California traffic lights going ‘green’
Fourteen communities in Washington County, including California Borough, are going green with their traffic lights. The 14 communities are participating in the Washington County Municipal Traffic Signal LED Replacement program, anticipating energy and maintenance savings with the new signals.
“The county is going to pay 80 percent of the installation,” said California Borough Councilwoman Donna Bridges, who worked on the grant application with the borough’s engineer Art Brower of Fayette Engineering.
“The LED’s are going to last a lot longer,” Brower said.
While some incandescent bulbs in traffic signals may need to be replaced every few months, it is anticipated that the new Light Emitting Diode bulbs will last several years.
California Borough currently has only one intersection controlled by a traffic light, plus another blinking light warning of a bridge near Coal Center, Brower said. The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation is installing new traffic signals at the south end of town, which will be LED units from the start, so no grant money will be needed to convert those lights.
The Washington County Redevelopment Authority is overseeing the Department of Energy grant that is being used to purchase and install the new lights.
Susan Morgan, the redevelopment authority’s municipal planning manager, said the LED traffic signals use 85 to 90 percent less electricity than the incandescent fixtures they are replacing. Morgan said that some municipalities already using LED signals have seen energy savings of at least $40 a month per intersection. Brower said the grant application estimated that municipalities would see a return on their investment within two years. Morgan said she is hoping bids come in low enough for the boroughs to save the installation costs in no more than one year.
Morgan said the next step is for HMT and Associates, a Canonsburg engineering firm, to go around to each of the municipalities to develop the bid specifications. The project will then be advertised for bids and the work should be completed this year, Morgan said.
Morgan said that if the bids come in low enough, all of the communities will receive all of the replacement signals that they requested and crosswalk signals will be included as an alternate bid item. Morgan said with all 14 municipalities under one contract the bid price should come in lower than if they each bid the work separately.
Participating in the current grant are Beallsville, Bentleyville, California, Carroll, Charleroi, Chartiers, Donora, East Washington, Hanover, North Charleroi, North Franklin, Peters, South Strabane, and Union. There are 25 municipalities that own and maintain traffic signals. Seven of those municipalities have already replaced their incandescent signals with LED signals.