ANAHEIM : City Honored for Traffic Management

The city’s Traffic Management System, which controls how vehicles move through congested streets and freeways, has been named a finalist in a national competition that honors local government programs.

The 1991 Innovations in State and Local Government Awards Program singled out Anaheim’s system for its ability to usher traffic through the busy Santa Ana Freeway and around the area near Disneyland and the Anaheim Convention Center.

The program is sponsored by the Ford Foundation and administered by the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

“Just to get selected as a finalist makes us feel real good,” said John Lower, city traffic engineer.

Anaheim is one of 25 finalists selected from more than 1,900 applicants. Later this month, 10 winners will be chosen from the group. Each will receive a $100,000 grant from the Ford Foundation.

If awarded the grant, the city would use the money for its expanded Traffic Management System scheduled to open in fall, 1992.

The system is a network of computers that uses TVs and underground sensors to relay information to a nerve center, where engineers work round the clock to monitor traffic flow.

In problem areas, engineers can make changes in street signals or place messages on freeway signs to help traffic move more efficiently.

The system is the only one in the country that is also linked with a state computerized freeway monitoring network.

The Innovations Program awards are based on four criteria: novelty, effectiveness, value of service to its clients and the degree that it can be duplicated in other cities and states.

This is the fifth year the program has given the awards and the first year that Anaheim has been a finalist.