State: Lights at River Road and I-93 Fixed

Backups and gridlock resulted on River Road over the past month when traffic lights at a highway intersection failed to direct traffic. However, state highway officials say the problems at the River Road and Interstate 93 traffic lights are now fixed and traffic should be running smoothly.

Reports from police say that the traffic lights on River Road were causing irritating traffic backups for commuters on multiple occasions in the past month.

A Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) official said that two separate problems with traffic lights at River Road and Interstate 93 caused the backups. However, they said that the past problems should be fixed for now.

In mid-December, the traffic light at the Interstate 93 southbound off-ramp was malfunctioning. This caused severe backups on River Road through the set of traffic lights on the other side of the bridge, which serve the Interstate 93 northbound off-ramp. Therefore, backups also spread to the northbound off-ramp.

Specifically, the mechanism that senses a line of cars backed up at the southbound off-ramp was broken and would allow the southbound lane to travel for up to 5 minutes at a time.

“While the off ramp is being served, River Road traffic is stopped,” said Rich Nangle, a MassDOT Public Affairs official. “The extended period of time that the signals were serving the off ramp resulted in traffic on River Road backing up to the point where it was grid locking the adjacent intersection of River Road with the I-93 northound ramps.”

This issue was fixed by the state on Dec. 16 and Dec. 17, according to Nangle.

The other issue, which occurred in January, concerned the northbound traffic light switching to a blinking light due to wiring problems. This would cause traffic traveling east on River Road and taking a left onto the highway’s northbound on-ramp, as well as traffic at the northbound off-ramp.

Nangle said that that issue was fixed on Jan. 13.

Andover Police said that they had to receive phone calls and reports regarding the backups but did not have to dedicate manpower to the issue. Some reports indicated that traffic at one point had been backed up into Lawrence.

Even at the height of the traffic confusion from the faulty lights, both local and state officials say that police detail was never used to direct traffic at the intersection.