New Stoplights in James City

The internal electronics of the four stoplights in James City are going to be replaced within the next few months. These stoplights are located at the intersections of Williams, Airport, Taberna, and Thurman Roads.

Several months ago I met with a business owner in James City who suggested that better timing and a left turn light at Williams would really help traffic flow and reduce accidents. I relayed this information to DOT Engineer Duayne Alligood and several weeks later he emailed me and said if we could come up with $100,000 he could replace the lights at the intersections mentioned above and do some other improvements at Williams and Airport Roads to allow for easier left turns. Several weeks ago the General Assembly voted to give $77,000.00 towards the replacement cost and the DOT Division 2 Board Member Cam McRae committed to give the balance needed to complete the replacement.

Mr. Alligood told me that by replacing the internal electronics of the existing stoplights with state of the art gear will give them the ability to remotely control the traffic flow in the James City Corridor. By having the ability to remotely control the lights perhaps the timing of the lights could be changed several times a day to allow for peak traffic times. Hopefully the 4 stoplights can be timed in such a way that the residents in Taberna will not have the long wait, with no oncoming traffic, that they have to deal with now.

I would like to thank Mr. Alligood, Mr.McRae, and our legislative team for their help with this matter. There are long term solutions being worked on for helping traffic flow on Highway 70, but for now it is going to be the lower cost, common sense solutions, that we will have to utilize to help with traffic flow.
As with anything new I am sure there will be bugs that will need to be worked out after the new lights are installed. If you have any suggestions please send me an email at Tyson@Century21.com.