Palmerton has received nearly $330,000 in state funds for traffic safety improvements.

Gov. Tom Wolf announced Thursday that the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation will distribute about $12.9 million in Automated Red Light Enforcement funding to 22 municipalities statewide to fund 28 safety projects.

Palmerton will get $329,398 for replacement of all existing signal equipment at the offset intersection of Third Street and Delaware Avenue to bring the intersection up to current PennDOT safety standards.

Palmerton has applied for funding to modernize a traffic signal and increase visibility at a busy intersection.

Borough council on a 6-0 vote last week granted permission to apply for Green-Light-Go grant funds for the Third Street/Delaware Avenue traffic signal.

Borough Manager Donna McGarry said the funds would total about $334,000, though that’s preliminary at this point since she has to finalize items for the grant application due Jan. 14.

McGarry said changes would include modernization of the signal with new arms, signal heads with reflector backplates, installation of an emergency pre-emptive system, and new wiring.

There are two traffic signals at Third and Delaware, and that drivers heading west at Third Street often look beyond the first light to the second one, and then pull out when they still have a red light at the first signal. In August, Don Herrmann told council there have been multiple times where he could have been in serious danger at Third and Delaware Avenue.

Hermann asked if the lights to be reconfigured so that they would both be red.

However, McGarry said the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation has to make that call, as Delaware Avenue is a state road.

In May, council agreed to apply to the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation for funds for a traffic signal at Third and Delaware Avenue.

Councilwoman Holly Hausman-Sell said improvements were crucial “before we have major accidents.”

McGarry said the borough receives “periodic complaints on this intersection.”

She said PennDOT provided several design solutions.