SYDNEY, NSW. — Sydney’s first set of traffic lights was installed on 13 October 13, 1933. It would be another 32 years before the nation’s capital, Canberra, received its first two sets of traffic lights on October 23, 1965.
The “electro-matic vehicle-actuated control” lights were installed at the intersection of Market and Kent Streets in the CBD, and it was Sir Michael Bruxner, then Deputy Premier of NSW and Minister for Transport, who had the honour of switching them on at 11am.
The Sydney Morning Herald stated, “Four posts, each carrying three sets of three-coloured lights, have been erected at the street corners, and broken “stop” lines have been painted in yellow on the roadway.
Signal changes are effected through special “detectors” fitted in the road surface. These register the passage, speed, and direction of every vehicle passing over them, and the appropriate light signals are shown automatically, being exactly adjusted to the traffic flow at the moment.”
The world’s first traffic light was operating in London, England, even before the advent of the automobile.
Installed at a London intersection in 1868, it was a revolving gas-lit lantern with red and green signals.
However, on January 2, 1869, the light exploded, injuring the policeman who was operating it.
It was not until the early 1900s that Garrett Morgan, an African American living in Cleveland, Ohio, developed the electric automatic traffic light.
Originally based on a semaphore system, traffic lights gradually evolved through the years to become the red-amber-green lights they are today.
