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            It’s been about a month since the paving of the Y-construction downtown has been completed. The last leg of the updated downtown is a new computerized traffic signal at the intersection of Marine Way and West Rezanof, which is expected to be fully operational by the end of this week. Mary Donaldson has more.     

Tuesday marked the first day that the new traffic light downtown was turned on. Jason Baxley, the Department of Transportation’s project engineer for the Y-project says the new light began its blinking mode, which will continue for at least 24 hours.

(Baxley 1                    :32s     “…something’s going on.”)

Department of Transportation is currently waiting on mandatory traffic signs before they can officially change the lights from blinking mode to fully operational.

(Baxley 2                    :26s     “…before we turn it on.”)

Baxley says the upgraded traffic light comes after about two decades of having faulty, unfinished traffic lights at the intersection. He says the new state-of-the-art system will work much better and he expects the new light to improve traffic flow in downtown Kodiak.

(Baxley 3                    :33s     “…the green times there.”)

The new light doesn’t come without some concern from the community, however. A few local residents say it could be tough to get used to, or even worse, cause more congestion problems downtown.

(VoxPop                      :40s     “…than we had before.”)

Baxley says the traffic light installation project came in a few weeks later than it was originally scheduled to go in, but that the cost of the light stayed right around its 260-thousand dollar budget.

I’m Mary Donaldson.

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