Drivers may be noticing less traffic on Main Street lately, and if so, they have the Evesham Township Police Department and its work with Burlington County engineers to thank.
Working with the county, the department recently redid the traffic light cycling at lights along Main Street, adding eight seconds to green lights to decrease traffic congestion.
Evesham Police Chief Christopher Chew said the changes were a result of the department and public noticing more eastbound traffic heading from Route 73 toward Medford along with the recent opening of the Diamonds at Arrowhead Park sports complex next to the township municipal building.
“More people were coming to this complex, and as a result of coming through Main Street, we noticed as well as the public did, that the traffic was backing up sometimes at Route 73 at each light all the way down,” Chew said.
Chew tasked Lt. Bruce Higbee, who is in charge of the department’s support services and traffic unit, to reach out to the county engineers and find out what the department could do to change the light cycles.
“It wasn’t working,” Chew said. “Traffic on Main Street, lights were coming up too quickly for red, and only about four or five cars were making it through each intersection, and the side roads coming in were getting more tough.”
The department and county engineers noticed the heaviest traffic time occurred between 5:20 and 5:45 p.m., with the most significant problem occurring at the intersection of Main Street and Willow Bend Road.
“That’s a hard intersection, everybody knows what it looks like, you’ve got five different avenues coming into one light, and it seemed like the side roads were getting more time than Main Street and that created a backlog,” Chew said.
Chew said that although adding eight seconds at a light might not seem like a big change, the results are noticeable.
“That doesn’t sound like a lot on Main Street to let traffic through, but what it did was add an additional four to five cars per light cycle to get through, which equates to about 120 more cars an hour going up and down Main Street,” Chew said.
Chew said the department did a study with the county and they’re at a 95 percent clearance rate in “allotted time,” or traffic backup.
“It means you might see three or four cars, which is normal,” Chew said. “No more 50 cars, no more 20 cars. As a result of these light cycle changes, we’re at a 95 percent clearance rate.”
Mayor Randy Brown said he noticed the decrease in traffic himself while driving on Main Street to a council meeting.
“From Cherokee Exon to here was three minutes and 20 seconds, I timed it,” Brown said. “And before, it could be 30 minutes.”
Brown said the new light timing was a definite improvement.
“The parents coming here trying to play sports, it was taking 20 to 30 minutes at times just to get down there, so it’s definitely improved,” Brown said.
Chew said the change in traffic lights was also a safety issue for the department going forward, as officers were sometimes using back-roads and other throughways to avoid the Main Street traffic.
“As a result, I hope everybody has a seen a difference and it makes the travels up and down Main Street a lot quicker and less of a backlog,” Chew said.
