Getting the Red Out of County Traffic : Commute: Cities are shedding their individual-fiefdom attitudes and cooperating in signal-synchronization projects.

Scenes from a commute, August, 1991.

The freeway is a rush-hour nightmare. Fortunately, Katella Avenue looks promising, so you head down the broad boulevard.

Things seem fine as you trundle west through Anaheim. Suddenly, you hit a red light. And another red. And another. With mounting frustration, you accelerate from one signal only to hit the brakes when the next one goes red.

Whatever happened, you wonder, to synchronized signals?

The same commute today, six months later.

Surprise, surprise: The freeway is once again a rush-hour nightmare. So what the heck. You give Katella another try.

But this time, the story is different. Sure, you hit some red lights, but only about half as many. The drive that took more than half an hour in August is down to 25 minutes now.

It’s a subtle improvement, but you’ll take anything you can get.

Katella Avenue may be just the beginning. All over Orange County, traffic engineers are beginning to make headway on a problem that ranks among the public’s top motoring gripes: traffic signal timing.

Believe it or not, many signals in Orange County actually are synchronized, to some degree. Unfortunately, the movement of cars along major regional streets like Katella and Moulton Parkway and Harbor Boulevard has been hamstrung by a simple fact: Many of these main thoroughfares cross a multitude of municipal boundaries, and one city’s signals typically aren’t coordinated with those of another.

Now, after years of behaving like warring feudal kingdoms, local cities are drawing together to improve the commute on major roads that crisscross Orange County’s monopoly board of jurisdictions. While the future will still have red lights in it, they’ll be less frequent than in the past on the county’s main boulevards, traffic engineers say.

“The time of being parochial is coming to an end. There’s a need to cooperate,” said Ignacio Ochoa, Orange County traffic engineer. “We can no longer say: ‘There’s the city boundary; that’s the end of my responsibility.’ ”

Others will soon join Katella Avenue. In the next few weeks, signal improvements will be made on Edinger and Adams avenues and a 16-mile stretch from Irvine Center Drive to the Street of the Golden Lantern in Dana Point. Bolsa Chica Street and Bolsa Avenue will come on line later his summer.

It’s happening not a moment too soon.

A recent Orange County Survey conducted by UC Irvine found that 62% of those polled consider synchronization to be a high priority for transportation funds. Synchronization was second only to the 69% favoring a commuter rail system and well above the 33% favoring new freeway construction.

“The more we publicize the fact that we’ve got a system and we’re working on synchronization, the more the public is saying: ‘What about this corridor and what about that?’ They’re starting to demand more,” said Anaheim Traffic Engineer Don Dey, whose city has an advanced traffic management system.

Mistimed signals can cost more than just minutes. Caltrans estimates that 43% of fuel used on surface streets is lost in stop-and-go driving and idling. Driving on surface streets accounts for 30% of the state’s petroleum use, according to a 1984 California Energy Commission study.

Money is a main incentive behind the newfound cooperation among cities. Local, state and federal funding agencies are giving more consideration than in the past to projects where cities work together to benefit a wider area.

But if motorists are assuming that synchronization means never hitting a red light, they should lower their expectations. Traffic engineers say that even under the best coordination system, some red lights will be inevitable.

For example, pedestrians may require more time to cross a major boulevard, taking green-light time away from the main street. Some synchronized cross streets may have traffic that is equal in volume or heavier than another synchronized boulevard, and thus take priority over it. Accidents can slow traffic, keeping it from moving in time with signals.

Engineers could time signals to absolutely guarantee a green light to traffic on a synchronized street, but they would quickly hear from motorists unable to make left turns or those waiting endlessly on cross streets for their own green light. Time would have been “stolen” from these people to benefit the main road.

Instead, engineers compromise. They try to arrange signal timing so that when a group of cars leaves a green light, the pack gets through maybe half a dozen intersections without stopping.

“We try and balance things out and allocate the most green time that we can while minimizing delays to other roads,” Ochoa said.

While some motorists may have their expectations set too high, that’s not to say there isn’t much that can be done to improve the commute on major boulevards.

Smaller or older cities might lack the equipment to coordinate signals, even within their own limits. And before recent funding changes, even those cities with the right equipment may have had little interest in coordinating signals with their neighbors. Local concerns often came first.

For example, signals in and out of shopping malls might have been given greater priority over a synchronized street so as to limit complaints from store owners, one engineer explained. Cities might also have deliberately timed signals to prevent local boulevards from being used as freeway alternatives by what Ochoa dubbed “enemy traffic.”

“Cities have local interests. In some cases, there was so much local interest that some engineering decisions were made that were not very prudent,” Ochoa said.

A kinder, gentler and far more regional attitude has now developed. The pressure of ever-increasing traffic demands and the chance to get road improvement dollars have municipalities working together.

Katella Avenue is a good example. The signal improvements were financed with money from an Orange County transportation funding program that gives cities money every year to make road repairs. But as an experiment, funds for the 1989-90 year were only awarded to signal-coordination projects that would benefit broader portions of the county. Cities had a simple choice--work with their neighbors on traffic synchronization or be left out in the cold.

