Reporter Columnist
For the last century, Hamilton County has been a leader in the state (and nation) when it comes to quality infrastructure, intersection improvements and safety.
As of today, the City of Carmel has 134 roundabouts, with several more projects scheduled in the future. Carmel has more roundabouts per capita than any city in the U.S. This week, as the City of Carmel joins the Federal Highway Administration for National Roundabout Week, a celebration of the beautiful intersections that help make our streets safer and reduce the number of personal injury accidents, let’s take a moment to revisit the innovations of the past.
Leslie Haines was born in 1883 in rural Hamilton County (Carmel) which numbered fewer than 400 residents at the time. In late 1923 or early 1924, Haines, a U.S. Navy-trained electrician, invented one of the country’s first automatic stop-and-go traffic signals. It is located at the intersection of Main Street and Range Line Road, which at the time, was major thoroughfare U.S. 31 and experienced heavy traffic. Still today, there is a plaque at that intersection commemorating Haines and marking the spot of his first installation.
Additionally, one of Haines’ original traffic lights can be viewed at the Depot Museum of the Carmel Clay Historical Society.
So, the question now is, do you think Carmel will eventually go back to being a one stoplight city – with its original stoplight? One thing is clear, no matter what form, for the last century Carmel and Hamilton County have been on the cutting edge of innovation and modernization of effective and safe intersection improvements.
mighty impressed to read that USA’s first ever traffic light came up in this tony city of Carmel. Would’ve loved to see a picture of the great inventor and the actual traffic light now on display in the museum if possible. this invention played an pivotal role in saving millions of lives when car speeds were mighty slow as compared to today. what is perhaps the most important inference is the fact that the small rural town of 400 residents abutting State highway 31 which gave America this invention, has now after almost a century from then given town planners and city officials pan America, a role model to follow by creating a whopping 134 roundabouts in just 47 square miles of all of Carmel. Correct me if i’m wrong for the count is soon going to be 139 very soon with some of the finest artworks, murals and eye catchy landscaping. Roundabouts needs to be implemented in tier 2 & 3 cities as they almost eradicate head-on and T-bone collisions among vehicles and also help save precious gasoline due to idling and in turn save the environment from Carbon Monoxide pollution. I’m no expert on transportation but we can’t build more roads overnight, nor can we infinitely expand the number of carriages on a train, or double the frequency of buses overnight for a city which is growing. Perhaps Carmel city planners can take a peek at AIMES, the world’s first Integrated Multi-modal Ecosystem designed by Dept of Transport Engineering, Melbourne University. It is a transport test bed area, incorporating 100 KMs of Melbourne roads on the fringe of the CBD, which will be covered with 1,000 sensors to collect data on vehicle and pedestrian movement, and public transport use helping to reduce travel times, stress, and cost. Since all vehicles plying on roads have their GPS on at all times, a truly intelligent transport system will collect the information about all of the modes of transport, and then data analytics can filter this information for the needs of individual users as well as transportation experts advising town planners.
https://imoveaustralia.com/news-articles/intelligent-transport-systems/australia-national-connected-multimodal-transport-test-bed/
many thanks for digging up and highlighting the legend that was Leslie Haines and his superb invention.