MINERSVILLE - If you're in a rush to get through the borough in the morning, don't expect to make every green light on Sunbury Street.
Minersville police Chief Michael Combs said although there is a "myth" that you can make every traffic light in the borough if you make the green light at Sixth Street, coming into Minersville from Route 901, there's no guarantee.
Ed Houser from the Minersville Street Department said the borough maintains the lights, but they all belong to the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation.
The timing on the lights, how they switch and what street lights change for how many seconds, is all up to PennDOT.
"They (PennDOT) bring a group of people out to do a study on it and what they'll do is they will find the average number of car and truck traffic (to set the timing system)."
Although it doesn't have different timing, PennDOT installed all of the lights except for the first one at Sixth Street, which the department deems unnecessary, and is therefore an older model, different from all the others.
It's there though, because Combs said the borough wants to slow people down before they hit the traffic light at Fifth Street.
The light at Fifth Street would be the first light in Minersville if the borough didn't decide to install it with PennDOT approval.
Combs said the timing system is controlled during the day because of the different things going on, such as people commuting to work and the children either taking the buses or walking to school.
"You can't have a speedway going through," Combs said.
Another factor affecting the timing of the traffic lights, which almost every intersection has, are trip plates, "which sense when a vehicle pulls up to the red light," Houser said.
Houser said trip plates are at nearly all the streets intersecting with Sunbury Street, and once a vehicle goes over the sensor, it will tell the timing system that it needs to change and allow the vehicle to either cross or turn onto Sunbury Street.
Without a car on those side streets, setting off the trip plates, Sunbury Street will continue to shine green longer.
If you're on the side street and waiting for the light to change from red to green, Houser said the reason why it may take up to four minutes is because of the timing set by PennDOT.
"At night time they are timed a little different, late night or early morning, so you might talk to a few people who work at night and they say they can get through every street," Houser said.
Telling that it's possible to hit all the lights between midnight and about 4 a.m., Houser said it's because at that time there are mostly just tractor-trailers from Schuylkill Highridge Business Park, milk trucks or garbage trucks, so they get a straight shot up or down Route 901."
Combs said although it's really only possible to make all the traffic lights in a row at night, the traffic does flow smoothly through the borough during the day, and you may see it occasionally, but for the most part it's not backed up on the Pottsville-Minersville highway.
"You couldn't do it during the day because traffic and the timing set longer for the buses and stuff," Combs said. "If someone really wants to try it, stay up until 2 a.m."
