Tuesday, April 17th, 2018
St. Marys to remove 9 downtown stoplights
By Ed Gebert
ST. MARYS - City officials plan to remove nine downtown traffic lights since Memorial High School is no longer in the area and the Spring Street reconstruction is nearing.
City council's Streets and Sidewalks Committee on Monday approved the plan from Craig Moeller, superintendent of community services and engineering. Moeller was joined by Craig Eley and Allen Heitbrink, traffic analysts with Choice One Engineering, and recommended removing nine of the 13 downtown traffic signals that were studied.
The lights to be removed include two pedestrian crossing signals on Spring Street. Eley noted the foot traffic and vehicle traffic no longer merited these lights. He said if the city were to apply for funding to help pay for the Spring Street reconstruction, the state would not fund unwarranted traffic signals.
Lights will be replaced by four-way stop signs at Wayne and High, Wayne and Spring and at Front and High streets. Two-way stops will replace the signals at Front and Spring, Pine and Spring and at Vine and Spring.
Traffic lights will remain at High and Main, Spring and Main, South and Main and at Spruce and Spring streets. Left turn arrows will be added to the signal at High and Main streets.
The pedestrian crosswalk lights on Spring Street will be replaced by enhanced crosswalks, possibly with rapid-flash beacons to alert drivers that a pedestrian plans to cross.
No definitive schedule was announced, but Moeller said the first light to be phased out will be the signal at Front and High streets, with that light being converted to a flashing four-way red light sometime in July so drivers can adjust to the change before school begins again in the fall. That same plan will likely be employed for the signal at Vine and Spring streets this summer.
According to Moeller, the Spring Street reconstruction project will not begin for at least three years, so this is a good time for drivers to learn the new traffic patterns downtown.
