Troy plans $3M intersection work;
City aims to improve traffic flow, pedestrian
safety with new signals, crosswalks

Author: KENNETH C. CROWE II, Staff writer
Date: March 6, 2007

TROY — The city plans to invest $3 million this year to upgrade 22 downtown intersections with new traffic signals and crosswalks in an effort to improve safety and to complement the historic surroundings.

There appears to be a general agreement that the traffic signals installed in the 1970s on street corners are hard to see, confusing and often not working.

"I don't feel the existing signals are reliable," said Marie Gavazzi of Fifth Avenue, who attended a presentation Friday at City Hall on the proposed changes.

"When the walk sign is blank, what does it mean? It proves to me it's broken," Gavazzi said.

Mayor Harry Tutunjian said the aging traffic signals are almost impossible to repair and have to be rigged to keep functioning. The parts are no longer easily available.

The new traffic signals will help the ongoing downtown renaissance, the mayor said.

"It will be more in keeping with the historic experience for pedestrians downtown," Tutunjian said.

Integrating the traffic signals and improved intersections with the city's historic downtown is the major challenge for the project, said Jeffrey Pangburn of Creighton Manning Engineering of Albany, the traffic engineering company working on the project.

The traffic signals, which will hang over the middle of the intersection from a long arm connected to a single pole, are designed to blend into the downtown streets, Pangburn said.

The redesigned traffic signal system will save energy, meet Americans with Disabilities Act requirements for intersections, coordinate the traffic signals, balance pedestrian safety with motor vehicles and integrate the signals with regional transportation management systems.

Thomas Carroll, executive director of the Hudson Mohawk Industrial Gateway, suggested that the new signals should be a better fit to the city's 19th-century downtown than the current crop of traffic lights.

Pangburn said the design for the project will use colors that will blend and ornamental designs for the poles that will help them fit in with downtown.

The $3 million project will be 80 percent federally funded; 15 percent will be provided by the state and 5 percent by the city.

Tutunjian said work should start this summer. The goal is to finish by the end of the year.

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