The in basket: Alan Kieser of Silverdale writes, “I have
recently noticed at the intersection of Tracyton Boulevard and
Bucklin Hill roads that there is a camera mounted on the traffic
signal pole spanning the roadway and it’s pointed north. Can you
find out what it is for? It would be nice to know what is being
monitored.”
Also curious about a camera-like device is Cindy Clark of Port
Orchard, who sees something on top of a steel pole on Port Orchard
Boulevard near Tremont Street that looks like it might be a
camera.
The in basket: Alan Kieser of Silverdale writes, “I have recently
noticed at the intersection of Tracyton Boulevard and Bucklin Hill
roads that there is a camera mounted on the traffic signal pole
spanning the roadway and it’s pointed north. Can you find out what
it is for? It would be nice to know what is being monitored.”
Also curious about a camera-like device is Cindy Clark of Port
Orchard, who sees something on top of a steel pole on Port Orchard
Boulevard near Tremont Street that looks like it might be a
camera.
The out basket: The device at Tracyton Boulevard and Bucklin Hill
Road is a camera, of sorts, says Doug Bear and Larry Hugel of
Kitsap County Public Works.
Doug says it’s a traffic detection camera like those mentioned in
Road Warrior last September, it that case a little to the north at
Myhre Road and Ridgetop Boulevard. As with that one, it is testing
a new way to know when cars are waiting at a light, rather than the
electromagnetic wires in the pavement.
Larry, head of the county traffic signal shop, said more of the
cameras, which use changes in the pixels in the image to detect
traffic will be showing up at county intersections. One has been
installed on one of the cross-arms of the signal at Mile Hill Drive
and Woods Road for about a week. There, it is to compensate for
severing of one of the detector wires in the pavement during the
widening of Mile Hill Drive that began week before last. In time,
all the detectors there will be cameras, as other detector wires
are cut, and when the project is finished, cameras will remain the
mode of detecting cars waiting at the light, Larry said.
Their main advantage over wires in the pavement is ease of repair.
Workmen have only to replace a module rather than digging in the
pavement.
As for the device on Port Orchard Boulevard, there actually are two
of them there. Maher Abed, public works director for Port Orchard
said they are receptors that allow emergency vehicles to change the
light around the corner to green as they approach. You often see
them in a curve near a signal, where waiting until the emergency
vehicle driver can see the light doesn’t provide enough time for it
to change to green before the vehicle arrives. The curving off-ramp
from northbound Highway 303 onto Central Valley Road in Central
Kitsap has one too.
