Pape-Dawson Engineers was brought aboard the city of Bee Cave to provide traffic engineering services for all traffic lights and signals within city limits following action May 23. This comes after the Texas Department of Transportation passed the maintenance and operational control torch to Bee Cave in January, leaving the city with many inquiries and complaints regarding traffic and signal issues from residents.
“We're all a little surprised at how often the frequency of issues arose and how many people reached out,” City Engineer Kevin Sawtelle said. “The way they're set up right now, you effectively have to do a field visit to verify what is occurring at any given traffic signal.”
To streamline the process of troubleshooting traffic signals, Pape-Dawson Engineers recommended the city upgrade about half of its control cabinets as they are outdated, Sawtelle said. Additional software will be installed to be able to run operations remotely and avoid the need for in-person inspections when issues arise.
The first tasks for Pape-Dawson Engineers will be to take inventory of each of the 13 intersections and its controller cabinet as well as conducting field observations during peak travel times in the mornings and evenings to assess traffic and safety issues.
