Murrysville has few options to protect traffic light control boxes

Murrysville officials have had problems in recent years with crashes on Route 22 causing damage to the electrical boxes that control several traffic lights along the highway.

The municipality plans to replace the current light-control system. But in the meantime, they don’t have a lot of options to protect the boxes, according to Murrysville Chief Administrator Michael Nestico.

“The issue is that, going through PennDOT, they have prohibitions about putting bollards in place to protect those cabinets,” Nestico told council at its meeting Wednesday night in response to Councilman Mac McKenna’s suggestion to put some sort of barrier in place.

“We’ve been told that it can’t happen,” Nestico said. “We’re trying to see if there’s a workaround or if we can get an exception for intersections where we’ve had regular damage to the boxes. There’s a liability and safety basis for that on PennDOT’s end, I think.”

Outside of the necessary traffic infrastructure, PennDOT has restrictions on what can be placed in rights of way on state roads.

Murrysville officials want to upgrade the adaptive system — including the control boxes — used to coordinate Route 22 traffic lights through the town’s commercial corridor. Earlier this summer, council began pursuing a grant to start that work.

The current system was created by Rhythm Engineering. It’s about 12 years old, and Nestico said part of the reason repairs to the system have taken time is that municipal staff has had difficulty reaching Rhythm officials regarding maintenance and other issues.

Since installing the system, multiple control boxes have been damaged during otherwise minor crashes.