Cardiff first responders now clear to turn left

Nov, 10-2009 11:05 am

By JACKIE HANUSEY
Staff Writer

EGG HARBOR TOWNSHIP – The lights are shining in front of the Cardiff Volunteer Fire Company Station 1 with the activation of a new traffic light.

On the wish list for township Chief and former Cardiff Chief Bill Danz for more than a dozen years, the light has been in operation since Thursday, Nov. 5.  It’s intended to make it easier for fire apparatus to pull onto the highway in an emergency.

Situated on Route 40 just south of Spruce Avenue, it blinks a constant yellow in both directions under normal circumstances.

When a button is hit in the fire house and the engines are going out on a call, the light goes to a solid yellow, then to a solid red.

“Stop on red,” said Danz. “People are stopping for the yellow blinking light.”

Standing outside the firehouse on Monday afternoon, Danz said some motorists have been confused by the new lights.  He wanted to make sure everyone understood what it does.

When the light is activated, it allows the fire trucks to exit westbound onto the Black Horse Pike, crossing over eastbound traffic. The westbound light at the Black Horse Pike and Spruce Avenue goes to green, and those traveling south and north on Spruce get a red light.

“They are all tied in together,” he said.

These features were not a part of Danz’s original research when he first started looking at it in 1995.

“Then it was estimated to be a $100,000 job and we would not have been getting as much as we did,” he said.

The actual cost in 2009 came to about $120,000, according to Danz.  The township picked up about 25 percent of the light’s cost, or about $30,000.

The rest was state funded.

Danz said politics played a big factor in getting the light in front of the firehouse.

He said state Sen. Jim Whelan and Assemblymen John Amodeo and Vincent Polistina made this improvement possible.  Eventually he didn’t even have to call the state. The Department of Transportation was calling him about the installation of the light on the state highway.

The firehouse has been at the same location since 1927.