Katella was the most involved of the 16 projects that got money--and the first to see improvements.

Several cities and Caltrans worked to coordinate 40 signals along 12 miles of the roadway. After two years, legal issues were resolved, technical problems had been worked out, and signal timing compromises had been made. Katella’s improvement went on-line in October, and traffic delays plunged. The success got planners thinking about doing more.

“Katella was the first, and everybody identified how successful it was,” Dey said, adding that the success got engineers in neighboring cities to start considering future projects.

New sources of state, federal and local money have developed to encourage cooperative projects. Chief among them is Measure M, the half-cent county sales tax hike for transportation approved in 1990. Coordination projects will spring up throughout the county over the next few years if the special sales tax isn’t overturned in court. A state appeals court is reviewing a legal challenge by the measure’s opponents.

Assuming Measure M survives, $120 million will flow during the next 20 years into the so-called “super-street” project, which will expand and improve 220 miles of roadway in Orange County. Signal synchronization is a major component of the program.

In addition, $50 million is strictly earmarked in Measure M for signal improvements and coordination projects.

This type of funding is appealing to cash-strapped cities that lack coordination equipment, such as Huntington Beach, which has no main computer to tie its signals together.

“It’s sad to say, but all of the signals in Huntington Beach operate on their own,” said Jim Otterson, the city’s traffic engineer.

Even cities with traffic control systems can benefit from cooperative programs, authorities say. Measure M money should help them afford improved signal systems or help conduct new traffic surveys that are vital to ensuring that the signals are well-timed, since traffic patterns change through the years.

But the key, authorities say, is that the cities must give up some local control for the good of all.

“Rather than be individual fiefdoms,” Otterson said, “we’re trying to look for regional solutions.”

If the funding incentives alone don’t get cities to come together, the Orange County Transportation Authority, which distributes Measure M funds, is in a unique position to give a push in the right direction.

“Where we help in terms of countywide signal coordination is through our funding programs and our regional coordination with agencies,” said Dean Delgado, an OCTA associate transportation analyst. “We can say: ‘If you guys want to get together and do this, we’ll help you out.’ ”

But no matter how much money is poured into the problem, no matter how many fancy computers are installed, one thing remains certain: Like death and taxes, motorists will still hit an occasional red light.

When Synchronization Works, and When It Doesn’t

In a recent Orange County Survey conducted by UC Irvine, Orange County residents ranked traffic signal synchronization as the second most important transportation project, right behind building a commuter rail system. To many drivers, synchronization means the ability to drive down a major road during peak hours without stopping. But traffic engineers sometimes can only move cars nonstop through several intersections at a time--rather than miles. Pedestrians, city limits and other problems can disrupt synchronization, making some red lights inevitable.

How It Works

1) Group of cars gets green light.

2) The group leaves, traveling near the speed limit, for next signal.

3) Next signal is timed to turn green just before group arrives.

Why You Might Hit Red Lights

1. Speeders and stragglers: Fast drivers may arrive before the group’s green light appears; slow drivers may arrive too late.

2. Walk/Don’t Walk: When pedestrians push the WALK button, that may “steal” some “green time” away from the synchronized street.

3. Major intersection: Sometimes, a cross street with heavy traffic gets more “green time” than the synchronized street.

4. City limits: Driving into another city usually disrupts synchronization because most cities time their signals independently of each other.

5. Unexpected Problems: Accidents or unusual congestion can slow traffic speed, putting cars out of sync with signals. For example, cars may use this street as a detour if a nearby freeway has a traffic jam.

Timing the Signals

Signals move traffic in cycles, which on busy streets typically take 100 to 130 seconds to complete. Longer cycles devote more time to cross-street and left-turn traffic. How a typical 130-second cycle works:

54 seconds: For main street traffic

16 seconds: For left-turn traffic from cross-street, then nearly two-minute wait until next left-turn signal

44 seconds: For cross-street traffic, then nearly 1 1/2-minute wait until cross traffic can move again.

16 seconds: For left-turn traffic from main street, then nearly two-minute wait until next left-turn light.

Why Cycle Lengths Change

Cycles change to suit traffic needs. A look at Katella Avenue between the Orange Freeway and Beach Boulevard: Time of day: Cycle length 7-9 a.m. (peak): 126 sec. 9-11 a.m.: 100 sec. 11 a.m.-3:30 p.m.: 120 sec. 3:30-6:30 p.m.: 130 sec.

Katella Avenue: a Success Story

Until October, six north Orange County cities and the state Department of Transportation ran their signals independently of each other along a 12-mile portion of Katella Avenue. A pioneering synchronization project coordinated signals and reduced stops. Fewer Minutes of Travel No Sync / P.M. peak: 31.2 With Sync / P.M. peak: 25.8 Red Lights Encountered No Sync / P.M. peak: 20.3 With Sync / P.M. peak: 13 Source: Anaheim Traffic Engineer Don Dey; UCI Institute of Transportation Studies report on Katella Avenue signal coordination.

Researched by DANNY SULLIVAN / Los Angeles Times