By Doug Carman, The Packet Group
ROBBINSVILLE Township officials see the current emergency light in front of the Robbinsville Fire Department as a hazard in and of itself. Soon though, they hope to change it, Township Administrator Tim McGough said Tuesday.
Mr. McGough said the township and the state Department of Transportation plan to replace the blinking yellow lights on the fire building with a set of lights that stay dark until firefighters activate them as they’re pulling in or out of the station. The lights would turn yellow and then red, staying red until the fire trucks clear the building before turning yellow and then turning back off.
Township Attorney Mark Roselli said after the Township Council’s May 12 meeting that drivers have reacted to the yellow lights by either slowing down or stopping, even when no fire trucks are leaving the firehouse. He said this created a hazard along Route 130, where the building is located.
DOT spokesman Tim Greeley said Monday that since the firehouse is located on U.S. 130, the DOT, rather than Mercer County, has jurisdiction over the highway and therefore regulates the kind of emergency lighting systems used there.
The township had looked into replacing the light for a long while, but the state’s regulations didn’t allow for that until they were changed in 2009.
”When the current beacon was designed and installed … (regulations) provided no other option for that kind of scenario,” Mr. Greeley said. “The flashing yellow light was the only option for that kind of situation, as taken by engineers at that location.”
Plans began to move forward last month. Mr. McGough said Dave Martin, head of the DOT’s traffic division, outlined the township’s options to either keep the yellow light or to go with the new system Mr. McGough described in an April 14 e-mail to Fire Director John Archer and police Lt. Scott Texidor.
Mr. McGough said he told Lt. Texidor on April 27 that the township was giving the new system the green light.
”I’m absolutely good with this. Let’s go with that,” Mr. McGough said.
There was some confusion during last week’s Township Council meeting on the planning behind the light. Mr. Archer told the council that the DOT would not let the township change the blinking yellow light in front of the fire station.
”The complaint department about that thing said it’s going to be as it’s designed and it’s going to stay that way. They don’t see any problem with it,” he said.
This conflicted with both Mr. McGough’s later account of the discussions between the township and the DOT and with Mr. Greeley’s, which mostly coincided with Mr. McGough’s.
Mr. Greeley said the DOT gave the township the option of keeping the yellow blinker or installing an “emergency hybrid beacon,” which would function the way Mr. McGough was describing.
Mr. McGough and Mr. Greeley said the township would have to cover 25 percent of the costs to install the new system. No cost estimate or timeline for the completion of the work was available by press time, but Mr. McGough said he didn’t anticipate it to cost more than “tens of thousands” of dollars.

