Traffic Signals

CAPE MAY COURT HOUSE - Saying traffic lights "have no place" on the Garden State Parkway - a lament of Cape May County residents and visitors for decades - state officials ceremoniously broke ground Monday on a $110 million project to remove the only three signals along the 172-mile toll road. Construction is expected to begin as soon as warmer weather prevails. It will take about two years and require the creation of bridges, overpasses, and ramps to give full access to the roadway at Interchanges 9, 10, and 11, where the lights now snarl traffic and create safety hazards.

State transportation officials have started this week to upgrade 26 traffic signals in the downtown area in an effort to reduce traffic congestion. Over the next nine months, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation will install traffic signals that will be connected through one system that can be controlled by the borough. The $1.9 million project will allow borough officials to adjust lights according to traffic flow and plan detours if there is a special event or traffic accident, said PennDot spokesman Gene Blaum.

Motorists in Whitemarsh Township said they had two years of the good life, and they want it back. A dozen residents at a meeting of the Whitemarsh Township Board of Supervisors Thursday night, said that while several temporary traffic signals operated during Schuylkill Expressway reconstruction, their driving experiences were relatively painless. But, they said, since PennDOT removed those traffic lights in December, highway problems have increased. Although the supervisors tabled action on an application to PennDOT for a traffic signal at the intersection of Germantown Pike and Church Lane - where a temporary light had operated - board members decided to investigate problem intersections in the township and to take further action.

The Warminster Board of Supervisors has voted to commit the township to $165,000 in traffic-signal upgrades. The supervisors delayed action, however, on a more comprehensive capital- improvements plan expected to cost $2.5 million and to be financed largely through borrowing. At a meeting Tuesday, Christopher Staub, supervisors chairman, said he hoped the comprehensive plan would be approved next week. Staub first presented that plan - which includes provisions ranging from extensive golf- course repair to storm- system upgrades - to the board in early June.

The Octorara school board will vote on whether to pay for traffic signals on Highland Road and upgrade signals on Route 41 at its meeting tomorrow night. The board had been discussing the installation of flashing signals for Highland Road but added upgrading the lights on Route 41, when a PennDOT official reviewed the traffic situation on Route 41. The official said that other changes could include establishing a 15 m.p.h. school zone on Route 41, although none of the schools has an entrance on Route 41. School Superintendent Richard P. McAdams has asked the board to request that West Fallowfield Township apply to PennDOT for the traffic signals and the 15 m.p.h.

Even though he has operated his gas station at the corner of Bridgeboro and Hartford Roads for almost 30 years, the last six months have been the most hectic for Walter Yansick. In that time, there have been four major accidents at the intersection in front of his gas station, all causing injuries, and Yansick said he saw no end in sight - no end, at least, until a traffic signal is installed. The solution is simple, but getting the light to the intersection is somewhat more complicated.

Traffic along two major thoroughfares in Lansdale should move more quickly, smoothly and sensibly under a plan approved last week by the Borough Council to upgrade several signals. Borough Manager F. Lee Mangan outlined the plan to install state-of-the-art traffic signals at Seventh Street and Cannon Avenue and at Valley Forge and Whites Roads; both intersections had no signals previously. Signals at five other intersections - Broad Street at Seventh; Hancock Street and Whites Road; Broad Street and Whites Road; Seventh and Line Streets, and Hancock Street and Church Road - will be significantly upgraded, according to Mangan.

The Octorara school board has voted, 9-0, to pay for traffic signals on Route 41 and on Highland Road. There will be a set of flashing signals on each road, and the cost of installing both is expected to be $10,000, superintendent Richard P. McAdams told the board Monday. The board has asked PennDOT to send the necessary forms to West Fallowfield Township, which must make the application. McAdams said that the last time school signals were installed, in 1970, the process took a year.

Re: "A new voice of authority is heard," July 13: Pennsylvania Council of the Blind wishes to thank Renee Kirby, the mayor's Commission on People with Disabilities, Temple University, and the Philadelphia Streets Department for addressing an ongoing safety issue for the visually impaired. With the construction of the audible traffic signals (ATS) at selected intersections, such as Broad and Spring Garden Streets, visually impaired individuals will be able to cross a busy street with the same confidence of a totally sighted person.

