Round and round, Carmel goes. When they’ll stop, nobody knows.
The City of Carmel will celebrate a unique milestone in 2016: completion of the city’s 100th roundabout.
A year after being elected to his first term in 1996, Carmel Mayor Jim Brainard saw the construction of the city’s first roundabout on Hazel Dell Parkway on Carmel’s east side. The city grew to more than 40 roundabouts by 2009, more than 70 of them in 2011 and 94 today.
The 100th roundabout will be at 116th Street and Gray Road. It’s one that neighbors have been wanting for some time, Brainard said, and the construction schedule is going well and could be finished before the end of the year.
While details haven’t been finalized, Brainard said some sort of celebration will be planned for the event, whether it’s a press conference or something more.
But Carmel won’t stop there. Roundabouts are planned along Gray Road between 106th and 146th streets. There are roundabouts in the works for 116th Street and Hazel Dell Parkway and 136th Street and Carey Road. Several roundabouts might also be constructed on Range Line Road at 116th Street, City Center Drive and more.
Brainard said the city might have more than 130 roundabouts when all is said and done.
“Once we get to 130, pretty much every intersection should be covered,” he said.
The next step is to landscape the center of the roundabouts, Brainard said, with artwork or flowers or green space. Currently, the roundabout at Keystone Avenue and Main Street is being landscaped.
“We don’t have mountains and we don’t have oceans, so it’s important to make our streets beautiful,” Brainard said.
The mayor said the city is currently focusing on landscaping roundabouts on the east side of Carmel because much attention has already been given to southwest Carmel during that area’s annexation. Brainard said more attention will be given to that area in due time and that other parts of town have a far greater need at the moment.
