Tuesday, February 16, 1999
Traffic lights go high-tech
Fields Ertel work to start this summer
BY SAUNDRA AMRHEIN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
SYMMES TOWNSHIP — It's only 3:30 p.m. and already cars cluster in the Fields Ertel Road corridor, shimmering like shore pebbles in the afternoon sun.
Rush hour near Interstate 71 is anything but a rush. Nothing moves beyond a crawl as backups last from midafter noon until 7 p.m.
But by summer 2000, Butler and Warren counties plan to ease the commuting horrors of one of the area's busiest crossroads, which force daybreak motorists to leave 30 minutes early just to get through it.
“It's a free-for-all in the morning,” said Danny Jones, a 22-year-old landscaper from Goshen who stopped with a buddy to get gas at Sunoco Food Market on Mason-Montgomery and Fields Ertel roads. “You have people cussing and screaming at you to get out of the intersection, but you can't go anywhere.”
The dual-county project will use a computerized traffic signal system that will coordinate about 26 traffic lights along Fields Ertel, Mason-Montgomery, Montgomery and Union Cemetery roads.
The plan will use underground fiber-optic cables and sensors to detect the heaviest traffic and clear it out by changing the signals when needed.
Officials from both counties signed a maintenance agreement earlier this month, clearing the way for construction this summer. The $1.5 million project, to be paid for with federal highway money, should be up and running by summer 2000. But users won't get the most out of it until the Ohio Department of Transportation completes the widening of I-71 by summer 2001.
Along with ODOT, the two counties also are working with Symmes Township, which will house the main computer in one of its firehouses.
“The idea is that it will clear traffic more freely than signals usually do,” said Neil Tunison, Warren County engineer. “The area's growing by leaps and bounds. We are having a hard time keeping up with the increase in traffic.”
The project also calls for:
• An extra left-turn lane off Fields Ertel Road onto I-71.
• An extra lane on I-71 in each direction.
• An extra auxiliary lane in each direction on the interstate.
Planners have envisioned the traffic signal system since 1996, when they saw that a signal project would need to follow road-widening projects in the area, Mr. Tunison said.
The two counties spit the $166,000 cost of the design fee for the traffic system in 1997, he added.
Warren County has spent about $8 million to improve and widen roads in the area dating back about 12 years, Mr. Tunison said. Hamilton County has spent more than $12 million, said Ted Hubbard, Hamilton County's chief deputy county engineer.
The signal system is sophisticated in its advanced software and the scope of the traffic lanes it will coordinate, Mr. Hubbard said. “You're talking about a minicity.”
Each day, about 59,000 automobiles pass through Fields Ertel Road and Mason Road (called Mason-Montgomery Road in Warren County). By comparison, 62,000 pass through Colerain Avenue and Galbraith Road, while 48,000 go through Winton and North Bend roads, he said.
Motorists want fast relief.
Customers can hardly get out of Michel Tire Co. on Mason Road in the afternoon, said service manager Paul Stewart of Fairfield. “There's a lot of people bumper to bumper,” he said.
But Theresa Woods of Maineville said she doesn't think the system will help her get through a quarter-mile backup any faster in the mornings.
“During rush hour, traffic is just as bad this way as that way,” she said, flinging her arms in opposite directions while standing in the Sunoco parking lot. “Regardless of how you do it, you're going to have to wait.”
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