New system could improve traffic flow in Clinton
By Randy Bell
The same type of technology that Clinton police use to write speeding tickets is now helping to move traffic through the city more efficiently – and it’s about to undergo a major expansion.
The Board of Aldermen has approved a memorandum of understanding with the Mississippi Department of Transportation (MDOT) to install radar sensors to detect vehicles at or approaching intersections along Highway 80, on Springridge Road from Highway 80 to Clinton Center Drive/Johnston Place, and on Clinton-Raymond Road from Highway 80 to Fountain Park Drive/South Frontage Road. MDOT will pay for those upgrades, which will be done in January.
The City has already placed the new traffic control equipment at Northside Drive and Clinton Parkway/Pinehaven Drive and hopes to eventually cover all of the Parkway from Highway 80 north plus Pinehaven from Northside to Arrow Drive.
“It’s actually a pretty cool system,” says Clinton Public Works Director Phillip Lilley. “What they’re going to do [is] put a camera up. This camera will be able to read every lane at the intersection.”
Lilley says as a car approaches, the camera will create a real-time detection diagram of the vehicle and will work with the traffic signal controller to send traffic through the intersection in the most efficient manner.
Lilley says it’s a big improvement over what the City has now.
“Currently, we’re using loop detection. Basically, that’s a metal wire in the [street] which constantly has a charge to it. When you drive across that plane, that’s what lets the computer know that something’s there or passing through.”
But Lilley says they’ve had ongoing issues with the old system.
“The loops are sealed with tar. So, in hot summers as cars are going across it, the asphalt is getting softer, [and] those sensors, the loops themselves, start to tear up. The tar that seals it disintegrates. You have more breaks in your loops, and you’ve completely lost loop detection.”
When that happens, the intersection is switched over to an automatic timing system.
The radar-based detectors aren’t cheap, costing about $19,000 per intersection.
Lilley says the one the City installed at the Northside intersection a few months ago showed him that radar detection “is the way to go.” He says traffic at the intersection “runs a lot smoother during peak hours.”
After MDOT completes its work, the job of expanding the system north on Clinton Parkway will be on the City’s dime, but Lilley wants to continue pushing forward to improve traffic flow in Clinton.
“At every intersection in Clinton, I want radar detection,” he says.
