Two U.S. 27 traffic lights working again after February accidents

Christopher Harris, Commonwealth Journal, Somerset, Ky.
·2 min read

May 23—Two traffic lights that have been out of commission on U.S. 27 for several months now finally have the green light to operate again.

Neither traffic light no. 6 — at the entrance to Hardee's north location and the Tradewind Shopping Center — nor light no. 26 — the north entrance of Horseshoe Drive — have been functioning since February, when an unlikely pair of unrelated automobile accidents on the same day managed to take out both traffic signals.

As a result, the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC) was forced to change the traffic flow to those intersections, prohibiting left-hand turns from any direction and prohibiting u-turns on U.S. 27.

The original timeline for the lights' repair was four to six weeks "at best" according to KYTC District 8 Information Officer Amber Hale.

Finally, on Wednesday, May 22, both traffic lights were returned to working order.

According to Hale, the reason the repairs took over three months had to do with a variety of factors, including the contractor — Davis H. Elliott Company, inc., out of Lexington — being "backed up," she noted.

"You've got to get with the contractor, you've got to figure out what all needs to be fixed," she said. "It's about like everything else, supply and demand, and these contractors, they're getting few and far between. Then they had to go through the process of pulling out the old stuff and putting the new stuff in. ... It was just a process."

Also, "the weather played a huge part, where we had about two weeks worth of rain," she said. "That kind of got us off schedule."

Hale noted that the February car accidents damaged the control boxes for both lights.

"That's a lot of wiring and controls in there that they've got to get, and they had to pour new concrete for all that," said Hale. "Then of course the poles and all the rest of the structure (had to be addressed)."

While some local businesses might have had the most direct routes to them cut off during the time when the turn lanes were blocked off, Hale said that her office didn't hear of any issues anyone had with the situation.

"As far as we know, nothing happened," she said. "We just had to put up the stop signs to make them right-turn only out of the businesses and the streets, and just cut off the turning lanes. It's a little bit of an inconvenience for people, but hopefully it won't happen again."