GREENFIELD — The city will add devices to its traffic lights that will allow emergency vehicles to move through intersections unobstructed.
The Greenfield Fire Department’s deputy chief of operations, Jason Horning, said there are a number of intersections with stoplights in Greenfield, especially on State Street, that are often backed up and difficult for emergency vehicles to get through. The preemption devices will help that.
“It will clear out the traffic in the travel lanes ahead of the fire truck getting there, and it’ll make the intersection safer,” Horning said.
The GPS-based system can send a signal to traffic lights at a set distance from the intersection, likely about 3,000 feet. That will give the approaching emergency vehicle a green light, while traffic in all other directions will get a red light.
All fire trucks and ambulances owned by the fire department will be able to trigger the preemption devices. Depending on the cost, the devices could also be installed in police cars and potentially also in snow plow-equipped trucks that have to navigate intersections in difficult conditions.
“It’s definitely not a new technology, but it’s new to Greenfield,” Horning said.
Horning said preemption devices have been used in Indianapolis and other nearby cities. The need for the devices in Greenfield, however, was prompted by the installation of new medians on State Street. Emergency vehicles previously could navigate backed-up traffic using the center lane. Now that medians block most left turns, that’s no longer possible.
Between the new medians and the increased traffic in the city caused by other construction-related road closures, Horning said, it can take emergency vehicles precious extra seconds to navigate an intersection even with lights and sirens on, as cars and trucks have to move out of the way.
The preemption devices will go in at all of Greenfield’s stop light intersections, 18 controlled by the Indiana Department of Transportation and two by the city itself. The fire department has contracted an engineering firm to plan the project.
Fire Chief Brian Lott said he can’t yet offer a precise cost estimate for how much the preemption devices will cost, but said it will likely be in the $200,000-$300,000 range. The best time to have the devices installed, he said, would be “yesterday,” but he’s hoping to have the engineering process finished and the bids awarded by the end of the year.
Lott said the preemption devices will likely allow the department to improve its response time, something that’s crucial in what can be life-or-death situations at a time when the population and traffic are growing.
“The business, for us, is time,” he said.