Carmel City Council nixes proposal to set 20 mph speed limit at roundabouts

After months of study, Carmel will not set a speed limit to slow drivers as they approach and drive through the city’s roundabouts.

Members of the Carmel City Council on Monday night voted 8-0 against an ordinance that would have established a 20 mph speed limit for each of the city’s 150 roundabouts.

Former Mayor Jim Brainard originally proposed the idea of setting a speed limit for Carmel’s roundabouts. The City Council initially introduced the ordinance last November before five new members joined the council at the beginning of the year. The council’s Finance, Utilities and Rules Committee began studying the issue in January.

Councilor Jeff Worrell, a co-sponsor of the ordinance with Councilor Adam Aasen, said at Monday’s meeting that the Finance, Utilities and Rules Committee looked at data and found that installing raised crosswalks and rapid flashing beacons, where necessary, would be more effective than setting a speed limit. Worrell chairs the four-person committee that also consists of Councilors Aasen, Ryan Locke and Rich Taylor.

“What we found was that speed is an issue at our pedestrian crossings and roundabouts, but there is a way that I had not anticipated in helping to alleviate that,” Worrell said.

Councilor Matthew Snyder applauded committee members for taking the time to study the effectiveness of a speed limit and other ways to approach the problem of people speeding through roundabouts.

“You guys really stepped back, read all the facts, insisted on facts, data, studies, everything,” Snyder said. “I think you did what government is supposed to do.”

Carmel, the self-proclaimed “Roundabout Capital of the United States,” has more roundabouts than any other city in the United States. The city prefers roundabouts over traffic lights because studies show they decrease serious crashes compared with traditional intersections with traffic lights.