It is getting harder and harder to run a stoplight in Carmel because there are fewer and fewer of them. Every year, traffic lights and stop signs are replaced with roundabouts.
There are a lot of roundabouts.
There is a roundabout with a mascot, a greyhound and giant flowers. There are 11 roundabouts on Carmel's Main Street. The locals think the most impressive feature of the roundabout is the three-tier bronze fountain. The U.K. Roundabout Appreciation Society named it "International Roundabout of the Year" in 2016 and Carmel Mayor Jim Brainard said that the group is made up of three guys in a pub. Their actual membership is six. Still.
Carmel, a city of 102,000 north of Indianapolis, has 140 roundabouts. No American city has more. The main reason is safety; compared with regular intersections, roundabouts significantly reduce injuries and deaths.
There is a climate benefit.
Modern roundabouts don't burn as much gasoline because they don't have red lights. Mike McBride, the former city engineer for Carmel, estimates that each roundabout saves about 20,000 gallons of fuel annually, which in turn will cause the cars of Carmel to emit nearly 30 fewer tons of planet-heating carbon emissions a year. Highway officials agree that roundabouts reduce emissions.
They don't need electricity, and they keep functioning after bad storms, which is a bonus in these meteorologically turbulent times.
Ken Sides is the chairman of the roundabout committee at the Institute of Transportation Engineers.
Mr. Brainard is the Republican mayor of Carmel.
Mr. Brainard first encountered roundabouts when he was studying at the University of Oxford. He asked a consultant to look into building a roundabout after he was elected mayor. The consultant said they were dangerous and pointed to an effort to remove them in Massachusetts.
The image is.
The Mayor of Carmel is at the roundabout. He said that people love the circles. You couldn't take one out.
Mr. Brainard discovered that the consultant was confusing roundabouts with rotaries, which are larger and more frightening than the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.
Modern roundabouts are smaller, have lower speed limits, and have fewer lanes. Modern roundabouts are smaller than traffic circles and have a lower chance of being T-boned. Well-designed ones are friendlier to pedestrians and cyclists. Mr. Brainard oversaw the construction of a roundabout on the city's outskirts in 1997. They alleviated rush hour delays and stops. Within a decade, the city doubled the number again.
A preschool teacher who works at All Things Carmel sells tchotchkes like drink cozies and playing cards that are themed after roundabouts.
People took notice. The International Roundabout Conference came to town after CNN did a segment on it.
The city issued publications such as "Roundabout Carmel: Highlighting City of Carmel Roundabouts from 1997 to 2010" and a coffee table book written by Mr. Brainard. This year it celebrated National Roundabouts Week with Wear Your Roundabout Shirt to Work Day.
Mr. Brainard said that people love them here. You couldn't take one out.
Not everyone is a fan.
The call center director from nearby Avon said he hates them and often gets stuck behind confused out-of-towners.
Bill Greenman is the operations manager at a restaurant. He said that if you are having a great day, you will probably ignore them. If you are having a bad day in traffic, you will most likely blame it on roundabouts.
Mr. Brainard is involved in climate mitigation efforts. He was one of thousands of leaders who pledged to uphold the Paris climate agreement when Donald J. Trump announced the American pullout. Carmel has hybrid city vehicles, green spaces with native plants, and solar panels that help fuel the city's water treatment and sewage plants. In an effort to get people out of their cars, the city has added bike paths, taken out traffic lanes, widened sidewalks and increased walkability.
Mr. Brainard said that they need to do everything they can to address the climate change issue.
Jackson Circle in Carmel was named "International Roundabout of the Year" in 2016 and has a fountain and box hedges.
There is a sculpture by Bayliss titled "Grace, Love and Joy" at the roundabout at Old Meridian Street and North Pennsylvania Avenue.
There is a roundabout at 116th and Keystone.
Mr. Bayliss created an installation at the roundabout.
A study of two roundabouts in Mississippi found a 56 percent decrease in carbon dioxide emissions, while another study found cumulative decreases at six roundabouts of between 16 percent and 59 percent. The city engineer used a study from Virginia to calculate Carmel's estimates. The Federal Highway Administration found that roundabouts cause less emissions than signalized intersections, and that the difference can be significant.
Mr. Sides said, "Imagine a world where recovery funds were put to work building resilient, sustainable modern roundabouts instead of rebuilding fragile, polluting signalized intersections."
The United States has been slow to adopt modern roundabouts. They now number 7,900 countrywide, with hundreds added each year. There is still hesitation.
Card 1 of 5.
1. Time for action is running out. The agreement struck by diplomats established a clear consensus that all nations need to do more to prevent a catastrophic rise in global temperatures.
2. How much each nation needs to cut is not known. Rich countries are more likely to be responsible for global warming than the poorer ones.
3. The call for aid went up. One of the biggest fights at the summit was about whether the world's wealthiest nations should compensate poorer nations for the damage caused by rising temperatures.
4. An emissions-cutting agreement. The U.S. and China agreed to do more to cut emissions this decade, as well as China agreeing for the first time to develop a plan to reduce methane.
Mr. McBride, who was Carmel's city engineer for 13 years, said that roundabout-curious municipal leaders often asked how to win over the public.
Most of the general population is scared of things that are new and different, and that's why you can spit out fact-based data.
The U.S. roadway system doesn't put a lot of faith in the driver to make decisions, which is why roundabouts are different.
He said that they are used to being told what to do.
According to the Federal Highway Administration, more than half of all serious crashes happen at intersection, which is why they have been pushing for the construction of modern roundabouts for 20 years.
Mr. Brainard was met with a roomful of angry people when he was in Florida in 2009. They were worried that roundabouts would cause wear on tires. Mr. Brainard talked about Carmel's experiences. This year, the Innovative Roundabout of Merit Award was won by the 12 roundabouts in the city of Sarasota.
There are Roundabout-themed merchandise at All Things Carmel. The coffee table book was put out by the mayor.
There has been scrutiny. The Indianapolis Star reported that after Carmel transitioned to roundabouts, collision rates had jumped. Mr. Brainard said the Star hadn't accounted for Carmel's population explosion because the number of people living there had doubled since he took office. The Insurance Institute of Highway Safety found that injury crashes were reduced by half at 64 roundabouts in Carmel, and even more at the more elaborate, dogbone-shaped interchanges.
The associate director of the Traffic Operations and Safety Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin-Madison said that roundabouts saved people from paying a greater price.
I say to people, "Would you prefer an ambulance or tow truck?" Ms. Bill said something. Most people would say a tow truck.
Getting used to roundabouts takes some time. Carmel has published tips on its website, along with a roundabout map, and distributed hand-held plastic fans adorned with a roundabout diagram and instructions to drive in and out of traffic.
A driver from Brooklyn was taken with all the dipsy-doodling that the cars of Carmel must do while driving on a recent fall day. There was something merry in all this, even in multi-ton vehicles that can cause injury or death. According to a city study, Carmel has 1.9 traffic deaths per 100,000 people in 2020. It was 20.8 in Columbus, Indiana. The national average was 11.
Ms. Blystone said that people come in differing opinions about the local roundabouts when they visit the All Things Carmel shop.
She said she offers the same advice to those who struggle. Take your time. Go around again if they are not sure.
There is a video
