Aug 21, 2017 By Harry Funk 3 min read

Until the mid-1990s, the intersection of East McMurray and Valley Brook roads in Peters Township was served by stop signs.

Although a street redesign with signalization solved traffic issues for the time being, continued growth in the township during the past two decades has contributed to an influx of vehicles that frequently sit in gridlock.

A particular sore spot is where Thomas Road meets East McMurray, less than 400 feet from the Valley Brook intersection. Motorists who want to turn from Thomas in either direction often have long waits, as others queue up behind them.

A plan to attempt to rectify the situation, though, has failed.

Peters Township Council voted Aug. 14 against accepting a $382,950 matching grant for signal improvements at the tri-street intersection through Green Light-Go, Pennsylvania’s municipal signal partnership program.

Peters’ match would have been about $125,000, according to township manager Paul Lauer, with $101,000 of that coming from the municipality’s traffic improvement fee program.

“The intention is to use adaptive signal technology so that, in fact, it’s a ‘smart’ signal instead of just simply using the sensors that are out there,” Lauer explained prior to council’s vote. “The entire intersection is going to be working together in terms of these movements.”

Frank Arcuri, council chairman, expressed his doubts about a new system.

“We spoke about this before,” he said. “I was opposed to it, and I still am. I don’t see how that’s going to benefit that intersection, and quite frankly, I was always of the mindset that you could deal with that Thomas Road problem a different way.”

Last year, council turned down a Green Light-Go grant of $121,500, which would have represented half of the cost of a signal improvement project.

“Council had made a decision to reject accepting that in lieu of applying again because the matching portion was to the favor of the township by reapplying,” Lauer explained.

The state Department of Transportation, which administers Green Light-Go, has worked with the township in completing recent improvement projects including signalization at East McMurray and Center Church roads in 2012, and reconstruction of the Valley Brook Road ramp to Route 19 in 2014.

“The proposed McMurray Road signal upgrade is consistent with regional priorities that emphasize investing in existing infrastructure, improved signal timing and upgrading traffic signal equipment for new capacity,” according to information included in the township’s application to PennDOT for the grant.

The project would have represented the first adaptive traffic signal intersection in Peters Township and only the second in PennDOT District 12, which takes in Fayette, Greene, Washington and Westmoreland counties.

According to the Federal Highway Administration’s Center for Accelerating Innovation, adaptive signal control technology involves receiving and processing data from strategically placed sensors, which “can determine which lights should be red and which should be green. The process is repeated every few minutes to keep traffic flowing smoothly.”

On average, the technology improves travel time by more than 10 percent, according to the center, and in areas with particularly outdated signal timing, improvements can be 50 percent or more.