CRANBERRY TWP — The board of supervisors at a meeting Thursday approved spending $40,000 on creating a series of contingency plans for dealing with traffic and other road emergencies in the township.

Last year’s multiday closure of Route 228 from a storm that swept through the area is just one example of the need for contingency plans on roads like Routes 228 and 19 and Freedom Road.

The total cost of creating those contingency plans will be $80,000, but Cranberry received $40,000 from the state Department of Transportation for the study.

The township received that money after applying for the Green Light-Go program through PennDOT.

Assistant township manager Duane McKee said Thursday that PennDOT is making a push to get communities across the state to pay more attention to their traffic signals.

That’s not to mention Cranberry continues to grow, McKee said, which means it’s as important as ever to create contingency plans to deal with traffic mishaps.

“We know we need contingency plans so, to get 50 percent off, that’s a good deal,” McKee said. “We have to be able to deal with any scenario that might come up in an efficient manner. This is a great way to do that.”

McKee said township officials will meet with a consulting firm in the coming months to determine the scope of the contingency plans.

One example McKee provided was the fact that the southbound lanes of Interstate 79 closed multiple times last year, a situation that created a tremendous amount of overflow traffic on Route 19 in Cranberry.

“It closed seven times last year and people would get off at Route 528 onto Route 19,” McKee said. “The road was just not ready for it.”

McKee said he expects it will take until the end of the year for the contingency plans to be created, at which point they’ll be shipped off to PennDOT for analysis.

PennDOT officials will review the plans but likely won’t offer any constructive criticism.

McKee said the township will create a total of eight contingency plans.