Five intersections on Central Avenue — Dayton, Main, Xenia, Hebble and Broad — will be upgraded in what is just shy of a mile stretch of road.
Construction is expected to start in the spring of 2013, and City Engineer Jim Sawyer said it will take four to six months to complete.
“The interconnect will basically synchronize the traffic signals block by block along Central Avenue,” Sawyer said. “We can set the timing so that it affects the flow of traffic. We’ll get a smoother flow of traffic through that corridor, and because it’s smoother, it makes it safer.”
City Council unanimously approved earlier this month the LPA agreement that states that the city will comply with ODOT requirements, such as design standards and contractor selection. ODOT awarded the grant out of its Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality funds because the project will help improve air quality in that area, Sawyer said.
The funds will be used to purchase new infrastructure, including signal heads, battery back-up units and traffic detection video cameras, and the cost to install it.
“It will help traffic move through the city in a more efficient manner,” City Manager Deborah McDonnell said. “When you’re in a city and you’re able to get through it quickly, you have a better feeling about that city. Residents and those who visit our city will enjoy being able to get through our city.”
With the Ohio 444 relocation scheduled to take place in early October, traffic is certain to increase at the Central/Dayton intersection. Because of that, ODOT has granted the city more time to make modifications to its design plan.
“That intersection is going to be a busy intersection,” Sawyer said. “We’re going to be monitoring it to determine what issues present themselves, and what better solutions come from that. It may be widening the road or new signalization. There’s a number of things we may need to do there because traffic is certainly going to increase.”
Fairborn has completed other projects with similar LPA agreements in the past, including a signal interconnect project for Dayton-Yellow Springs Road and Colonel Glenn Highway (2008); resurfacing Dayton-Yellow Springs and Maple Avenue (2009); and this year’s Streetscape project.
Sawyer also said the city recently received a $900,000 CMAQ grant from ODOT for a $1.4 million signal interconnect project designed to upgrade a mile-and-a-half stretch of Broad Street in either 2014 or 2015.
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