Lawton City Council to look at modernization of traffic signal lights

Lawton’s traffic signal lights need some work, say elected officials who want to look at a comprehensive upgrade.

The City Council will discuss the issue today when it considers an agenda item from Mayor Stan Booker and Ward 2 Councilman Kelly Harris centered on a report from Traffic Engineering Consultants (TEC) about modernization of the city’s entire traffic control system.

The men said in their agenda commentary that limits in the city’s existing system make it difficult to cope with “evolving traffic patterns,” movements that contribute to congestion and delays. Supporters say the idea is to use modern technology, adaptive signal control algorithms and data-driven approaches to create a better system, upgrades that would address immediate traffic concerns and improve overall efficiency for drivers.

Traffic flow has been an on-going issue for the City Council for several years, with members trying to address constituent complaints about traffic flow — or the lack of flow.

Efforts already have been made in that direction, to include work completed last year to upgrade signal lights on Gore Boulevard between Northwest 2nd Street and the ramps to Interstate 44 so their timing could be changed to help traffic flow into East Lawton. The old system prevented those changes, city engineers said.

In other road-related issues, the council’s Streets and Bridges Committee is making two recommendations for the citywide mill and overlay program already under way.

That committee has crafted a 41-item list of roads that could be improved by mill and overlay, a technique that grinds off the top layer of asphalt then applies a new layer to create a new road surface that also gives that road five to eight years of additional life. Ellsworth Construction already is working on the first 10 streets on the project list, and committee members had said the remaining 31 projects would be funded in the new fiscal year that begins July 1.

Today’s recommendation from the committee is that the city staff initiate the bidding process for all remaining streets in one bid package. No funding source was identified.

The committee also is recommending that work on King Road (the entrance and exit into Lawton-Fort Sill Regional Airport from South 11th Street) be moved up in priority so it can be done as soon as funding is identified, and that work on U.S. 62 (a project toward the end of the list) be expanded. While that work had focused on U.S. 62/Quanah Parker Trailway between Northwest 82nd Street and the transition point where state maintenance begins, it should be expanded east to Northwest 79th Street, the committee said.