More cameras installed to improve Clinton’s traffic flow

By Randy Bell

They look a little bit like giant showerheads hovering over some of Clinton busiest intersections, but they’re actually traffic cameras aimed at helping the signal lights operate more efficiently and reducing the amount of time that motorists sit in their cars waiting for red to change to green.

The City continues to install more of those cameras.

“There are about nineteen,” says Public Works Director Phillip Lilley.  “This includes [cameras] installed by MDOT.”  According to Lilley, the Mississippi Department of Transportation put up cameras along Highway 80 and at the I-20 interchanges, while the City has been focused on the Clinton Parkway.

“My plan is to upgrade all of the Parkway,” Lilley says. “Due to budgetary constraints, we have to move methodically.”

Recently, workers installed a camera at Pinehaven Drive and Arrow Drive to help improve the flow of school traffic through that intersection.  Lilley says it’s also designed to minimize unnecessary red lights on Pinehaven when there’s no traffic on Arrow Drive.

He admits, though, that some fine tuning of the technology may be needed, “with still some configurations and modifications that will have to occur.”

Those will be based, in part, on public feedback.

“On-site observations or traffic studies are vital,” Lilley says.  “Being that we can’t be everywhere all at once, customer complaints will also help us find those abnormalities which occur with all automated electronics.”