A Quest to Unlock Gridlock : Final Phase of Traffic Plan Begins

Glendale Traffic Engineer Tom Horne believes that he is about to do something Glendale commuters may find hard to believe--make it possible for drivers to cruise Brand Boulevard during rush hour without stopping.

Horne is fully aware of the significance of such an accomplishment--right now, he said, a car driving a busy downtown street at rush hour has to stop an average of every 12 seconds.

A study conducted by the traffic engineering office less than six months ago shows that downtown traffic is nearly gridlocked. The average afternoon rush-hour speed on Colorado Street is 15 m.p.h. On Central and Pacific avenues, it is 13 m.p.h., and on Brand, 10 m.p.h.

Ancient History

But to Horne, that study is ancient history. Next week he will begin the final phase of a traffic light synchronization program that he believes is the answer to many of the city’s seemingly chronic traffic woes.

Encompassing 62 signals and all of downtown, an area bounded by Glenoaks Boulevard on the north, Colorado Boulevard on the south, Pacific Boulevard on the east and Glendale Boulevard on the west, the $600,000 computer-synchronized network is already operating in all but a handful of the targeted street corners. Over the last three months, city traffic workers have been laying wires, connecting signals as they go.

The last four or five traffic signals will be added to the system this week, Horne said. In the past, streets such as Brand Boulevard were synchronized individually but were not coordinated with signals on other streets to create an areawide plan.

If some drivers still can’t make their way through the city without stopping, Horne said, it will be because the system has not yet been fully adjusted to the city’s traffic rhythm.

“We will be real busy in the next couple of months fine-tuning the system until we find the ideal pattern,” Horne explained.

So after the last downtown traffic signal has been added, Horne and consultants from Will Dan & Associates, a private firm hired by the city, will hop in their cars and find out what needs to be done.

They will clock the time it takes a car to go from one corner to another during the morning and afternoon rush hours, and during lunchtime and at mid-afternoon. They will count, for example, the times a car has to stop while traveling Glendale Boulevard on a busy day, or how long cars wait when traffic on Colorado Street slows to a halt.

Then Horne will devise the ideal traffic flow and feed the information into the city’s VMS 220 computer, which monitors and coordinates traffic lights from a small, cluttered room next to Horne’s office in the Glendale Municipal Services building downtown.

Like a Batman Prop

The computer looks like something Batman would use to fight crooks in Gotham City. A large, rectangular console with dozens of buttons and switches, multicolored lights, two screens and a telephone. The computer is connected to a wall-size electronic map of Glendale with tiny red bulbs flashing like fireflies at every intersection that has a signal.

Horne said that through the computer, installed last year, the city has the ability to adjust traffic signals during the busy Christmas season, for instance, or during unusual events such as parades and city-wide emergencies.

The traffic system is not expected to cause a major change in traffic speed, Horne acknowledged as he watched a red traffic light turn green in the computer screen. But thanks to the new equipment, he said, driving through downtown will become much less burdensome.

“The rule of thumb is that these systems reduce delays by 10% to 15%. A minute of delay may not be that much, but if you add up the wear and tear of having to stop every 12 seconds, it’s quite an inconvenience. We hope to reduce that by a lot.”

Monitor Signals

As an added benefit, the computer allows city employees to monitor all traffic signals and make sure that they are working properly. “Until now, we had to rely on neighbors or police reports to find out a signal wasn’t working; now we just have to check with the computer.”

But, he warned, the system will not make congestion disappear as long as heavy traffic continues to flood Glendale’s booming central district. “When the streets become overcrowded, the system is not going to work, of course, and you will have to wait for green lights.”