New traffic stoplights, poles planned

9 intersections getting upgrades

New traffic stoplights and poles are coming to nine intersections along Liberty Avenue, Vermilion’s main eastwest road.

On Feb. 27, City Council read legislation to hire K.E. McCartney & Associates Inc. for construction administration of the project, which is due to be finished by March 2018.

Council also read legislation to hire Perram Electric Inc. of Wadsworth for the installation of new poles and traffic signals at nine intersections in town.

Council did not yet have a formal vote yet on the contracts. However, City Engineer Lynn Miggins had positive comments about the project, which likely will be approved by Council in late winter or early spring.

“It is a big project and long, long overdue,” Miggins said after the meeting. “Any given week, probably one of our signals is out.”

The work will take place this year, she said, adding that the old signals must remain in place until the city can throw the switch to turn on the new ones.

Three companies submitted bids for the work, which had an engineer’s estimate of about $1.2 million. Based on the bids, the city will award the contract, with the base bid and added features, to Perram Electric for about $1.15 million.

The Ohio Department of Transportation will cover 80 percent of the cost.

The new stoplights will not be mounted on existing poles or hung from existing wires. Instead, the poles will require installation of new bases, electrical wiring, controllers and traffic detectors to coordinate when the lights will change color.

“We’re finally going to have coordinated signals on Liberty Avenue, which is

a first,” Mayor Eileen Bulan said Feb. 27 before the Council meeting.

The alternate specifications in the project plans include using decorative traffic poles for the intersections west of the Vermilion River, Miggins said.

Those poles will be black and have a fluted design to match the decorative poles around the intersection of Liberty Avenue and Main Street, she said.

The new traffic light poles will not have wires spanning the intersections to hang the stoplights. Instead they will use metal arms, which match the poles, to reach out over the roadways, Miggins said.

East of the Vermilion River, the intersections will use the poles and arms with a standard gray metal finish.

Vermilion years ago inherited its traffic lights from Westlake, Bulan said.