Effective Print and Web Outreach 

U.S. Department of Transportation 

Federal Highway Administration 

Engaging the Public Through Print and Web Outreach 

Location 

Carmel, Indiana 

(Central United States) 

Implementation Stage 

City of Carmel staff prefer to start 

outreach 10 months to a year 

before construction to get people 

on board early. However, until 

construction begins, staff note that 

citizens may be less likely to take 

roundabout outreach seriously. 

🗸 Planning 

🗸 Design 

🗸 Construction 

🗸 Launch 

Roundabout Type/Setting 

Multi-lane roundabouts in an urban 

setting. 

Target Audience 

🗸 General Public 

Strategies Employed 

🗸 Branded project website 

🗸 Informational direct-mail postcards 

🗸 Video animations of future corridors 

🗸 Public involvement at open houses 

and community meetings 

How Carmel, Indiana, Uses Innovative Media to 

Shape Public Perception of Roundabouts 

Background 

In the late 1990s, the City of Carmel, Indiana, 

began installing roundabouts within its 

jurisdiction, where they soon became a 

common type of intersection design. This 

change in intersection design policy stemmed 

from an influential roundabout champion—the 

City’s mayor. Mayor Jim Brainard took office in 

1996 and subsequently pushed for the installation of a roundabout at an intersection 

that, at that time, was in the project development phase for major rehabilitation. His 

interest in roundabouts stemmed from his visits to Europe, where modern roundabouts 

are common, and a ski trip to Vail, Colorado, where the city had installed a roundabout 

to reduce recurring congestion experienced during peak skiing season. Since the 

mayor’s first push in 1996, the City of Carmel has constructed over 60 roundabouts with 

the support of the public. 

Figure 1: The CarmelLink logo. 

In 2007, the City proposed building a pair of roundabouts at major cross-streets along a 

popular/central parkway to enable the free flow of traffic along the route. As depicted 

in Figure 2, the roundabout, situated on a bridge, would have a teardrop shape and 

would be elevated above the Parkway. The City chose this shape because it would 

result in a smaller overall project footprint. As these roundabouts would have a unique 

shape compared with many of the City’s other roundabouts, the City knew they would 

need to do extensive outreach to ensure the public would be supportive of the project, 

both before construction began and during the build-out of the intersections. 

Approach 

As a first step, the City decided to give the project a “catchy” name that would be used 

on all outreach materials—Project CarmelLink. Staff developed products to facilitate 

communication among all stakeholder groups, including the City, community groups, 

businesses, and citizens. This project’s comprehensive outreach program included: 

• Postcards – Provided information to local homes and businesses across the city with general

project information, specific road closure and detour details, and general roundabout

driving techniques

• Managed mailing list – Emailed postcard information to all members of the list

• Roundabout stickers – Described “rules of the road” for roundabouts

• Video animations of the future corridor – Helped citizens visualize what the corridor would

look like once the roundabouts were completed, posted online throughout the project and

used extensively at community meetings

• Branded project website – Provided information on the history of the project, a project

calendar, links to roundabout-related educational materials, news articles, and frequently

asked questions

FHWA-SA-11-025 

Revised July 2020
Figure 2: Overhead photo of the completed 

roundabout installed above the Keystone Parkway at 

136th Street. 

Figure 3: The City of Carmel mailed postcards, like the 

one above, to residents and businesses around each 

zone of the construction to inform them of detours, 

project durations, and other pertinent information, all 

for about $1 per card to print and mail. 

Figure 4: The map above was used to inform 

motorists and local residents of the new intersection 

patterns along the Keystone Parkway’s CarmelLink 

Project. 

Learn More 

Jeffrey Shaw 

Intersections Program Manager 

FHWA Office of Safety 

202.738.7793

jeffrey.shaw@dot.gov 

• Community meetings – Provided a quarterly forum for the Neighborhood Association

Network and the Small Business Association Network to discuss any concerns or questions

related to the roundabout project with Mayor Brainard during the planning and construction

process. 

Results 

Led by the strong support of a champion mayor, the City has successfully gained 

the support of the public for roundabout projects. The City has not conducted any 

benchmarking or satisfaction surveys, but according to City Engineer Mike McBride, 

“You know things are going well when the phones are quiet. This is one of the best 

measures of success, in our minds.” From the safety and mobility side, the City tracks 

crash counts, minutes saved per commute, and other quantitative safety information at 

each roundabout installed across the jurisdiction. During the 2008 construction season 

alone, crashes along the Keystone Parkway corridor decreased 25 percent as compared 

to 2007 before the beginning of construction for the roundabouts. 

The combination of outreach strategies, including public meetings with the mayor 

and City engineering staff, postcards, and an engaging branded project website 

enabled the city to successfully influence public perception of roundabout projects. 

Staff monitoring website hits during the construction of the roundabouts found that 

15 percent of people went to the project website via a search engine, while over 80 

percent of people either went to the site directly or were linked from a referring site, 

such as the City’s roundabout website. Staff feel that these statistics show that they 

were able to engage the public in checking in regularly for project updates. 

Lessons Learned 

• Use hard data to help sell the case for roundabouts to people— sharing data on the minutes

of time saved per commute resonates well with citizens.

• Publishing project updates frequently helps engage citizens in the construction process.

• Begin developing outreach products early in the planning and construction cycle.

• Take the time to sit down and talk with people about a proposed project. It takes time to get

people on board, but once you do, City staff feel that a project can be successful.

Outreach Investment 

City of Carmel staff stated that the outreach products were a very low-cost investment 

but required a fair amount of staff time to pull together. Each postcard cost about $1 

to print and mail. The videos that the City developed have been used for years, so in 

the long term, the costs are considered to be very low. For this project, the City hired 

consultants to assist with the development of a project website, but most of the other 

outreach products were developed in-house. 

Related Products 

General Information Website 

http://carmel.in.gov/department-services/engineering/roundabouts 

Video 

CarmelLink video player (includes virtual drive-through simulation and project update videos) 

http://www.carmellink.com/ 

Project Website 

CarmelLink roundabout project website 

http://carmel.in.gov/department-services/engineering/roundabouts 

Brochure 

City of Carmel Roundabouts – Improving the Quality of Life 

http://carmel.in.gov/home/showdocument?id=4898