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Lorain engineering details upgrades to 42 traffic signals, highlights live monitoring and funding options
Summary
City engineering presented a pilot of live cabinet monitoring, video detection and traffic counts for Lorain’s 42 signals, outlined per-intersection costs and identified CMAQ and other grants as likely funding sources for completing upgrades.
Veronica Newsom, a traffic engineer in the city of Lorain’s engineering department, told the Streets & Utilities Committee that the city has cataloged its traffic-signal assets and is piloting live monitoring and video detection at priority intersections.
Newsom said the city has 42 signals and is testing a suite of tools — an online asset map, Glance cabinet-health software and Miovision video detection — at several intersections along the 611 corridor and at other high-profile locations.
The city is using the online map as an asset-management tool that contains photos, installation dates and “as-built” cabinet diagrams so engineers and outside consultants can see signal configuration without a site visit. “We have a map and then a, basically, an asset management system,” Newsom said. “We’ve gone out there and taken pictures of all the intersections, opened all of the boxes, and also basically taken all of the signal timing information and put that all online.”
Nut graf: City staff said the technologies — cabinet telemetry that reports temperature, voltage and door status, plus camera-based detection that counts vehicles and triggers adaptive timing — help maintenance crews diagnose faults remotely and produce continuous traffic counts that can support safety grant applications.
Why it matters: The tools give staff near-real-time visibility into signal performance, reducing overnight dispatch time and generating continuous vehicle, truck and pedestrian counts that the city can attach to grant applications for safety and congestion funds.
Newsom walked committee members through a live dashboard for the intersection of 58 and 611 that reports cabinet temperature, voltages, battery condition and whether the cabinet door is open. Onboard telemetry also generates alerts after power outages so technicians can prioritize repairs, she said. “When our signal guys get a message at 3 a.m., they can look on here on their phones and see what’s actually going on out there before they go out in the middle of the night,” Newsom said.
The city has also deployed Miovision video detection at 17 of the 42 signals and plans to add two more this year (Colorado & Henderson and Tower & 58). Newsom said the Miovision units provide continuous counts that distinguish trucks, buses, cyclists and pedestrians and yield seven‑day trends useful for planning and safety applications. She showed one 24‑hour sample that recorded about 16,000 vehicles through a single intersection and noted trucks typically constituted about 2 percent of traffic on that corridor.
Costs and funding: Newsom gave ballpark figures: about $250,000 for a full new signal installation with mast arms and associated hardware, about $10,000 for a camera, and about $6,000 per intersection quoted as a life‑of‑equipment subscription package (software, cellular service and support). She said the city plans to pursue CMAQ (Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality) funding through NOACA and other safety dollars, and noted the Department of Energy funded work on six signals along the 57 corridor as a 100 percent formula grant.
Council members asked how often signal warrants are reevaluated for intersections removed from the state’s warrant list. Newsom said some studies date to 2015 and staff has been pursuing updated safety studies for sites that predate current development, noting the city has administrative judgment to request signals where new conditions make them warranted.
Several committee members urged that data from continuous counts and camera monitoring could support requests for additional signals or upgrades at locations cited by residents, including East 28th and Pearl and areas near schools where parents report unsafe crossings.
Ending: Newsom said the combination of the asset map, cabinet telemetry and video detection helps maintenance, safety analysis and funding applications. She asked the committee to consider CMAQ and other grant avenues for full deployment along key corridors; council members signaled interest but also raised cost and data‑privacy questions to be resolved before broader rollout.
