St. Peter’s robotics team meets with DOT
The St. Peter’s Brickbuster LEGO Robotics team recently met with the Department of Transportation staff in Waukesha to discuss how to make the intersection at Highway 20 and Division Street safer.
The team met with Traffic – Safety and Regulations Division Supervisor John Haug and traffic engineer Stacey Pierce.
The students traveled to the Lee Sherman Dreyfus State Office Building in Waukesha Oct. 30, on their day off of school.
“The team wanted to investigate how to better serve their town with regards to the intersection at Highway 20 and Division St to see if there was anything more they could do to increase safety,” teacher Jenni Lehman said.
The Brickbusters asked questions about pedestrian safety, regulations and traffic pattern issues dealing with the intersection and wanted to learn more about their government and the DOT.
Lehman said DOT staff met with the team offering suggestions and recommendations for the intersection and presented videos, pedestrian crosswalk product options and statistics to help the team become more informed.
“The staff was very accommodating offering their time to talk to the team answering meaningful questions,” Lehman said.
The St Peter’s Brickbusters wanted to revisit the safety of the intersection since doing so in 2009-10 with a Transportation Safety project that the team was working on through the FIRST Lego League organization, Lehman said.
At that time, the Brickbusters helped to push for the current pedestrian paddle signs that are located in the middle of the road. These get put away during the winter months for plowing and road maintenance.
The DOT gave some great suggestions,” Lehman said. “One particular idea the Brickbuster team really liked was that of a RRFB – a Rapid Flashing Beacon for pedestrians.”
The signal has a simple touch sensitive button for users to activate before crossing. The LED flash bars are similar to a police car flashing bar considerably slowing cars down by as much as 80 percent compared to 30 percent for ordinary crosswalk signs.
According to the DOT, it has a significant ability to slow traffic in crosswalk areas. It is cost effective to install and maintain because it has self contained solar charged battery units that last 3 to 5 years.
Digging and underground connections is not needed for installation, which saves a significant amount of labor, planning and less added expenses. The system would be the responsibility of the village to maintain with a cost of about $10,000 to $15,000 to purchase.
Lehman said another option presented by the DOT was to add brighter paint or different pattern in the crosswalk pathways to alert traffic. The students were given contact information for the East Troy Village Board to address the issue.
“It was a great day of sharing information,” Lehman said.
