Traffic lights are synchronized from Yorktown Avenue to Utica Avenue on East 21st Street in Tulsa. STEPHEN PINGRY / Tulsa World
Fixing Tulsa's streets doesn't only mean filling cracks and laying pavement.
For city Traffic Operations Manager Kurt Kraft, it's also maintaining and improving the equipment that makes orderly driving possible - traffic signals, guardrails, streetlights.
Voters will greenlight $12.1 million in such "traffic engineering" projects if they approve a nearly $920 million capital improvements package in November - possibly including the synchronization of nearly all traffic signals along and south of 21st Street.
"I think it only benefits the entire city," Kraft said. "The things in the traffic package just supplement the streets package and also supplement things like the Fire Department."
The crown jewel of the traffic engineering projects - at least the one motorists would notice the most - is the synchronization.
The city has already synchronized all traffic lights downtown and along 71st Street and has synchronized much of Yale Avenue and Memorial Drive, along with small portions of Riverside Drive, 21st Street and Utica Avenue - about 170 intersections in all.
The coming capital improvements package would include $2 million to continue the effort - enough for more than 150 intersections at about $10,000 per intersection, plus some funding for traffic cameras at major intersections.
"I'm hoping to catch everything from 21st Street south," Kraft said.
Synchronization improves traffic flow by syncing nearby traffic lights using calculations for how long it takes motorists going the speed limit to go from one intersection to the next.
The goal is to reduce the number of red lights for the typical motorist.
"Basically the idea is we're trying to move the most traffic that we can," Kraft said.
Crews would install traffic cameras at several major intersections as part of the project, he said. Those cameras allow officials to see traffic jams and to verify whether signal lights are malfunctioning.
The city already has such a camera at 71st Street and Memorial Drive.
Also among the traffic engineering projects is $3 million for traffic signal installations and an upgrade of the system that controls flashing school signs, which Kraft described as "unreliable."
Kraft said the money will be used when a new traffic signal is requested - assuming that the intersection has sufficient traffic volume and history of collisions.
It would also fund signals at six intersections that have already been approved: 61st Street and 90th East Avenue, 31st Street and 121st East Avenue, 12th Street and Southwest Boulevard, Riverside Drive and Southwest Boulevard, Mohawk Boulevard and Peoria Avenue, and Skelly Drive and Union Avenue.
Installing signals at an intersection generally costs $150,000, Kraft said.
The next-largest allocation - $2.5 million - would go mostly to replacing traffic signs that "are really faded or don't have good retro-reflectivity" and remarking faded pavement lines, Kraft said.
Another $1 million each would go to replacing substandard guardrails citywide; repairing burned-out street and highway lights and replacing decorative streetlights, such as those in some neighborhoods and parks; replacing traffic signal poles; and "traffic calming" such as speed bumps, but only as requested by neighborhoods.
The Fire Department would also benefit directly from the traffic engineering projects, as they include $400,000 to upgrade the system that alerts traffic signals of upcoming fire vehicles and turns lights to green or red to clear out an intersection.
Kraft described the new system as the "next generation" of the existing infrared-based system, using GPS over greater distances.
"Say he puts on his blinker, and (the system) can start pre-empting the signal for the next street down," Kraft said. "Basically it's spotting the truck the whole time."
Traffic engineering projects
Signal installation, safety upgrades: $3 million
Signing, pavement marking: $2.5 million
Signal synchronization: $2 million
Guardrail replacement: $1 million
Roadway & decorative lighting: $1 million
Speed bumps: $1 million
Signal pole replacement: $1 million
GPS emergency vehicle signal system: $400,000
Creek Turnpike trail pedestrian bridge over Memorial Drive (study only): $200,000
Zack Stoycoff 918-581-8486
zack.stoycoff@tulsaworld.com
Original Print Headline: Traffic upgrades sought
