By GLYNIS HART
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CLAREMONT – The City of Claremont established a capital fund to cover traffic light replacement and repair Wednesday night, moving $3,835 left over from last year’s (2018) budget into the fund.
Finance Director Mary Walker explained that every year’s budget for the fire department contains money for maintenance and repair of the lights, but the amount available wasn’t enough to replace the lights.
Fire Chief Bryan Burr indicated it would cost over $20,000 to replace old traffic lights in the city. The non-capital reserve fund will accumulate money toward eventually replacing the lights.
Burr said, “Some of those systems are over 30 years old. With new technology coming in, they’re far behind the curve.”
Nine traffic lights in the Washington street corridor will be realigned soon, thanks to a Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) grant. The immediate effect of that expenditure, which does not come out of city funds, will be to synchronize the traffic lights, so that a driver traveling a consistent speed, without undue traffic interference, could pass through a corridor of green lights one by one.
“It should reduce your emissions,” Walker added. “That’s why we were able to get that grant.” The less time people spend idling at lights, the lower their emissions.
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