Excerpts from theChicagoTribune.com:
Five traffic lights along Kimball Street are expected to be converted so fire and police vehicles can control them during an emergency, making it safer and more efficient for public safety vehicles and drivers who use the busy downtown road, one of six routes in Elgin with bridges that cross the Fox River.
The City Council is set to approve a $85,557 contract Wednesday night for installing the devices which can be controlled by police cars and fire trucks, helping clear passage through potentially dangerous intersections. The intersections in question Wednesday are Kimball with Dundee Avenue, with Center Street, with Spring Street, with Douglas Avenue and with Grove Avenue.
“Kimball is important because it is a main pathway for fire apparatus from one side of the city to the other,” Fire Chief John Fahy said. “And almost every east side call for ambulance service has to head to the west side, where Presence Saint Joseph and Advocate Sherman hospitals are.”
Department policy and national standards require fire department vehicles come to a full stop at a red traffic signal. So, with five intersections along Kimball downtown, the possibility exists that vehicles might have to stop at every intersection along Kimball, slowing emergency-related travel. Fahy noted that a federal highway study from 2006 found that the three main benefits reported by places using the devices included improved response times, better safety, and a cost savings.
Preemption devices have been around for decades, but the technology didn’t improve to make them reliable or affordable enough for most fire departments until about 10 years ago. “So in 2005, (then) Chief Jack Henrici initiated a program to prioritize lighted intersections and incrementally have the devices at all of them,” Fahy said.
