NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — The removal of the 30th and Lucille stoplight was the big topic in public comment at the Hutchinson City Council meeting Tuesday, with more than an hour of comment and both pro-traffic light and anti-traffic light people represented.
One council member believes a light should be there. Steve Garza was a senior technician working on traffic lights during his career with the city.
"I do believe they need a light, just based off of my experience," Garza said. "I was a certified traffic signal technician for a long time. They do need a light. Those cars coming off that one from the school, ain't no way they can get across, especially that time of day, and I can see the bus problem."
The traffic study done last spring before school got out said not enough cars go through there to warrant a light.
"What a warrant for a traffic signal is, I guess I should explain that," said consultant Jim Tobaben with JEO Consulting Group. "That is a threshhold condition. It's not a requirement to put a signal in if you meet those traffic volumes, but it is at that point or above, you can consider whether a traffic signal is the right device. In this case, we looked at three different warrants."
One was an eight hour traffic volume warrant, another was a four hour warrant and a third was a peak hour warrant. None of the three warrants had high enough traffic even using absolute peak numbers on both 30th and Lucille, even though both streets did not have peaks on the same day. Nonetheless, the council does want to be sure the numbers it is basing its decisions on are correct, so another study will likely be ordered, but not for a couple of months, because they want to let traffic get used to not having the light and see how the patterns shift before looking at the numbers again. A recommendation on that date will be set by the next council meeting on September 20th.