Countywide : Synchronization of 400 Traffic Signals OKd

More than 400 traffic signals will be synchronized throughout the county with more than $8 million distributed to 16 agencies during the 1989-90 fiscal year under a plan approved this week by the Orange County Transportation Commission.

As part of the plan approved by the panel, Brea, Placentia and Fountain Valley will be installing citywide signal control systems.

In addition, traffic signals along Katella Avenue, and the Irvine Center Drive-Moulton Parkway-Street of the Golden Lantern continuous thoroughfare will be “rewired to line up more green lights,” said Bob Boardman, the commission’s associate transportation analyst.

The signal synchronization effort was previously announced but until now it had not been included in OCTC’s annual budget.

The OCTC signal coordination effort involves an unusual strategy: Instead of tying different cities’ traffic computers together, which is costly, each time clock will be synchronized to a common time signal broadcast by the National Bureau of Standards.

Also, the signals will respond to car counts recorded by pavement sensors, with light changes staggered at consecutive intersections “so that drivers can maintain headway most of the time,” said Boardman.

A bigger, far-reaching signal-linking and coordination program, estimated to cost $50 million, is included in OCTC’s 20-year traffic improvement plan, which would be funded with part of the proceeds from a proposed half-cent sales tax that OCTC is considering for the November ballot.