Drivers tooling down Ridgeland Avenue may have already spotted something a little different: solar-powered school zone traffic signs. A few years ago, the village made school zone signs a strange and pukey yellow-green color in an effort to make them stand out.
Now, they’re experimenting with flashing yellow lights powered by the sun.
According to Village Engineer Jim Budrick, these are just the first solar-paneled school zone displays. If they work well, there may be more.
The school zone displays are on either side of Erie Street, flanking a school crossing for Beye School. Traffic Supervisor Sergeant Mike Vitalli of the Oak Park police avowed that they were just the flashing yellow lights that are timed to alert drivers that they are in a school zone, not a speed display or a camera.
With this experiment, the village is becoming not only more environmentally conscious by using solar energy rather than electricity, but it is also becoming more cost effective. While the original installation of the solar-paneled school zone display costs more than a hard-wired version, there will be greater savings when the village no longer has the cost of the electricity. According to Budrick, these solar-paneled displays only need to be in service three hours a day. The solar panels store the energy they collect in batteries, power the flashing lights, and store the remaining energy. “To hook them [the displays] up with electric would make them quite expensive,” said Budrick.
Could other speed displays, school zones signs or traffic signals be solar-powered rather than electric? Budrick said not just yet. “It’s something that’s coming along in the industry, so if we get an opportunity, we’re going to go ahead and use them,” said Budrick. But he said, “the issue is making sure that you have adequate exposure for the sun.” If there is not enough sunlight to generate energy, it would not be an effective or efficient procedure. When asked about the effectiveness of having solar-paneled traffic signs, Budrick said that the effectiveness has not yet become an issue, due to the isolated nature of this school zone display, and its need to have energy only three hours a day. “If it was a 24 hour operation, we’d really have to investigate its effectiveness,” said Budrick.
