7516 – Is there a magic traffic signal button? With Chris Sokolowski

My guest: Chris Sokolowski

Chris is the Assistant City Engineer for the City of Champaign. In this conversation he answers every question I’ve ever had about traffic signals: How many are there? Who decides when it’s time for a new one? Can lights be changed from a central location? Will we see more roundabouts any time?

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Transcript

This is an automated transcript which likely contains minor errors.

Steve Holstein:
How many traffic lights do you hit on your way into work every morning?

Chris Sokolowski:
I actually live outside of town, so I only hit about four, but when I go home, I drive through about six or eight and then I drive around town a lot. We do all of our shopping and a lot of our dining and stuff here in town. So one question

Steve Holstein:
I have, and I don’t know if you know this or not about how many different signals are there in a champagne, uh, just alone.

Chris Sokolowski:
Uh, I probably don’t have the exact number off the top of my head, but we have about 110 to 115, I think, uh, in champagne of those about two thirds are, uh, owned by the state on state routes. And then the other third are a hundred percent city owned and we share, we share ownership, a lot of the ones on state routes. So it’s a cooperative effort.

Steve Holstein:
It’s like a state route would be like route 10, also known as Springfield, right? Yeah. So Springfield

Chris Sokolowski:
Avenue, uh, Neil street from Springfield all the way south out of town, um, Madis and prospect north of Springfield all the way up to the interstate are also both, uh, state routes.

Steve Holstein:
Okay. So when you’re dealing with state government and you decide, you know, this particular intersection on route 10, uh, that the light is too short, do you have to talk to your guy at the state or because it’s in champagne city, do they let you make adjustments

Chris Sokolowski:
On the state routes? The state has a, um, district signal engineer that’s in charge of the timings, um, not just in champagne, but in the other, uh, municipalities and district five, which would include larger Ys, Bloomington and Danville. Um, so they control those. We can make suggestions and they try to accommodate us, but, um, you know, their number one goal is always to keep traffic moving on the state route, which would be our goal to that’s that those are the busier roads in town. Um, and you want to keep traffic moving on those streets, especially during the morning and the evening, uh, busy

Steve Holstein:
When you’re out driving around or, uh, you know, your boss or even the mayor, you know, somebody says, you know, I have noticed that this particular light, it’s just, it’s, it’s a busier city now than it was, it seems to be shorter. Do these kinds of suggestions come in or, you know, are you able to sort of see all of that through some sort of, I dunno, spreadsheet that comes into your office and you’re like, oh yeah, based on the number of cars, this is just going to have to be adjusted and we don’t even need people to tell us. So,

Chris Sokolowski:
Um, I guess the simplest way to explain this is over the years, I’ve been here for 23 years. So over the last 20 plus years, um, at some point or another we’ve done, or the state has done traffic counts at different intersections and develop the timing Pines based on those traffic volumes. And then periodically we check back in to see if volumes or traffic patterns have changed much. Uh, so some locations haven’t had changes for a long time because of the patterns stay pretty consistent. And a good example of that would be downtown. Um, downtown traffic is pretty consistent and so the timings don’t change very much. Um, and the other flip side of that would be north prospect where, um, over from the last 20 to 30 years, things have changed a lot up there. So that’s been revisited probably four or five times. Um, and while most people won’t believe me, when I say this, it operates as well as it can operate, given all the constraints up there. Um, and that’s something both the state and the city are constantly keeping an eye on. So while I know that’s the one people get most frustrated with in town, um, it’s also the one we probably spend the most resources on tweaking.

Steve Holstein:
I, I don’t know how you look at north prospect, but I sort of look at it like, um, like a puzzle or almost a video game, because based on which store or stores I’m going to, I might take a, a route that takes me coming in from the west or the east after I’ve gone north, or sometimes I’ll even get on the highway and go so far north and then come back in from the north going south to north. Well, you’re actually

Chris Sokolowski:
Doing things that I would recommend to people when they get frustrated, especially during a busy weekends. I mean, during the regular day, um, cause our public works office is right here. I had up there to go to lunch or to run errands and that, and during normal times it works pretty good going north, especially, but when you get a busy shopping weekend, the other routes in Neil and Madison, that a lot of times you’re going to get there in the same amount of time. And probably instead of having to sit in traffic, you’re moving. And to me that just feels better than sitting in traffic. So,

Steve Holstein:
So probably the most technologically advanced, uh, traffic signal, uh, technology that we might have would be what, like the devices that don’t firetrucks use devices that can change the signals when they need to things like that.

