By NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — City Council member Jade Piros de Carvalho asked Tuesday about the temporary traffic light at 30th and Lucille now that the 43rd bridge is open on the other side of Prairie Hills Middle School.
"Are we going to keep it, are we going to get rid of it, are we going to upgrade it to a permanent structure?" Piros de Carvalho asked. "I'm hearing loud and clear that the residents want it gone. I have not had conversations with the school. I just wanted to open a conversation about that."
Jeff Peterson, director of engineering, hasn't had a chance to do the research to know where to go next yet, but they plan to.
"We've had it in the budget to put it as a permanent signal at some point," Peterson said. "There's quite a bit of cost for that. Going forward, what my hope is to do is do some traffic counts. I wanted to, once the bridge got open. I know that during school time is really when the benefit comes, because of all the bus access in and out and holding traffic back. What it is now, I don't know that I have a good feel for that at this point."
Peterson knows what he thinks about it, but he wants the numbers before making any change.
"Probably in January, I would start some of those traffic study portions," Peterson said. "I would suspect that it doesn't really meet warrants for a traffic signal there, honestly. But, I'm saying that out of turn, without having the information to back me up."
The high power lines there would make putting in a permanent signal a challenge, if it turned out that the traffic counts justified it.