Troy Upgrades Traffic Signals

Author: Tom Caprood
Date: 2/25/09
Source: The Record

TROY — An ongoing project to replace and redesign city traffic signals could be completed by late summer, officials said.

The city’s traffic signalization project will replace 18 outdated 1970s era traffic lights in the city’s downtown business district with state-of-the-art technology that will be programmable from a central location. The switch is also expected to bring the city into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The $3 million project was first announced in 2007 and, after a few delays, initial underground construction began on Fifth and Sixth avenues last fall, according to project manger Jeff Pangburn, of Creighton Manning Engineering.

Originally, the project was expected to be completed by the end of 2008. After quitting for the winter season, work is expected to resume in March.

“We always go out with an optimistic schedule and if everything falls into place that’s how quickly we hope to turn it around, but there’s inevitably a hiccup or two along the way and this one took a while,” said Pangburn, who noted that Stilsing Electric, a Rensselaer-based contractor, is handling the electrical work.

Existing traffic lights will be replaced with highly-visible Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs), to improve signal brightness while reducing electricity usage and will be hung from ornamental traffic poles to better fit with the historic architecture found downtown.

Additionally, the new lights will be compatible with traffic cameras and will be programmable by computer so that lights which change from green to red during the day could blink during the overnight and early-morning hours.

Pangburn also noted that his company had worked closely with the New York State Historic Preservation Office to bring the project through a full environmental review.

“There’s several other historic districts downtown and we worked really close with the office to get through their concerns,” said Pangburn. “We think it’s going to be a really nice project for the city moving forward.”

The project was scaled back a bit from initial plans to replace a total of 23 traffic lights, but Pangburn said that Creighton Manning was currently in talks with the city and the state Department of Transportation to see if some of the signals that were excluded could be replaced as part of the lower Congress Street renovation project.

Funding for the signal upgrade is being split between federal and local sources. Under the current project plan, the Federal Highway Administration will pick up 80 percent of the $3 million cost, the state DOT will contribute 15 percent, and the city itself will be responsible for the remaining 5 percent.

In the past, Mayor Harry Tutunjian said that the project will be significant in bringing the city’s historic downtown up-to-date with current technology.