Council Eyes $2.8 Million for Traffic Signal Improvements At No Cost to City

The traffic lights in the Perimeter area could get synched up over the next three years, and at no cost to the city of Dunwoody.

Monday, City Public Works Director Mike Smith announced at a city council meeting that the city is in line to receive nearly $2.8 million over the next three years for traffic signal optimization. No local match is required.

“To my knowledge, this will be the first effort of its kind in the region in that it will look to address signal coordination on multiple streets across jurisdictional boundaries,” he said.

The funding for the project comes from the Regional Transportation Operations Program, created by the Georgia Department of Transportation.

“It’s targeted towards signal optimization in regionally significant corridors and within major employment centers, such as the perimeter area,” Smith said.

The program will help to optimize traffic signals in the Perimeter Center Improvement District (PCID). The cities of Dunwoody, Sandy Springs, along with the PCID and DeKalb County will all need to sign an intergovernmental agreement to move forward on the project.

The funding would be spread over three years, Smith said, with around $900,000 coming in the first year.

Smith expects the city would receive and start using the money in late spring/early summer. The first step in the process would be to have an independent consultant develop a priority list for the improvements.

“I think this is a great idea,” said Councilman Denis Shortal. “We can retime our signals until we’re blue in the face, but if we come to the end of the city and we’re not in sequence, we’re just spinning our wheels.”

“Anything we can do to minimize or at least alleviate some of the traffic congestion would be greatly appreciated by the citizens,” Shortal added.

The council will vote on the intergovernmental agreement at its next meeting.