$13M signal upgrade begins
Long-delayed project has been in the planning stage for 20 years
POTTSTOWN >> A $13 million traffic signal coordination system that has threatened to assume the mantle of urban legend for nearly 20 years now is finally becoming a reality.
Workers broke ground at the intersection of North Hanover and Wilson streets on the “closed loop system” — a system of electronically coordinated signals that will allow more control over traffic lights for emergency vehicles, traffic flow and late night conditions.
“The shovels are in the ground, it’s finally happening,” said Pottstown Public Works Director Doug Yerger. It’s been a long wait. It was 1998 when Yerger first advised then-borough council that the electro-mechanical signal boxes that have run Pottstown’s traffic lights for more than 50 years were going to need to be replaced.
But the borough did not have the money for the project, so it became a PennDOT project and since then, has evolved several times, each time requiring another vote by council and another engineer insisting “this time,” it was really happening.
Councils have come and gone and each has learned to simply sigh, make a joke in Yerger’s direction, and approve the latest version hoping “some day” it would actually happen. “Some day” has arrived. What it means for drivers is a better coordination of the changing of the signals so, for example, it may be possible to drive on High Street from York to Washington without getting stuck at a light.
For emergency vehicles, it means a transponder on the truck or police car will trip the signal to turn green for the emergency vehicles, improving both safety and response times.
For late night drivers, it means no longer having to sit at a four-
way red light at High and Hanover streets (and other intersections) at 3 a.m. waiting for the pedestrian crossing signal to change.
“The main roads will ‘dwell on green’ late at night and only a vehicle coming down the side street will trigger a change,” Yerger said.
Also, most of those signals will be “pedestrian activated” at night, said Yerger, reducing senseless delays.
And, should Route 422 be closed for some reason, and all the traffic diverted onto High Street, the signals can be adjusted to push more traffic through the borough quickly to ease the jams, he said.
In addition to 40 intersections in the borough getting new signals, the same intersections will also get new handicapped ramps at all four corners, Yerger said.
Although the borough spent 10 years putting new ramps at all the corners in the borough, a federal lawsuit settled just as the borough finished its efforts dictated that the ramps be individually engineered, meaning most of them have to be re-built at a much higher cost.
Thanks to the closed loop, at least 40 of the intersections will be taken care of through this project, with is state-funded.
And the project extends out beyond the borough borders as well.
Lower Pottsgrove Township Manager Ed Wagner said every traffic signal in the township except one — Buchert Road and Keim Street — will be hooked into the system and upgrades will be made to many of them.
And all 11 signals in North Coventry Township will also be hooked into the system, said Township Manager Kevin Hennessey.
Some recently upgraded signals, like Route 100 and Temple Road for example, will only need minor adjustments to be connected because they were installed with an eye toward the eventual installation of the closed loop system, Hennessey said.
Seven signals — most along Route 724 at Laurelwood, Coventry Mall, Route 100, South Hanover Street, Route 422 and the signal at South Hanover Street and River Road — will all be upgraded as part of the project, said Hennessey.
In addition to the handicapped ramps, the signal project is also tied into a long-dormant plan, called “Re-Connections,” first proposed in 2004, to re-configure South Hanover Street between High Street and North Coventry.
Bike lanes and turning lanes will be added to the Hanover Street Bridge, which will be narrowed to two lanes with bike lanes also added.
A left-turn lane onto College Drive from northbound South Hanover Street will be added, said Hennessey.
Additionally, parking and a bike lane will be added between the bridge and High Street and “period street lights” will be erected along South Hanover and on the bridge itself, said Yerger.
The entire project and all its aspects are not expected to be complete until 2020, Yerger said.
“The main roads will ‘dwell on green’ late at night and only a vehicle coming down the side street will trigger a change.”
— Pottstown Public Works Director Doug Yerger