A contractor hired by the City of Morgan Hill began installing the posts, lights, wiring and other infrastructure for a new traffic signal at Monterey Road and Fourth Street this month. City staff do not yet have an estimated timeframe for when the signal will be operational, but they expect the signal to offer another “traffic calming” measure at a busy downtown intersection.
“Presently, the signal poles are being installed and the wiring is being pulled through the conduits. However, we are still waiting for the signal controller cabinet to arrive. Unfortunately, until we have a firm delivery date on the signal controller cabinet I cannot provide you with a date as to when the signal will be functional,” Morgan Hill Deputy Director of Engineering Scott Creer told the Times Sept. 18.
In March, the city council approved a $306,000 contract with Mike Brown Electric to install the traffic light.
On July 4, 2016, a vehicle struck two children who were crossing the Fourth Street crosswalk. The new traffic light will include pedestrian crossing signals.
The traffic signal is one of a number of efforts enacted by the city in recent months to improve safety for pedestrians and bicyclists in the downtown. Other recent enhancements include overhead lighting at downtown crosswalks, bright orange hand-held flags that pedestrians can carry across key intersections to make themselves more visible, resurfacing and narrowing of Monterey Road vehicle lanes and the installation of raised, painted arrows in the surface of the right travel lane on both sides of Monterey as a bicycle lane.
