Ehrman Road Update: Traffic Signal Equipment Could Be Weeks Away

After a long slow march that included several delays, plans to construct a traffic signal at the intersection of Route 19 and Ehrman Road in Cranberry are nearing the finish line.

“We’re getting there now,” said Jason Kratsas, Cranberry’s director of engineering.

Kratsas said the traffic signal equipment currently is being shipped from a facility in Nebraska where the design was tested under regulations recently adopted by the state regarding the construction and fabrication of signal poles, mast arms and their foundations.

Kratsas said pipe-bending facility in Nebraska is one of the few places in the country approved by PennDOT to bend and to test the signal’s mast arm. The equipment was shipped there in January, he said.

“There was a specific bend that needed to be put in the mast arm,” he said. “They are specialists.”

The traffic signal materials are now being shipped back to Union Metals, the signal manufacturer Cranberry is using for the project, in Canton, Ohio.

Once there, the poles will undergo three more testing processes before the equipment is shipped to Cranberry, Kratsas said.

He was cautiously optimistic the testing will be concluded and the finishing touches on the poles completed and approved by PennDOT within a month.

“Typically, we hope it’s only three to four more weeks, but you never know with this process,” he said. 

The traffic signal in Cranberry is one of the first to be tested under PennDOT’s new guidelines, which were adopted by the state in mid-2012, Kratsas said.

Although Cranberry ordered the traffic signal equipment for the intersection last September with plans to install it by January, the township learned the following month that design testing under the new regulations would delay the project.

Once the approved equipment arrives in Cranberry, Kratsas said it would take a few days for construction crews to erect the signal. He noted the underground electrical work for the project already is complete. After that, the signal will go into flash mode for about a week.

Kratsas said the township has been in communication with the local PennDOT district and state Senate and House representatives throughout the traffic signal’s process.

“From here on out it should be much more simple,” he said.

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