Noel Dant: The man responsible for Edmonton’s “roundabouts”

Noel Dant, the man responsible for what he called “roundabouts” in Edmonton was a little sensitive to jokes about his contribution to traffic flow in the city. In a 1979 audiotaped interview with City Archivist John McIsaac, Dant protested that he “didn’t invent the damn things. They were already in use in Windsor and Victoria.” 

Dant, however, had noted first hand while growing up in England how effective the circles were in maintaining traffic flow, and post-World War II Edmonton had a serious traffic problem. The traffic circles were an efficient solution, despite the greater amount of land required to put them in operation. 

Lawrence Herzog, writing in the Real Estate Weekly in 2007 referred to Dant in his headline as “The Father of the Traffic Circle.” The city fathers, he writes, owned much of the vacant land at the edge of already developed neighbourhoods, giving it control over new urban development from initial planning through sale and construction.

As Herzog explains, with traffic circles, “when there were crashes they were usually less severe sideswipe or rear enders rather than head on or ‘T Bone’ collisions that typically occur at intersections.” (Real Estate Weekly, February 28, 2007, p.7) 

Edmonton Sun writer Kevin Strevenson interviewed Dant in 1980 and discovered that the former city planner remained a staunch defender of the traffic circle (Edmonton Sunday Sun, January 20, 1980, p. 48). 

According to Dant, the circles were never meant to be a permanent solution. The roundabouts were supposed to be replaced by “flyovers” and—eventually cloverleafs—when they became bogged down in traffic. In Dant’s original intersection designs, sufficient city-owned land was included for this purpose. However, the city is now unable to proceed with this plan as they have sold off the land that was to be used. “I think it was very foolish,” Dant says of the decision, and he continued to believe that the circles are far more efficient than traffic lights.

Dant’s influence on Edmonton extended far beyond the controversial traffic circles. In the decades following World War II, city planners and civic officials from across North America came to view the Edmonton model. Dant himself was the recipient of many awards, including being proclaimed in 2004 as one of the “100 Edmontonians of the Century.” (Edmonton Journal October 3, 2004, p.28)

Dant left Edmonton in 1955 to work for the Ghanaian government, but returned to the city in 1961 to serve as a provincial planning director with the department of municipal affairs. While in that position, he is credited with being one of the key influences in the city’s decision to approve the ring road in principle in 1965. Dant retired in 1979 and passed away in Edmonton in 1993. It can be argued that most, if not all, of Edmonton’s 375 neighbourhoods have been influenced in some part by Noel Dant’s vision of a “town planned” city.