Officials work to replace aging traffic lights on busy road in Murrysville

MURRYSVILLE, Pa. — Thousands of cars pass through the traffic lights on William Penn Highway or Route 22 every day. Recently, the age of the system has been showing.

Murrysville Chief Administrator Michael Nestico said they are working on a long-term solution.

“We work really well with PennDOT and the company. It’s just that the system is older, and the hardware is older. It just needs replaced or repaired,” said Nestico.

Sitting at the lights on RT 22 in Murrysville can feel like forever.

“A lot of the time I’ll just take the back road anyway because I don’t like sitting at the lights,” said driver Paige Mascilli.

At the moment, all of the lights are running on a preset rhythm and are not being triggered by traffic. But Nestico said that’s only a short-term issue. The real issue is the age of the system and damage from things like weather and car accidents. That impacts their control boxes.

“To protect the boxes, it is a bit tricky because PennDOT has certain requirements with how you can protect them, whether you can put a bollard or something like that to protect it,” said Nestico.

Murrysville recently applied for a grant to replace the entire aging system.

“We are still waiting on feedback for whether or not that would be awarded,” said Nestico. “We are going to continue to try and find funding so we can replace the system and try to get a newer version, I guess, of software that would control the synchronization of the lights.”

For now, the city is keeping hardware for the boxes in stock locally because shipping new parts could take up to eight months.

Even with the parts, Nestico said only a few contractors in the area do the specialized work with the boxes, but that all entities work well together; it is just a problem that will take time.

Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts.

Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch WPXI NOW