A better light

MOSES LAKE — Traffic lights in Moses Lake are going to get an upgrade.

But it’s not the kind you’re going to be able to see.

At a regular meeting of the Moses Lake City Council on Tuesday, council members voted unanimously to award a $435,000 contract to Northeast Electric to update and replace the traffic light control systems at 11 intersections across the city.

“The controllers were made in the 1980s, and we’ve had to scavenge parts,” said City Engineer Richard Law. “When they’re done, they’ll all be state of the art and based on the same technology the state uses.”

Under the contract, the control systems for the traffic lights at the intersections of Grape Drive and Central Drive, Third Avenue and Pioneer Way, Pioneer Way and Hill Avenue, Pioneer Way and Sharon Avenue, Fourth Avenue and Division Street, Fifth Avenue and Division Street, Third Avenue and Alder Street, Third Avenue and Dogwood Street, Pioneer Way and Nelson Road, the five-cornered intersection of Pioneer Way, Wheeler Road and Fifth Avenue, and the blinking red and yellow light at the intersection of West Valley Road, Crestview Drive and Airway Drive will all be replaced.

The last, however, will remain a blinking yellow and red light, and will not be converted into a proper traffic light, Law said. But the controller for that intersection is old and is located atop the light itself, which hangs in the middle of the intersection.

“We’re not upgrading,” he said. “That would cost $1 million-plus.”

Law said crews from Northeast Electric will do one intersection at a time, and the work will take about two or three days at each intersection, during which the intersection will still be open and usable to motorists. If anything, the lights in the intersection will likely spend a short time in flashing mode, so motorists may have to treat it as a four-way stop, Law said.

“If it goes completely down, there will be flaggers on hand,” he said.

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached at cfeatherstone@columbiabasinherald.com.