[Photo Credit: Flickr user Caitlinc]
We understand that operating and maintaining the transportation infrastructure in a city as large as L.A. is an overwhelming task, but nothing infuriates us more than the complete and total lack of traffic light synchronization around this city. It is as if there was a monkey in the control room jumping around on the buttons to make the signals change. Just a short 100 or so years after the traffic light was invented, the L.A. DOT has begun to do something about light synchronization, at least if you drive in the Valley. DOT installed 71 cameras and sensors in an 8 1/2-square-mile area bounded by Van Nuys and Laurel Canyon boulevards, Nobel and Kester avenues and Van Owen Street. The cameras and sensors allow for light synchronization and allow transportation officials to adjust lights when there are problems and make drivers slightly less annoyed. DOT plans to install these sensors throughout the city, but they still need $150 million. Where, you ask, do they plan to get this money? That would be Proposition 1B.
· Traffic Project to Ease the Trip [L.A. Daily News]
· 1st Synchronized Traffic Lights to Begin Operation [CBS2]