Henrico planning $9.8-million upgrade to traffic management system
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Henrico County Public Works officials are planning to spend $9.8 million in federal funds to upgrade the county’s traffic management system by 2024, Public Works Director Terrell Hughes told the Henrico Board of Supervisors Tuesday night.
It will be the second phase of upgrades for the system; the first was completed in 2012 with $8 million in federal money, Hughes said.
Henrico maintains 145 signals countywide at county roads and will be adding three more soon, Hughes said. The money will be used to:
• upgrade 122 of them;
• provided metered electrical service to 107;
• provide backup power supplies to 70 more so that they will remain functional even during power outages;
• potentially provide new video detection at all 148, to detect when vehicles are present at an intersection and adjust signal patterns accordingly;
• provide communication upgrades to a fiber optic network.
Full implementation of the latter two items will depend upon their cost of that of the other projects, he said. The video detection would not record vehicles or be related to red-light running, Hughes said, but instead would replace the in-pavement sensors that are in place currently to determine when vehicles are present at a signal.
Signalized intersections in Henrico that involve state roads (any that have a route number attached to them) are maintained by the Virginia Department of Transportation and will not be part of the county’s upgrades.
Officials are working through the initial phase of planning now and intend to start the design phase soon, Hughes said. Both should be completed within about 18 months, and then implementation of the upgrades will begin and take about two years. The upgrades system should be fully operational by sometime in 2024, he said.