Chris Sokolowski:
Yeah. Yeah. So, um, I, uh, preparation for today, I kind of thought through in my time here, what are some of the things that, that in my time, since graduating college and starting to work, what are some of the technologies that came about? Um, preemption is definitely one that’s what, what would the fire and actually police, uh, cars have access to as well. And it’s GPS based. It used to be line of sight and there’s a light on the truck and a light up on the master arm. People probably used to see the, uh, there’s a white confirmation that comes on above the traffic lanes that tells you that the signal is being preempted. That’s still a lot of locations, but GPS based allowed the preemption to start when the truck is around the corner or further away to clear traffic before the fire truck gets up to the signal in a much more efficient manner than the old technology.

Chris Sokolowski:
So that, that is one improvement. Um, that same, um, software allows for transit priority, which we don’t use very much here in town again, because we don’t have a lot of the congestion issues or, uh, that a lot of larger communities have, but there are places that we use that, and that allows a bus to extend the green for eight or 10 seconds, if it fits within the, all of the other timing parameters so that they can get through the light and stay on schedule better, uh, there’s video detection. So we use video cameras to detect traffic. Whereas those used to be metal loops in the pavement and the damage of that is it, it, it, um, it’s better for our pavements, uh long-term that we are not cutting into them for the detection, and it’s easier to fix them. If we have an issue, we can troubleshoot it much easier.

Chris Sokolowski:
Um, we’ve added countdown timers. If you see those, uh, for the pedestrian time to cross the street, uh, that’s a newer technology that everybody understands much better than just the flashing hand when you’d had no idea how much time you had to cross the street. And then the last one I wrote down where we have accessible push buttons, um, for pet crossings that, um, for folks who are visually impaired, uh, talk and let you know when the walk lights on. So that improves accessibility for folks. And that’s something that’s probably new in the last probably 10 to 15 years. So

Steve Holstein:
Now there’s a technology I’ve heard about. I don’t think we have in champagne or champagne county, where you as a driver, get some sort of a warning that the light is going to change from red to green. And I don’t know what that’s called. Have you heard of it? Basically

Chris Sokolowski:
Heard what you’ve just said, but it’s not something that I’ve heard when I go to a couple of annual conferences, um, that talk about emerging technologies in that. So maybe it’s just not quite there yet. Maybe they’re piloting it. I don’t know. But, um, I haven’t, I haven’t heard about that one from our signal manufacturers yet, so, sorry. I wish I had more info.

Steve Holstein:
Yeah. When you were mentioning some of the technologies that had changed over your years with the city, um, is led lights. One of those, because haven’t most traffic signals gone led,

Chris Sokolowski:
We were one of the early communities to, to try out LEDs and you know, now they’re, they’re pretty much everywhere. Um, their main advantage was it, it saved a lot of money on power costs that we used to pay for to power traffic signals. Um, and then, um, you know, one of the disadvantages is, uh, on some of the signals when you get snowdrift, uh, you know, um, LEDs don’t heat up like old incandescent bulbs. Um, and I was just talking to our traffic and lighting folks. They actually bought a couple, a new product that’s coming out called a heated signal visor that would, um, possibly help them with that. So we’re going to try that out at a intersection here, probably in the neck, this fall for the winter and keep an eye on that and see if that’s an option for us moving forward at intersections where we have that issue. Yeah. Th

Steve Holstein:
My, my, uh, my, my wife had a really good question and, and it does really kind of pertain to the old bulbs and the new ones. How often do you have to change a bulb? Uh, or I don’t even know. They’re probably even called bulbs anymore because you’ve got an L cluster of LEDs, but how often do those have to be changed? Because that’s one of the advantages, as we know in our own homes that LEDs don’t burn out as often. Yeah.

Chris Sokolowski:
Um, they last, most of them tout about a ten-year life. Um, I think we’re getting at least that proud of most of them. You’re always going to have outliers in the different batches. So there might be some ways we have to change a little center, but I think it’s roughly about 10 years, the old incandescent bulbs. I, I mean, I’d have to think back to when I first started here and we still have those, but I believe those would go out. Um, you know, the, the, the red and greens are the ones that are on the most. So I think that was an once a year to every two years, I’d have to replace those. Um, and I mean, a side benefit to replacing them less often is, uh, less exposure for workers and traffic in closing a lane and, and swapping out bulbs. So then there’s benefits to the public too, cause we’re not blocking the lane, um, for that. And then the LEDs fail a little differently. Uh, folks might notice when you look up at some of the older ones will be, um, just some of the individual LEDs love, burned out, but the, but the whole thing is announced. So you still have some indication of what polite is, and then we typically replace them before the whole thing’s out. So it’s not completely out. Um, I notice arrows seem to fail a little differently, so that might not apply to the two, the green and yellow arrows.

