Mixed signals

Aldermen question why work on traffic lights was delayed

By Jennifer Eisenbart

Staff Writer

While the city’s major road construction projects are done for the year, at least one similar project remains – and members of the City of Burlington Common Council wanted to know Tuesday night why it hadn’t been started yet.

The Committee of the Whole considered the initial presentation to award a bid of about $19,200 to Pro Electric, Inc. to modify the traffic signals in the city – work that has been planned for months.

The bid will go in front of the council for approval at the Dec. 4 meeting, but council members expressed some impatience at Tuesday night’s meeting.

“In my mind, we should’ve done this a month ago,” said Alderman Peter Hintz. “So we were ready to go when the construction was done.”

Tom Foht of Kapur and Associates said the project was just bid out two weeks ago, but that didn’t satisfy Hintz.

“It’s not like we didn’t know about this,” he said. “I was under the impression that when they were done over there (with road work), they’d be working on this right away.”

Alderman Tom Preusker said he had the same impression, and Alderman Tom Vos added, “We probably should’ve had this done a long time ago.”

In addition to changing the timing of some signals, there were also questions on whether some discussed changes were going to happen.

Among the intersections questioned at the meeting were the Jefferson/South Pine intersection, which Vos thought would be converted to stop signs. Foht clarified that the intersection would remain lighted, but with an optimized cycle.

“More responsive?” Vos asked, to which Foht said, “yes.” The new programming will allow for a quicker switch when traffic is on one of the two streets, rather than the continuous full-length phase it is currently set to.

The council also discussed were a pair of intersections on Milwaukee Avenue – at North Pine and at Chestnut. Preusker had thought changes still had to be discussed for both, but Foht said the final recommendation was simply to fine-tune the signals at the Milwaukee Avenue/Pine intersection.