Recommendations awaited on traffic signal study
Draft recommendations on a possible reconfigurarion of Uptown traffic lights expected this summer, a county official said.
Draft recommendations by experts on a possible reconfiguration of Uptown traffic lights are expected this summer, a county official said.
Brian Slack, a principal transportation planner with the Ulster County Planning Department, said Thursday he could provide a specific date for the recommendations. But he said a pubic informational meeting will take place once the draft recommendations are completed.
Meanwhile, Slack said, video recordings of traffic and pedestrians at Uptown intersections that were part of the study have been completed.
“The counts were recorded for 12 full hours (7 a.m. to 7 p.m.) at different locations over the course of April 30 - May 8,” Slack said via email. “The cameras collected bicycle, pedestrian and automotive turning movements.
“This time period represents adjacent street peaks; overnight volumes would not warrant a traffic signal,” Slack noted. “The data will be supplemented with existing data that we’ve collected in the past.”
Slack said the cameras “only needed to be installed for a full weekday in length to get useful data; however, the longer they were left up, the more information we will have to work with.
“It remains to be seen how much data was collected due to battery life,” he added. “The data is collected by a third party contractor (Tristate) and provided to our prime contractor (Creighton Manning) for review. We have not received that summary yet.”
Earlier in April, video recording devices popped up at mostly Uptown intersections as part of a traffic and pedestrian study.
The study is being jointly overseen by the city of Kingston and the Ulster County Transportation Council, according to Dennis Doyle, director of the Ulster County Planning Department.
The company that makes them is called Miovision.
“For those that are familiar with the tubes that (are placed across) the road to count vehicle movements, the video recorder is the next generation of technology that replaces this system,” Doyle has said. “It is particularly useful at intersections where multiple directions, turning movements and pedestrian activity needs to be considered.”
Doyle said the video recorders are often used to get pedestrian counts along walking trails.
“The city of Kingston, N.Y., identified a number of signalized intersections that may no longer meet the minimum traffic and safety warrants to justify their continued operation,” Doyle has said.
“Aging signal infrastructure, difficulty and expense associated with maintenance, changing traffic conditions, and driver frustration due to perceived unnecessary delay have been cited as justification for engaging in this effort,” Doyle said.
“Several signals have been removed in the recent past with generally favorable results,” he said. “The use of limited objective criteria used in these instances has raised concerns regarding consistency, safety, and effectiveness should addi
tional signals be removed.”
Doyle said the study uses a uniform and objective approach to evaluate the continued need for selected traffic signals and, “if no longer needed now or in the reasonable future, and will prioritize their removal.”