The traffic light debate in Kirksville is still being reviewed after last month’s decision to decrease the amount of lights downtown.
The dispute over the removal of certain lights stemmed from the decreasing amount of traffic in the downtown area in relation to the cost of operating the traffic signals, according to Kirksville Deputy Public Works Director Len Kollars.
“Basically, we were looking at the cost of the operation of the system and since the traffic numbers had decreased over the years, we thought it might be beneficial for the city to take a good, hard look at it to see if they were really essentially needed,” said Kollars.
As for concerns about pedestrian traffic, Kollars said the traffic signal changes should not affect daily foot traffic.
“Pedestrian crosswalks will still be there. We will do some painting and striping for the sidewalks and so forth so the pedestrian activity and crossing in those locations would not change,” Kollars said.
According to Kollars, Kirksville residents expressed mixed feedback. He says some residents think it is a good idea to see traffic lights in operation while others think it is better if vehicles did not have to stop as much, and due to the delay of waiting for the signal to time out, they would be able to progress through the intersection without a lot of delay in time.
Kollars says the continued operation of the signals will be determined by the Kirksville City Council under the recommendation to turn the lights back on to their full cycle movement unless they come up with a new arrangement for traffic control.
