‘Out-Of-Date’ Junction Traffic Signals Stalls Retiming Proposal

The Takoma Junction Task Force has hit what one task force member called a “Catch-22” situation on its proposal to get the junction traffic signals retimed on a temporary basis to see how that impacts traffic flow.

The traffic signals at the junction are out-of-date, and so-long as they are out-of-date, Montgomery County—which oversees traffic signals—will not retime the lights, task force members said at their meeting Wednesday night.

The task force supports a temporary traffic signal adjustment at the junction, and is working to present a written proposal to the City Council at a council meeting during March.

However, because the junction traffic signals are old, the county will not change their timing, said Susan Robb. “The issue is the lights are out-of-date and that’s the reason the county won’t retime them,” she said, adding the information on the reason the county will not change the timing of the junction traffic signals was provided by a county official. Not changing the junction traffic signals’ timing “throws somewhat of a monkey wrench” into a plan the task force believed to be “easy,” she added.

In addition, “If the lights are obsolete, we (the task force) don’t have as near the options that we would with state-of-the-art lights,” she said. “So there would have to be an investment in lights where we could effectively time the lights.”

“Why do we have this old lighting at such an important intersection?” said Kay Daniels-Cohen, task force member. In addition, she said, “The county can’t do it because it’s old lighting, and the State Highway Administration forgot we exist, it sounds like a ‘Catch-22,’” she said, citing the novel of the same name by Joseph Heller.

Seth Grimes, task force co-chair, said city officials could turn to state lawmakers and request the traffic signals be upgraded. One possibility is having the City Council “go to our state delegation to get us upgraded lights, so that we could then take the next step,” he said.

However, members of the task force are schedueled to met with a county Department of Transporation official during he week of March 7, 2011, at which time they plan to discuss retiming the junction traffic signals.

Howard Kohn, task force co-chair, plans to invite members of the City Council and Mayor Bruce Williams to that meeting. The value of meeting a county official is the county is the most neutral party—perhaps—in this whole affair. “Because they (the county) have taken this position that they will not get involved in the intersection until it’s been upgraded,” he said.

Nonetheless, Grimes said that his experience dealing with the county on a number of issues is that county officials will say for the city government to take care if it. “The county will not do anything in Takoma Park unless they have a specific request from the city government, and if the city government doesn’t make that request, then it doesn’t happen,” he said.