OCEAN CITY — The future doesn’t look bright for the town’s request for a traffic signal at 3rd Street, State Highway Administration (SHA) officials said this week.
Concerned with the impact on the downtown area of a new public works facility at St. Louis Avenue and 2nd Street, resort officials asked SHA for a new traffic signal at 3rd Street and Philadelphia Avenue. The new facility at 2nd Street will eventually serve, among other things, as the new staging and maintenance area for the Boardwalk trams. It will also house the beach cleaning operation along with other public works functions in the downtown area. It will be built on property the town acquired last year for around $2 million.
During the planning of the new public works facility, the desire for a new traffic signal at 3rd Street and Philadelphia Avenue was revisited. Concerns have been raised about the impact of the new facility at 2nd Street on traffic in the downtown area during the summer season.
In the past, the Town of Ocean City has asked SHA to install a traffic signal at 3rd Street in addition to the existing signals at 5th and 2nd streets, pointing out how traffic stacks up on most summer days and nights providing little opportunity for vehicles attempting to access Philadelphia Avenue from the side streets downtown.
However, in the past SHA has denied the town’s request for a new traffic signal at 3rd Street. In SHA’s original traffic study of the area, it was determined there was adequate gaps in traffic during peak times and a new signal was not warranted.
During his annual fall update with the Mayor and Council on Tuesday, SHA District Engineer Jay Meredith said the most recent study did not indicate the need for a traffic signal at that location.
“The findings were the traffic volume is below the threshold for a new signal,” he said. “We tried to get it through, but it didn’t have any traction.”
However, SHA’s study was conducted before the proposed public works facility on 2nd Street and St. Louis Avenue and the potential impacts of the new Boardwalk tram facility was on the table. Public Works Director Hal Adkins said the timetable for the project could allow the traffic signal at 3rd Street to be revisited in the future.
“If all goes according to plan, we’ll start the 2nd Street project by the end of the year and we’ll be finished by Thanksgiving of 2019,” he said. “The traffic signal at 3rd Street won’t really be an issue until some time in 2020.”
