Butler County Engineer Greg Wilkens is spending practically $1 million to improve 45 visitors alerts in excessive visitors areas with a number of sensible expertise options for safer pedestrian and driver journey.

Wilkens plans to spend an estimated $995,683 to improve visitors alerts — $686,314 of the funding is coming from the federal authorities — alongside main roadways equivalent to Cincinnati Dayton and Tylersville roads and Union Centre Boulevard in Liberty and West Chester townships. There are a couple of in Fairfield, Madison and St. Clair townships.

Wilkens instructed the Journal-News they’re including the pedestrian countdown pads at crosswalks, radar gadgets, cameras and expertise so lights can change accordingly when emergency autos are approaching.

“It’ll be safer for drivers and pedestrians,” he stated.

He stated the radar gadgets assist with visitors circulation and the brand new system additionally permits them to manage the alerts remotely, like the brand new system the town of Hamilton put in, to keep away from gridlock sparked by the brand new Spooky Nook Sports Champion Mill complicated.

“We’ve got a radar system that looks out 500 … 600 feet to see if cars are coming, and it keeps that signal green if there’s no approaching traffic rather than just letting it change,” Wilkens stated.

He stated they have already got the distant management functionality on Tylersville Road from Interstate 75 going east, however they don’t deploy it fairly often.

“We can tweak that remotely if we had to, but when you play with that stuff you’ve got to be careful because you can upset the apple cart,” Wilks stated.

He stated usually the alerts are managed on-site when there are massive occasions.

He was in a position to get the grant by means of the Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Regional Council of Governments that doles out federal funding for native tasks. The $1 million price ticket sounds a bit steep for management panels, however Wilkens stated that’s the manner of the brand new post-pandemic world.

Earlier this yr West Chester Twp. needed to pay $401,000 for a brand new visitors sign on the intersection of Tylersville and Smith roads. Wilkens managed that mission.

“That signal jumped; we were in the neighborhood of $150,000, $200,000 … that is what we budgeted for a signal,” Wilkens stated. “That’s what’s happening in that world, too.”

Wilkens has additionally utilized for a $813,639 Ohio Public Works Commission grant to assemble a brand new roundabout on the tough intersection of Cox Road and Kingsgate Way in West Chester Twp., close to the proposed new Kroger Marketplace mission.

If Wilkens will get the grant cash, his division will chip in $340,548 and the West Chester trustees have authorized a $25,000 contribution to the $1.18 million visitors circle.

As plans for the Kroger Marketplace have been going by means of the approval course of, neighbors have complained bitterly what the enormous retailer will do to visitors at that intersection.

Wilkens stated the roundabout was within the works earlier than the Kroger plan developed.

“It’s by the new Kroger it’s not for the new Kroger…. It’s an independent project really,” he stated.

Final trustee approval for the Kroger Marketplace is tentatively scheduled for subsequent Tuesday. It has been tabled twice as a result of your entire board wasn’t current.

When the trustees authorized their contribution final week, Trustee Ann Becker stated the roundabout can’t come quickly sufficient.

“I’ve been waiting for this roundabout ever since I’ve been on the board of trustees, not that it’s a pet project,” she stated. “I am a Hopewell family, all my kids went to Hopewell and that intersection is the bane of my existence.”