The Commonwealth Transportation Board launched a project Tuesday to install traffic lights at seven city intersections and synchronize the lights on Emmet Street.
"This is something we've been planning and requesting for a number of years," Charlottesville Vice Mayor Meredith Richards said. "I'm glad to see it finally moving forward."
The state board selected the Woodstock, Ga. firm Mastec North America Inc., the lowest of four bidders, to work on the $826,735 project, said John J. "Butch" Davies, the Commonwealth Transportation Board representative for the Charlottesville region.
The project will put traffic lights at the intersections of Madison and Preston Avenues, Park Street and Melbourne Road, Meade Avenue and East High Street, Morton Drive and Emmet Street, Monticello Avenue and Carlton Road, and at Elliott Avenue and Sixth Street. Flashing lights will be installed at the Jefferson Park Avenue and Shamrock Road intersection, said Angela Tucker, Charlottesville Neighborhood Development Services manager.
In each case, the city petitioned the Virginia Department of Transportation after studying the intersections and finding that they were dangerous, Richards said.
"The city requests new traffic lights when certain intersections meet warrants that justify lights," she said. "If an intersection receives a lot of complaints, lots of accidents or when citizens come to us and say 'We need a traffic light,' we will do a study of the intersection."
In addition, $30,000 of the funds allocated for the traffic project will go to synchronizing the traffic lights on Emmet Street within the city limits, City Traffic Signal Supervisor Lonnie Randall said.
"That bottleneck where Rt. 29 goes from five lanes to two needed to be improved -- that's the whole point of that," Randall said.
VDOT maintains the traffic lights past Hydraulic Road on Rt. 29 that already are synchronized.
"We wanted to coordinate [our traffic lights] with theirs on Emmet Street so it would flow better," Randall said.
Richards said one reason for the synchronization was that through-traffic was moving too slowly in the city.
"We'd been hearing from our neighbors to the south in the Lynchburg and Farmville area who were concerned we weren't moving vehicles quickly enough through the 29 North corridor," Richards said.
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