By James Hanlon
Leader Staff Writer
“Even stop lights blink a bright red and green,” goes a line from the classic Christmas song “Silver Bells.” In that spirit, the Michigan Department of Transportation effectively gave Oxford an early Christmas gift this year, saving the village $80,000.
Since the M-24 construction project began, Oxford Village Manager Joe Madore has been trying to get MDOT to leave behind a pair of left-turn arrows that were added to the north and south traffic lights at the Glaspie St. and E. Burdick/Lakeville Rd. intersection along the official detour route to help vehicles cross the extra traffic from the detour.
The village has wanted to put left-turn signals there for years. A couple years ago, the school district requested looking into a left-turn arrow at the intersection to assist with after-school traffic from Oxford High School, particularly to help buses heading south turn left onto Lakeville Rd. “The estimate we got from the Road Commission was $80,000,” Madore said. “Even if we wanted to split it 50-50 with the schools, it wasn’t doable for either party.”
The intersection was first signalized in 2005 and costed $100,000. It was partly funded by private donations. An incremental step was made in 2018, when on-street parking along N. Glaspie St. was eliminated so the left-turn lane could be extended. Then came the M-24 project and the detour route.
Along with temporary signals at Ray and North Oxford Rd., and East and Glaspie St., MDOT requested and paid for the left-turn arrows at the Burdick/Glaspie intersection. Now that the M-24 detour is no longer needed, the temporary signals at those intersections have been removed. But MDOT agreed to leave the left-turn arrows, since it was already paid for.
The light cycle goes in a three-phase sequence, where the northbound light and left-turn arrow turn green, then the southbound light and left-turn arrow turn green, then east and west lights turn green. The east and west signals do not have turn-arrows.
“The reason they had to do it that way was because of limitations of the equipment box on the corner,” Madore explained. “That equipment box, in order to bring it up to a new standard left-turn situation is where a lot of that cost was of the $80,000 estimate.” If they had paid full price for a new signal, they could have had standard left-turn arrows for the east and west signals as well.
Madore says it is helping with the school traffic, and he is working with the road commission on adjusting the timing.
At the Dec. 8 meeting, Oxford Village Council voted 5-0 to reinstall stop signs at the Polly Ann Trail crossing on N. Glaspie St., a few blocks north of the intersection. The stop signs had been temporarily removed for the duration of the M-24 construction project to help traffic flow through the official detour route.
Village President Kelsey Cooke said that the council received numerous communications from residents in the area who supported the signs. Opinions from officials were mixed, however. Polly Ann Trail Manager Linda Moran and Oxford Police Chief Mike Solwold were in favor of reinstalling the signs, while Oxford Fire Chief Pete Scholz and Oxford Schools Transportation Director Ann Weeden preferred the signs be left down.
Weeden wrote in an email that the stop signs backed up traffic in the morning heading north and in the afternoon heading south from the high school.
Solwold favors the signs because they help slow traffic coming south down the hill toward the village as the speed limit abruptly changes from 50 miles per hour to 25.
Madore said he thinks the school-related traffic backups have more to do with the issues at the Glaspie/Burdick intersection than the stop signs.
“The backing up of the buses, I don’t know how the stop signs would change that,” he said. “I think the left turn situation was much more of a problem at that intersection, and we’ve addressed it some. With the school traffic, it’s virtually all southbound, heading east out of town. I think by accomplishing the left-turn, the changes to the lanes we did . . . pretty much took care of the biggest problem the schools had.”