Green means go

By RALPH BARTHOLDT

Staff Writer

COEUR d’ALENE — A plan to replace 11 traffic lights in downtown Coeur d’Alene on both Sherman and Lakeside avenues was given the green light Tuesday by the City Council.

The estimated $92,000 cost will be the city’s portion to pay for the project that will likely run about $1.25 million. The city applied last year and was approved for a highway grant to pay the remaining amount.

The project, slated for 2021, will replace the electrical systems, signal heads, pedestrian signals and push button lights. The steel posts and cross arms will be refurbished, but will be the same ones that are there now — they hearken back to the 1990s.

The idea is to improve safety in the downtown corridor, where over the past five years, there have been 91 crashes in the combined Lakeside and Sherman corridors between First and Eighth streets, city engineer Chris Bosley said.

The work will ultimately improve traffic flow. The pedestrian crosswalk signals will be upgraded to ADA standards, Bosley said, with countdown signals and pedestrian timers and the new lights will be coordinated.

“So (motorists) won’t be caught in red light, after red light, after red light,” Bosley said.

Although all the work will be above ground, it will likely take a few days for the signal heads and electronics to be replaced at each intersection, he said.

Malfunctioning lights have, at times of high congestion, caused crashes downtown. Since 2012, most of the property damage crashes — a total of 15, as well as one crash resulting in an injury — have occurred at the Lakeside and Fourth Street intersection. The intersection at Sherman Avenue and Fourth Street is another hotspot where 11 property damage and two injury crashes have occurred over the past five years, Bosley said.

Two serious injury crashes have occurred downtown at the corners of Sherman Avenue and Sixth Street over the past five years.