There seems to be some confusion in the city of Hubbard, as crews upgrade ten traffic signals along U.S. Route 62 from State Route 304 to Moore Street to include emergency vehicle preemption and fiber optic interconnections.
"I think people were kind of worried about the speeding. If they were for speeding, you know if they were going to get a ticket," says Libby Koulianos, who works at Main St. Tanning, on the corner of North Main and West Liberty in downtown Hubbard.
But that's not the case at all. The Ohio Department of Transportation says the $1.7 million federal funded project will control traffic flow and detect lights on emergency vehicles to get them where they need to go quickly. "So that when an emergency vehicle, a police, a fire, an ambulance, has their strobe lights incoming toward it, it changes so that it goes green, so that they can go through a clear green signal," explains Paula Putnam, Public Information Officer with ODOT District 4.
The sensors also replace old loop detectors ODOT typically installs underground, to change lights from red to green based on the weight of the vehicles.
"Where you had to sit maybe 30, 35, 40 seconds for the light to rotate, if there's no vehicles coming the other direction it changes within five seconds and you're on your way," says Hubbard Chief of Police Martin Kanetsk.
Putnam says this new standard and technology will save ODOT money and man power.
The cameras are not there to catch speeders or red light runners, but the police chief says if that's what people think, let them think it. "If it slows down traffic and makes them put their seat belts on and drive carefully, that's more power to us," says Chief Kanetsky.
The project also includes new pedestrian walk/don't walk signals and reflective arrows and cross walks. All the work should be wrapped up in August.