Steve Holstein:
I noticed on, uh, the, uh, overpass on Curtis road there, Southwest champagne that, uh, lights have been added there on either side of the bridge. Was that part of the plan when, you know, the new overpass was being planned out whatever 10 years ago,

Chris Sokolowski:
Also for a little background interstates while they’re, they are federal, um, the state bot’s, um, manage those, um, for the federal government. And I don’t know all the background details of how that happens, but, um, I, that controls, um, decisions related to the, uh, interchange and the overpasses and, and all of that. The state basically determines when the signals would go in at the interchange. Um, they, uh, traffic related to the Carlton fields development is probably, what’s mostly driving the signals there. Um, and then there’s other, you know, other Southwest champagne traffic, but, um, a couple of times of day, I think in the morning specifically, the ramp was starting to get where people were starting to queue probably about halfway down that ramp toward the three lanes of the interchange. And I know the number, one thing that, that I dad has always concerned with is like you now on traffic backing up into a, through lane on the interstate, because there’s a potential for, um, you know, for, uh, a serious, uh, crash when that happens. So I’m sure they’ve been monitoring their volumes out there. And when it got to a point that they felt it needed a signal, that they went ahead and had those installed here this spring or summer.

Steve Holstein:
Yeah. So there was probably always known that at some point, those signals were going to have to be put in there.

Chris Sokolowski:
Does it just a matter of when the volumes got to where, um, the state would decide to put them in? So yeah, no surprises that they were there, um, the location of the intersection for Carlton fields and, uh, all that’s decided and determine with, with all that long-term vision in mind, those ramps would be signaled,

Steve Holstein:
Uh, the yellow borders that popped up around the signals over the past year or so tell us about those because, uh, they, they really make the signal stand out, which I, uh, is probably the point. Yeah, yeah. Um,

Chris Sokolowski:
Those are, uh, all at state intersections. So, uh, district five, I, I got district five, um, decided to move to those two, like, just like you said, improve visibility of the signal heads. Um, I think one of the primary reasons was if you had a dark signal, a lot of them, you know, uh, across the district, uh, which district five is primarily a rural district with the exception of champagne and Bloomington and Danville. Um, we have a signal out where there aren’t any streetlights, you would not necessarily be able to even see that there’s a signal and then you’d have that potential for a, for an accident. So I think that was safety was one of the primary motivating factors. And then a nice side benefit is they do pop, um, pretty nicely, uh, given the, the rest of the track. So equipment’s typically black, uh, coded. Um, we haven’t put those in, on city intersections yet. Um, we still have to probably discuss that. That’s something we want to move to. I mean, I doubt in us, uh, have different types of facilities. They have high-speed facilities and they’re much larger intersections and busier, and we haven’t decided if we’re going to move to doing those everywhere or not. Uh, but the district had those a couple of years ago and, um, I mean, they do, they do help with visibility. So

Steve Holstein:
It’s something that yeah. Might think about down the road, but yeah. Yeah. They, they seem to, they seem to grab the attention, which is good, you know, to keep everybody alert and awake. So that’s good.

Chris Sokolowski:
Somewhat unique to district five. I don’t, I don’t think that, uh, I think they had those, uh, they designed them and had the manufactured, so they’re not like an off the shelf product. Oh, is that right? Yeah. Yeah, but they’re not that I don’t remember the cost, but they’re not that expensive. We have to stock some, since we do maintenance on state signals through a intergovernment agreement with the state and then get reimbursed for that. So we have to stock some of those in case we have a signal knocked down or something gets damaged. So, you know,

Steve Holstein:
I was in, it just occurred to me that, you know, technology changes probably every year with traffic signals. That doesn’t mean that the city of champagne or the city of Urbana adopt some new technology every year. But like you said, you know, fire trucks and police cars are now using GPS to help change the signal a block ahead of time, you know, which is a neat, uh, an updated technology. One thing that has not changed, I don’t think is Italy is the lowly old stop sign, right? Well,

Chris Sokolowski:
Uh, yes and no. So we, um, our traffic and lighting section, uh, found a product that, um, uh, there’s some intersections in town where we, if we have a crash problem, we’ve had a flasher above the stop sign, and now you can buy stop signs that have the LEDs around the border of the stop sign within, and that’s the same old stop sign, but it’s just lighting in a different way. So we’re, we’re testing a couple of those out on Bradley avenue that McKinley, um, to, um, to just see how those, um, um, look and operate compared to the flasher aspect. Cause, um, they might be a little bit easier for us to, um, maintain and keep in stock. So,

Steve Holstein:
So I, I imagine a signal goes in, like you brought up Bradley and McKinley when even all of the LEDs and the extra stop signs and everything. I imagine that’s when a stoplight is, is put in, then when there are a number of accidents or fatalities, I mean, is that, is that the main reason or are there other reasons? Yeah, there’s a, there’s a handful of reasons.

