Pickerington Area Taxpayers Alliance

Mr. Hackworth,

I strongly disagree that this intersection gets more priority than the Columbus/Lockville/Center intersection. I am sure you travel it enough to city hall that you understand the problems without my adding detail here. Please consider elevating the priority of easing this congestion at this intersection as soon as you can.





Thursday, October 12, 2006

By SEAN CASEY
ThisWeek Staff Writer

Pickerington officials are using a new technology to alleviate congestion at one of its busiest intersections.

This month, the city's service department is installing traffic-monitoring cameras to control the signals at the corner of Hill Road and Columbus Street, which serves as the gateway to Olde Pickerington Village.

This crossroads often backs up with vehicles, especially those trying to turn left from Hill Road onto Columbus Street, and it is the intersection residents complain about most, staff engineer Brenda VanCleave has said.

A study of area traffic commissioned by the city last year justified citizen concerns, recommending the replacement of the intersection's motion-detection sensors, Councilman Ted Hackworth said.

These sensors, which are sometimes activated by moving objects other than vehicles, have not performed consistently, he said.

The cameras installed this month, however, are designed to work more effectively. The monitors record an image of the street at regular intervals and can decipher differences between the images. As the cameras detect changes in the number of vehicles at the intersection, they activate the stoplights accordingly.

''That's a pretty important intersection in Pickerington and we hope that this improves traffic down there,'' Hackworth said.

The cameras do not take photographs of individual cars or monitor the intersection for drivers for violations, however.

The equipment has been delivered to the city, but the service department is still scheduling an appointment with an electrical contractor to perform the necessary wiring work.


By KT Smith

Changing the detectors first

K T Smith

The reason that Pickerington is replacing the auto detection devices at Columbus and Hill Road intersections first is because of a long history of failures of the current devices that detect automobiles waiting to turn at this intersection. It has a motion detection device currently that has been proven to be unreliable. The service department and I have received a number of complaints about left turn signals not detecting their automobiles.

As you may know most of the other traffic signals in the city have an inductance system with a set of wires cut into the pavement and they are very high maintenance devices. They are more commonly called ''loops''. These loops need regular maintenance and normally have a life expectancy of around 5 years. In early 2004 Mr. O'Brien and I (service committee) asked that we do a survey and then a study on the traffic signals in Pickerington. It was found that many of the traffic signals in Pickerington were in need of repair. Some of the loops were found to be crossed wired and some simply didn't work. In the last few years the city has allocated money to do regular maintenance on the traffic signals in the city.

As you also may be aware of the intersection that has the most traffic (as a result of the traffic study of 2005) each day is Refugee and 256. We have applied for and we have received a safety grant from ODOT to widen and improve that intersection. More than 30,000 cars travel through that intersection each day.

With the detour of Diley road we had a number of semis going through the intersection at Hill and Columbus Streets It also generated a lot of complaint calls. The staff and our traffic engineer recommended that we change out the detectors at this intersection first and see how its works.

If these new detectors work well and last longer then I would push to replace all of the loop detectors in the traffic signal system including the Columbus,Center and Lockville road detectors. The high failure rate signals will get the highest priority.


By Ted Hackworth