Royal Oak granted $3.3 million for traffic signal improvements

ROYAL OAK — On March 23, the Royal Oak City Commission was presented with $3.3 million in grant funding from the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments for traffic signal modernization. 

The grant was made through the federally funded Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality program, according to a Royal Oak City Hall Facebook post. 

The SEMCOG CMAQ program aims to reduce vehicle emissions, which affect southeast Michigan’s air quality, according to semcog.org.

“To combat this, SEMCOG manages two key programs aimed at reducing vehicle emissions: the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement Program and the Carbon Reduction Program,” the website states. 

City Engineer Holly Donoghue spoke at the meeting on Monday, saying that the program is going to significantly reduce the traffic congestion within the city of Royal Oak. 

“This program can really help us reduce traffic congestion and thereby improve air quality throughout the state of Michigan,” Donoghue said. “In 2027 and 2028, we will be doing traffic signal improvements on 14 Mile Road and Coolidge Highway as a result of this grant, which is a little over $3.3 million.”

Some of the upgrades the city will be doing are delivering new mast arms, illuminated signage, traffic detection technology that reduces idling by moving vehicles along quicker, and more, according to Donoghue. 

“One of the big key things that we are adding is traffic detection, so that allows us to really see where traffic is when you’re at an intersection and how do you get it through most efficiently so that cars are not sitting there adding to the pollution,” she said. 

The grant will be paying for upgrades to the existing traffic detection technology, which includes cameras and wire sensors in the pavement. 

The cameras look at the traffic and sense what cars are sitting where. For instance, if there is nobody sitting in the left turn lane, the cameras will alert the system to just have more time on the green light for through traffic.

“Its just a smart way to sense where traffic is and how we can adjust the timing on that cycle to optimize how much traffic will get through the intersection,” Donoghue said.

She said that the traffic detection does not affect traffic in other areas. 

“Every intersection has a specific time to get through, like an entire cycle, so maybe it’s 180 seconds, so we are just tweaking within that 180 seconds how much time goes to each through movement, but that overall time doesn't change,” she said.

 After all the construction, Hubbell, Roth and Clark, Royal Oak’s engineering consultants, will come back in and do optimization, which, according to Donoghue, is when HRC will go to each intersection and figure out how to time the signals in the best way possible to move traffic through efficiently. 

Construction will begin in 2027 on 14 Mile Road, where $2.2 million of the grant funding will be used. 

“$2.2 million is 100% of the construction funding, which we’re so grateful for,” Donoghue said. “This allows us to make really substantial improvements here on 14 Mile Road.”

In 2028, a little over $1.1 million for  construction will be used to do some upgrades on Coolidge Highway, she said. 

Amy O’Leary, executive director and certified association executive with SEMCOG, addressed the City Commission March 23. 

 “The CMAQ program is a vital resource  that’s provided by federal funding for programs that reduce congestion, improve traffic flow and enhance air quality,” O’Leary said. “There’s many different types of investments we can make with this money. There can be transit improvements, the traffic signal modernizations, we do roundabouts, we do EV charging, bicycle and pedestrian facilities.”

O’Leary said that the grant program is very competitive, and that SEMCOG calls for the grants every three years. 

“Just to remind you, southeast Michigan is home to half of the state's population, and so we have about over half of the infrastructure, so we have a lot of vehicles on the road,” she said. “Being able to implement these kinds of projects at that scale is really important.”

Mayor Michael Fournier thanked SEMCOG for the opportunity to get the grant. 

“It takes truly a team effort to make these things happen, and I believe it’s because everyone is passionate about what programs and grants like this can do. What this means for our community is so important,” he said. “It not only helps with some critical infrastructure needs that we have, but it supports our sustainability goals. It helps reduce emissions in the city of Royal Oak. It allows vehicles to get where they need to go in a more efficient way.”

For more information on the SEMCOG CMAQ program, visit semcog.org. For more information on the city of Royal Oak, visit romi.gov.