Elgin looks to cut down on stoplight waits

It's 10 p.m., you're in downtown Elgin stuck at a seemingly never-ending red light, and no one else is on the street.

It's a scenario any driver in Elgin has encountered.

City officials hope to fix that problem by finishing a light interconnection program in the downtown area that has remained undone because of budgetary reasons.

Cameras that can detect when vehicles are waiting will be installed atop street signal poles at intersections along Kimball Street from Route 31 to Dundee Avenue and on National Street from Route 31 to Villa Street. They will tie in with already-installed systems throughout the downtown business district.

The project covers just over a mile of road at a cost of $165,840. The state is covering $103,200 through a federal grant program and the city will pick up the remaining $62,640, of which almost $10,000 has already been spent on design engineering.

Construction on traffic light systems downtown began in 2006, and the Kimball and National portions were supposed to be included in late 2008 until they were dropped because of budget constraints.

If approved by the city council at its Wednesday night meeting, the project will go to bid this month.

The goal of interconnecting the streetlight system is to improve traffic flow, and it won't give drivers a reason to want to run a red light, said City Manager Sean Stegall.

“It's not logical to have to sit there for so long,” he said.

City Engineer Joe Evers said newer optical sensor cameras, which can detect something of a significant size like a vehicle, are preferred over in-ground pavement sensors that detect metal. The old detectors are hard to maintain and aren't as sensitive as they could be, he said.

Stegall noted that the sensor cameras aren't red light cameras, and drivers shouldn't be worried that their pictures are being taken.