Chris Sokolowski:
Safety is probably always one of the main drivers of almost everything we do. Um, so if there was a location that had, um, a crash history and we were not able to address it another way, we would seriously look at the traffic signal, if that makes sense for that location, because everything is unique to the individual location. Um, but not amount of traffics on a major street. Like if you look at the intersection of Windsor and Staley over there by the Y it’s a stop right now, someday that’ll be a traffic signal. Uh, so that’ll probably be more driven by the traffic volumes there, once it gets to a point that it’s so busy and there’s a delay, you know, you’re getting a lot of delay trying to get through it, then that would probably move over to a traffic signal. I don’t perceive that one being a safety issue in the future.

Chris Sokolowski:
So because there’s just nothing there that contributes to the type of locations that typically have the safety issues. And then the last one way that we typically end up installing them would be it’s driven by development. So the signal at Carlton fields, they’re just west of the interchange on Curtis. Um, anytime there’s a large-scale development, they’d have to do a study that shows what the impact of the traffic they’ll generate will have on the intersections around them. And if that traffic amount of traffic requires a traffic signal within the next 10 years, and it’s put in with the development so that the development pays for it and the city doesn’t have to put it in 10 years later. And then the taxpayers are paying a hundred percent of that, the developers pairing up, paying a portion of it, and the city has a portion of that. So those are the three main ways

Steve Holstein:
Since you mentioned Windsor and Staley, and that a light will probably be in there at some point. Um, what about, what about, I don’t think that’s a location for a roundabout, but, or do you see more roundabouts going in? Um,

Chris Sokolowski:
I don’t, I don’t really know if I can predict that. I mean, that’ll obviously, you know, the ones we have are on local streets or within a development. Right. So if we were to, um, extend that out to busier street, um, and probably the best candidates would be the intersection of two, two lane roads. So, so in actuality, Windsor and Staley would be potential from an operational standpoint. Like, I don’t know if fitting the roundabout in the constraints of the right of way and all that would work, but the two lane roads are probably the best candidates if you were going to do one, because they’re the most straightforward roundabouts to drive through. Um, but that would probably require some discussions with council and public input to make sure that their community is kind of ready for one of those. Um, there were, there’s been times we’ve thought about them and it’s a pretty divisive topic with the public people, either love them or hate them.

Chris Sokolowski:
And there’s really not a lot of in-between opinion on them. So, um, I mean the one in the development at, uh, Neil there near Devin Shire by the Starbucks and all that, uh, my wife frequent that Starbucks and I get to hear about all the ridiculous things people do in that roundabout when she goes there. So, uh, I don’t know if we’re quite there yet, but, um, I mean, I could see that happening at some intersections, probably out toward the edge of town, you know, on the Duncan’s Staley corridor, somewhere out there, you know, there could potentially be one in the future.

Steve Holstein:
Yeah. Maybe, maybe what we need is a, since we don’t have a lot of them, we would need a practice roundabout. So we would go two miles, two miles outside of town. We would, uh, the city would buy up some farm field, throw, throw, throw in a practice roundabout and give everybody two years to learn how to use it. Or maybe

Chris Sokolowski:
At another municipality could try it first and then, you know, break everybody in and then we can jump right in there.

Steve Holstein:
There you go. Rantoul, we’re talking about you, please break in some break in some roundabouts so we can try them out. So, uh, Chris, when I was on the radio and I would get to go to a concert, uh, and I would have these all access pass has given to us by like the tour manager. Uh, we could go anywhere in the venue backstage, wherever we wanted it, does the mayor have like an all access button where she is cruising down the road and has got to get to a meeting. She can press it and all the lights will just, boom, boom, boom, layout green for her.

Chris Sokolowski:
No, I I’m sure that they are fine and would love to have that. Um, and if we had one, um, it, I mean, if I, if I told you there was one, then, then we’d have everybody in the organization asking for one. Uh, so, so, so no, uh, the only, uh, you know, the only people that may have that would be like, uh, I mean, you could probably say the fire chief does cause he probably has the preemption equipment, uh, uh, available to him. But, um, I’m sure he doesn’t use that unless he needs to.

Steve Holstein:
And even if he has it, he’s not going to tell anybody probably that Chris [inaudible] with the public works department. Thanks for jumping on the podcast with me.