Omaha City Council held a public hearing this week on the city's share of the cost to tear out the stoplight at 42nd Street and Fontenelle Boulevard and replace it with a roundabout, clearing the way to begin the project process. The shift is aimed at an intersection that has racked up 35 crashes, including one fatal wreck, over a five-year study period. The city plans to replace the stoplight at the North Omaha crossing.
A Crash History That Caught the City's Attention
As reported by WOWT, Omaha Public Works tracked 35 crashes and one fatal collision at 42nd and Fontenelle between 2018 and 2022, a record that pushed the intersection up the city's priority list. Austin Rowser, an Omaha Public Works representative, pointed to speeding and red-light running as the main forces driving the danger at the intersection, per the station's report. The New Covenant Church of God in Christ sits directly across the street from the crossing — a congregation that took over the building in the 1970s after it was constructed in 1945 as Gethsemane Lutheran Church, according to North Omaha History.
For Terry Brewer, who has watched the intersection for 16 years, the crash count isn't an abstraction. He told the station he's personally seen more than 30 car accidents there, and some of those involved ended up going to the hospital. Brewer said he's glad to see the change finally coming, the outlet reported.
Why Omaha Is Betting on a Circle Instead of a Signal
Rowser said roundabouts are safer than signalized intersections because they remove the angle crashes associated with severe injuries, the station noted. That assessment lines up with national research: roundabouts have been associated with an 82 percent average reduction in fatal and injury crashes, largely by eliminating the left-turn, cross-traffic conflicts that cause T-bone wrecks and forcing drivers to slow to 15 to 25 mph. That kind of angle collision has already left a mark on this corridor — in November 2024, a T-bone crash at Fontenelle Boulevard and Bedford Avenue rolled a pickup truck onto its side and left the driver critically injured, according to Johnson & Tabor.
More recently, a two-vehicle hit-and-run near the Fontenelle Boulevard corridor in August injured a pregnant woman, per the Harris Law Firm. The city is moving forward with redesigning the intersection.
Part of a Bigger Vision Zero Push
The 42nd and Fontenelle project fits into Omaha's broader Vision Zero Action Plan, which targets zero traffic deaths citywide by 2045. The Omaha Police Department investigated 59 crashes in 2024, and another 177 crashes resulted in serious injuries, according to The Omaha News. The plan was approved by the City Council in November 2023 and modeled on the Safe Systems Approach. Nearby, Omaha Public Works has scheduled a 2026 road reconfiguration along Ames Avenue from Fontenelle Boulevard to 16th Street, shrinking four travel lanes to three with a center turn lane as part of the same safety push, per Keep Omaha Moving.
The city has also been experimenting with faster, cheaper fixes elsewhere. In 2025, Omaha Public Works planned to test quick-build modular roundabouts — using pre-fabricated curb elements rather than full roadway reconstruction — starting at 32nd and Woolworth Avenues, with installation possible no earlier than mid-to-late September, according to KETV.
Not Everyone Is Sold on Roundabouts
Not every Omaha roundabout has won over drivers without a fight. In August, security footage of rollover crashes at the 42nd and Q Street double-roundabout prompted a safety review, even as city officials defended the design for preventing more severe injuries, as documented in a widely shared video posted to Reddit's r/Omaha.
The funding path for the 42nd and Fontenelle project has been moving through regional channels for months. In April, the Metropolitan Area Planning Agency published a public notice amending its Fiscal Year 2026 Transportation Improvement Program to adjust funding and cost allocations for the project, according to the Omaha Daily Record. Omaha received federal highway safety funds for the project, and this week's city council public hearing addressed the city's share of the cost, clearing the way to begin the formal project process.
What Comes Next
Construction on the roundabout is expected to begin in early 2027, and drivers and pedestrians will likely see changes to the intersection as that work progresses. The council's public hearing on the city's share of the cost cleared the way for the formal project process to begin.
