Public works director tackles readers' queries

Topeka public works director Jason Peek says he understands the frustration drivers feel when they sit at a red light for what seems like a long time.

He said Wednesday that the city uses technology, including video cameras and “loops” embedded in the street, to detect vehicles arriving at most signalized intersections and adjust the signal’s timing to keep traffic running smoothly.

“But these are all pieces of infrastructure that require maintenance,” Peek said.

Sometimes loops break, or straight-line winds — such as those the city saw last week — alter a camera’s direction and keep it from working effectively, he said.

Traffic signal timing was among topics Peek discussed while answering 35 questions posed by Topeka Capital-Journal readers during a podcast/Facebook Live event broadcast Wednesday on CJOnline.

The podcast was part of a reader engagement project linked to the program "#TopCity What? You ask. We answer." Readers may access it on The Capital-Journal's Facebook page.

All but three of the questions — which viewers submitted by email during the broadcast — were provided in advance to Peek, who became the city's public works director about two years and four months ago.

"My observation when I got here to the city of Topeka was, 'We have decades of deferred maintenance in the city,' " Peek said.

Topeka still has a number of streets that haven't been worked on in 30 years, he said.

"I think that’s reflective of not having a strategic program of 'What are we trying to do with our streets?' " Peek said.

He said the public works department's philosophy for carrying out street work under his direction has gone from a “project orientation” to a “program orientation.”

Instead of working mainly to first fix the streets that are in the worst condition, Peek said, his department now maintains a pavement management program that pinpoints the most cost-effective treatment for each section of street at the right time in its life cycle.

Traffic signal timing was the topic of three questions readers submitted. He said the city in some areas, including S.W. 29th and Fairlawn Road, uses adaptive traffic signals designed to communicate with each other to help traffic flow and shorten the wait at red lights.

Still, signals in some parts of Topeka aren't as high-tech. Many in the downtown area are on what is called a "fixed time" or "time of day" plan, Peek said.

"That’s how that infrastructure was designed 20 years ago," he said, adding that the fixed times can be difficult to adjust.

Peek also addressed a reader's question regarding why the city was replacing curbs and gutters in Clarion Woods, one of Topeka's newest subdivisions.

That area has a lot of groundwater issues, he said.

"The original design of the pavement when that subdivision went in didn’t account for pulling that water out from the base of the material so that the surface pavement would remain in good condition," Peek said.

Those streets consequently deteriorated much faster than they do in other subdivisions, he said.