If approved, Meadville would have received $122,808.87 from PennDOT. However, the city would also have been required to contribute as much as $216,000 toward the project, according to City Manager Andy Walker.
In addition to new poles, mast arms and signals, the proposed safety upgrades would have included audible and visual pedestrian signals and pedestrian buttons as well as new pavement markings. The intersection, which is adjacent to First District Elementary School, receives a high volume of traffic from school buses as well as pedestrians who attend First District as well as Allegheny College.
Council members John Battaglia, Bob Langley and Nancy Mangilo Bittner voted against accepting the grant money. Deputy Mayor Sean Donahue voted in favor. Mayor LeRoy Stearns was absent from the meeting.
PennDOT had originally awarded the grant to the city for signal replacement at the intersection of Mead Avenue and French Creek Parkway as part of its Green Light-Go program. When it became clear that PennDOT’s reconstruction of French Creek Parkway, scheduled for 2018, would include replacing that traffic signal, PennDOT approved applying the grant to a signal on another state route.
PennDOT’s Green Light-Go program encourages modernization of traffic signals on state and local highways through a competitive grant process and requires applicants to contribute at least 20 percent of project costs.
Several council members expressed reservations about accepting the grant because it required the city to contribute a 50 percent match and pay for all additional costs of a project estimated to cost $339,128.
Councilmember John Battaglia, who has criticized the Green Light-Go program at past council meetings, was particularly vocal in his opposition to the grant.
“To get $122,000 we have to spend $200,000,” he said. “They’re just throwing out a little bit of money and we have to throw out a lot.”
Battaglia described the intersection in question as definitely needing improvement but said the need resulted from the physical layout rather than the traffic signal.
“If they were saying they were going to make the turn lanes bigger and the radii on the corners larger I would say, ‘Good idea,’ but I think it’s a waste of money to put a new signal up,” he said.
Walker admitted that the traffic signal was not the city’s highest priority but said that the equipment does not meet current PennDOT standards.
The outdated condition of the existing signals and the possibility that grant funds might not be available in the future when the signals are further outdated did not prove persuasive to the council members.
“I’m with John on this,” councilmember Bob Langley said.
Even Donahue, who said he voted in favor of accepting the grant because it had already been planned as part of the city’s capital expenses, said, “I understand why they’re saying no.”
Mangilo Bittner asked what the money budgeted for this project could be spent on if it did not go toward the traffic signal upgrade.
Walker responded that the city has no shortage of capital projects. In fact, he said, if the city does not win grant applications to replace the three traffic signals on Water Street, he would likely be back to ask the council for more money to support those projects. Due to the deteriorated condition of those signals, the projects are a much higher priority, Walker said.
After voting not to accept the PennDOT grant for the North Main Street and Randolph Street intersection, council considered a grant from the same program to replace the signal heads at the intersection of Park Avenue and Linden Street and to install video detection cameras at the intersections of Park Avenue and Pine Street and Park Avenue and Poplar Street. Video detection cameras are similar to motion detectors and are used to improve traffic flow and to replace outdated pressure sensors.
In this case, the grant was for $15,601.36 and only required the city to contribute the same amount. Council voted unanimously to accept the grant.
©2016 The Meadville Tribune (Meadville, Pa.) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
