The city of Tyler is on track to move forward with a project that would revamp its decades-old traffic light system.

A study of the project has ranked high on a draft list of infrastructure projects that city leaders are recommending be funded n the upcoming fiscal year.

The rankings come a month after Mayor Martin Heines announced he had asked for a study to be performed on modernizing the traffic light system.

Heines said in May that the city’s traffic light system dates back to the 1970s, and traffic has at least doubled since then.

He said the city should take action to replace the traffic lights and install a system that allows city staffers to change the timing from a centralized location, instead of having to change each traffic signal individually.

The Half-Cent Sales Tax Board heard the recommendation to study the project at a meeting on Wednesday, where it considered how to rank 219 different infrastructure projects.

The Half-Cent Sales Tax Board’s job is to make recommendations to the City Council on how to use proceeds from the city’s half-percent sales tax to perform infrastructure projects.

City department heads and key staff members, which report to the board, ranked the 219 projects on a scale of 1 to 100, with high rankings going to projects that impact the city most.

Scott Taylor, the managing director of utilities and public works for the city, said the top eight to 10 projects on the list are likely to be funded in fiscal year 2019, which starts Oct. 1.

He said any projects not in the top 50 on the list are not likely to be funded through the half-percent sales tax in the next 10 years, unless outside funding becomes available.

The top five projects on the list are already underway: a comprehensive plan to address stormwater, two major projects related to citywide drainage, upgrades to

Hillside Park and a project to paint bicycle lanes on streets throughout the city.

The project to commission a study on the traffic signals received a 73.2, the highest of any ranked project. The other high scorers were consolidation of fire station Nos. 1 and 4, which received scores of 46.4 and 41.1, respectively; and improvements to Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

“In all the years I’ve been doing this this I don’t think I’ve seen anything score a 73.2,” said Mark Whatley, the chairman of the Half-Cent Sales Tax Board.

Taylor responded: “Everybody knew the project was going to score high, but I didn’t know it was going to score that high.”

He said city department heads and other key staff members scored the projects using criteria that include public safety, balanced growth and quality of life, among other things, and traffic signals can apply to all of the criteria.

City Manager Ed Broussard, who attended the meeting, said the project likely ranked high because it is comprehensive and would affect every part of the city.

“Our feeling is that if we’re going to take a bite of this project, let’s try to make it as big as possible,” Broussard told the board about the project.

Taylor said the study likely would take from nine to 12 months to complete, and the earliest the project would start would be November.

The board will need to decide at its July 10 meeting whether to make changes to the rankings on the list of infrastructure projects or approve the list in its current form.

The City Council will then incorporate the recommendations into the annual capital improvement program, an early step in creating the fiscal year 2019 budget.

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