ODOT study warrants signal at Tyler and Highway 4; Tuttle faces roughly $500,000 installation bill

City Manager Aaron told the Tuttle City Council that a recent Oklahoma Department of Transportation (ODOT) study concluded traffic volumes at the Tyler and Highway 4 intersection “does in fact warrant a signal at Tyler and Highway 4.” Aaron said ODOT will perform design and engineering work but will no longer participate in a cost-share for installation, leaving the city responsible for the contractor installation cost, which staff estimated at roughly $500,000.

Aaron said the timeline from the start of design to installation would likely be two to three years. He recommended staff ask ODOT to prepare a draft agreement for the city to review but emphasized the council would not be committing funds by authorizing development of that draft.

Council members asked whether the new signal technology could support emergency-vehicle preemption; Aaron said ambulances transmit a preemption signal from vehicles but the town’s intersections do not yet all have receiving equipment and staff would check whether the proposed package includes that capability.

Separately, staff updated the council on utility operations: the city is installing fiber to sewer lift stations to enable remote monitoring and early detection of mechanical problems. Public-works staff said the fiber-linked monitoring has allowed technicians to spot problems “days before it actually happened” and to perform small fixes that avoided larger repair costs.

Next steps: staff will ask ODOT to draft an agreement and return with that document and cost details for council review and possible budget planning.