Agitating for or against highway projects can be a frustrating and angry business, because it so often appears that the government agencies involved shrug off the local insistence that urgent attention is needed.

Protests, recommendations, expressions of concern and even years of cries for help seem to evoke no response, at least beyond the inevitable state study to, it would appear, appease the most vocal advocates and critics.

For the State Highway Administration, however, the situation is complicated by politics, time, money and public opinion, all of which affect its responsibility to move the most traffic in a way that benefits the most people.

That’s what makes the argument over the proposed roundabout at Ocean Pines’ north gate, along with the continuing demand for a dual Route 589, so difficult.

If the SHA had unlimited money and resources, it would develop a different traffic exchange near the North Gate that would feed into a dual Route 589. But it doesn’t have those things and isn’t going to get them, so the best it can do is put a patch on the problem, which is all this roundabout really is.

Maybe it will relieve traffic congestion and maybe it won’t, but given the SHA’s budgetary restraints, that’s probably all it can do. Even then, this doesn’t mean the roundabout is a fait accompli, depending on the magnitude of the protest — and the substance of the argument to back it up — given the SHA’s preference to not spend money where it isn’t wanted.

What Ocean Pines motorists will have to decide, then, is whether the roundabout would be better than nothing, because a wider, more efficient Route 589 is probably many years away, regardless of the local sense of urgency.

Anyone who believes otherwise need only to look at Route 113, the actual dualization of which began 24 years ago, and only occurred after close to a decade of hard lobbying.

Considering that, Ocean Pines residents have little choice but to determine which of the few traffic-control options it has will it dislike the least.

Agitating for or against highway projects can be a frustrating and angry business, because it so often appears that the government agencies involved shrug off the local insistence that urgent attention is needed.

Protests, recommendations, expressions of concern and even years of cries for help seem to evoke no response, at least beyond the inevitable state study to, it would appear, appease the most vocal advocates and critics.

For the State Highway Administration, however, the situation is complicated by politics, time, money and public opinion, all of which affect its responsibility to move the most traffic in a way that benefits the most people.

That’s what makes the argument over the proposed roundabout at Ocean Pines’ north gate, along with the continuing demand for a dual Route 589, so difficult.

If the SHA had unlimited money and resources, it would develop a different traffic exchange near the North Gate that would feed into a dual Route 589. But it doesn’t have those things and isn’t going to get them, so the best it can do is put a patch on the problem, which is all this roundabout really is.

Maybe it will relieve traffic congestion and maybe it won’t, but given the SHA’s budgetary restraints, that’s probably all it can do. Even then, this doesn’t mean the roundabout is a fait accompli, depending on the magnitude of the protest — and the substance of the argument to back it up — given the SHA’s preference to not spend money where it isn’t wanted.

What Ocean Pines motorists will have to decide, then, is whether the roundabout would be better than nothing, because a wider, more efficient Route 589 is probably many years away, regardless of the local sense of urgency.

Anyone who believes otherwise need only to look at Route 113, the actual dualization of which began 24 years ago, and only occurred after close to a decade of hard lobbying.

Considering that, Ocean Pines residents have little choice but to determine which of the few traffic-control options it has will it dislike the least.