A Signal for Cleveland's Busy Streets
Imagine approaching a busy intersection without a traffic light. Cars, streetcars, wagons, and people on foot all need to cross, but who gets to go first? In the early 1900s, growing traffic made that question increasingly important in American cities.
Cleveland, Ohio, tried an electric signal to help organize traffic at East 105th Street and Euclid Avenue. Contemporary newspaper accounts cited by the Cleveland Police Museum describe the signal being put into use on August 5, 1914. Its red and green lights gave travelers a shared set of instructions: red meant stop, and green meant go.
The signal did not work exactly like a modern traffic light. A police officer controlled it from a booth near the intersection rather than relying on an automatic timer. The officer could watch traffic and change the lights to allow one direction to move while stopping another. A buzzer warned travelers that the signal was about to change.
That warning mattered because the 1914 signal did not have the familiar yellow light used at many intersections today. Travelers needed time to notice that traffic was about to stop or begin moving. The lights and buzzer helped the officer communicate with many people at once, even across a wide and noisy intersection.
- intersection:
- A place where roads meet or cross.
- contemporary:
- From the same time as the event being described.
- installation:
- A system or piece of equipment placed somewhere for use.
- inventors:
- People who create new devices or ideas.
- patent:
- A legal document that gives an inventor rights to an invention.
- sensors:
- Devices that detect changes or conditions around them.
- orderly:
- Organized and following a plan.
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Preview questions from this passageShowHide
- 1Why did growing traffic make a signal useful in Cleveland?
- 2How did the officer use the 1914 signal to organize traffic?
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About this explanatory article passage for Upper Elementary
“A Signal for Cleveland's Busy Streets” is a explanatory article reading passage about Traffic signals, written for Upper Elementary. It takes about 3 minutes to read (455 words) and comes with an interactive quiz and a printable worksheet with comprehension questions and an answer key.