundabouts.

The DOT requires local governments to consider roundabouts whenever looking at a new traffic signal or four-way stop on a state highway or a roadway funded with state or federal dollars, Fleming said.

As Racine plans for future roadwork on Ohio Street, the intersection with Byrd Avenue is being studied for traffic signals or a roundabout, Rooney said.

By the end of 2007, 29 roundabouts will be open on state highways or highways funded with state or federal dollars, Fleming said, and he knows of another 24 roundabouts on local roadways.

He said about 150 roundabouts are being contemplated for future state trunk highway projects.