Peters Township moving forward on signal improvements
Efforts toward improving traffic flow on part of East McMurray Road and intersecting streets continue to move forward.
Peters Township Council on March 12 authorized township manager Paul Lauer to negotiate a contract with Traffic Planning and Design Inc. for professional services on a project that will expand the existing traffic signal at East McMurray and Valley Brook roads to incorporate the nearby East McMurray-Thomas Road intersection.
The state Department of Transportation awarded a grant through its Green Light-Go program to the township, with a provision that construction must be completed by June 30, 2019.
“Because there are state funds involved in this project, we need to follow their procedure for acquiring the services of design professionals,” Lauer told council. “Under their process, we need to take proposals and select someone strictly based upon qualifications. So we’re in an odd situation where we can’t tell you what the price will be or whether or not we’ll be able to negotiate with the consultant.”
Traffic Planning and Design, which has its regional office in Upper St. Clair, has served as Peters’ municipal traffic engineer for six years, prompting Lauer and Mark Zemaitis, township director of engineering, to recommend negotiating with the firm.
“Because they were involved in the drafting of this grant application, they are uniquely qualified and certainly have sufficient experience to be able to undertake this kind of project,” Lauer said.
The project, which has a cost estimate of between $400,000 and $450,000, involves the use of adaptive signal control – adjusting the timing of red, yellow and green lights to accommodate changing traffic patterns – to help alleviate congestion on the heavily traveled roads.
A problem spot that remains, though, is traffic backing up on Thomas Road and obstructing entry to a parking lot for Arrowhead Trail use. Jim Berquist, council chairman, said that “do not block” signs have been posted, but motorists routinely ignore them.
“What happens is, if someone wants to make a left into that parking lot and it’s busy, the traffic backs up onto East McMurray Road,” he said, expressing his opinion that adding a right-turn lane on Thomas would help alleviate the issue.
Lauer said that the measure could be explored.
“What we can do is once we have someone under contract to design this is to ask them to look at that to find out what the expense is associated with that and whether or not it’s feasible to do. But I would agree with you,” he told Berquist. “I think just putting a light in won’t accomplish what we hope it would.”
Zemaitis also addressed the parking lot.
“I think your best bang for the buck there would be if we could move the driveway farther away from the intersection,” he said about its proximity to East McMurray Road.
For the overall project, professional services include surveying, engineering design, permitting and construction inspection.
“I believe a cost of between 10 percent and 12 percent of construction would be customary and reasonable,” Zemaitis wrote in a letter to Lauer.
Besides Traffic Planning and Design, other firms that replied to the township’s request for qualifications are Herbert, Rowland & Grubic Inc., which has its regional office in Cranberry Township, and Whitman, Requardt & Associates LLP of Baltimore.