CAPE MAY COURT HOUSE - Saying traffic lights "have no place" on the Garden State Parkway - a lament of Cape May County residents and visitors for decades - state officials ceremoniously broke ground Monday on a $110 million project to remove the only three signals along the 172-mile toll road. Construction is expected to begin as soon as warmer weather prevails. It will take about two years and require the creation of bridges, overpasses, and ramps to give full access to the roadway at Interchanges 9, 10, and 11, where the lights now snarl traffic and create safety hazards.

The slow process of recovery from Hurricane Sandy continues in New Jersey. Gov. Christie announced today the end of odd-even gas rationing in the state's 12 northern counties starting 6 a.m. Tuesday. "The Odd/Even system has been very successful," Christie said in his Twitter feed. "It reduced anxiety and created order at the gas lines. " "It's time to get back to normal & back to work," Christie said, adding he had put away the blue fleece he wore during his tours of the state in the days after the Oct. 29 disaster.

Delightful changes along the Parkway I couldn't agree more regarding most of the points made in Patrick Kerkstra's article "Toward a more inviting Parkway for all" (Aug. 3). My wife and I are retired and live on the 2900 block of Pennsylvania Avenue. We are delighted with the significant changes that have taken place on the Parkway, especially the landscaping of the Rodin and Barnes museums, and the addition of the Sister Cities Park. We feel very fortunate to live so close to such a beautiful venue and we do take advantage of it. The comments about the need to make the place more pedestrian-friendly are right on target.

Class-action litigation over New Jersey's red-light cameras has expanded to six more cities and towns and could grow in the weeks ahead. Marlton lawyer Joseph A. Osefchen has filed suits in Glassboro, Monroe Township, Newark, Edison, Stratford, and Woodbridge in the last 10 days contending that motorists were illegally fined for running red lights after municipal traffic officials failed to complete required inspections of the cameras and intersections....

Traffic engineers were out Wednesday in South Jersey, counting cars and timing traffic to see if red-light cameras could meet a new state rule that has forced a temporary ban on some traffic tickets. And irate motorists were calling local officials and police, seeking refunds for $85 fines already paid for allegedly running the lights. The state Department of Transportation on Tuesday ordered 21 towns, including four in Camden and Gloucester Counties, to stop ticketing motorists while the lights were checked.

Red-light cameras in four towns in Camden and Gloucester Counties may be trigger-happy, and the towns must stop ticketing motorists while the lights are checked, the state Department of Transportation ordered Tuesday. Cameras at intersections in Cherry Hill, Glassboro, Stratford, and Monroe, and 17 other New Jersey communities may be connected to traffic signals that are improperly calibrated, the department said. The lights may not have a sufficiently long yellow phase to meet state requirements under a pilot program permitting 25 towns to install red-light cameras.

To take the "stop" out of stop-and-go traffic, Philadelphia is spending about $90 million over three years to upgrade traffic signals and synchronize lights at more than 600 intersections along 21 major corridors in the city. The first streets to get the upgrades are Oregon Avenue, 29th Street, Verree Road, Belmont Avenue, Bustleton Avenue, Chestnut Street, Walnut Street, and Woodland Avenue, said Stephen Buckley, deputy commissioner for transportation at the Streets Department.

More than 100 traffic signals in Northeast Philadelphia are set for upgrades, thanks to a $10 million grant from the federal government, U.S. Rep. Allyson Y. Schwartz (D., Pa.) announced Monday. The money comes from the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The grant was awarded by the U.S. Department of Transportation. The traffic signals are along nearly 16 miles of roadway, with the majority on Bustleton, Castor, and Oxford Avenues. - Robert Moran

A man was killed in a two-car accident Monday on Route 202 near a middle school in Chester County, authorities said. No schoolchildren were involved in the accident, which happened shortly before 2 p.m., at the intersection of Route 202 and Skiles Boulevard in Westtown, where there is a driveway from Stetson Middle School, local authorities said. A southbound GMC Yukon on Route 202 collided with a Ford Taurus sedan that was coming out the Stetson Middle School driveway, killing the driver of the Taurus, according to the Westtown-East Goshen Regional Police Department.