Henry Barnes was a prominent traffic engineer and administrator of the 20th century who served in many cities, including Denver, Colorado, Baltimore, Maryland, and New York, New York. Barnes was responsible for many innovations in applied traffic engineering including the Green Wave of coordinated traffic signals and the application of actuated traffic signals (signals set off by the presence of an automobile or a pedestrian pushing a button).
The Barnes Dance is a street-crossing system that stops all traffic and allows pedestrians to cross intersections in every direction at the same time. The Barnes Dance was first used in Kansas City, and Vancouver in the late 1940s. Subsequently it was adopted in other cities such as Denver, Colorado and New York.
As a traffic commissioner in New York City in 1962 Henry Barnes tangled with domineering city planner Robert Moses and killed the planned elevated cross-town highway.
He wrote an autobiography: The Man with the Red and Green Eyes .