Countywide : Emergency Vehicle Plan to Be Discussed

County transportation officials will decide Monday whether to give the green light to a countywide system allowing police and firefighters on emergency calls to control traffic signals from their vehicles--despite some resistance from cities worried about snarled traffic.

If the board of directors approves a recommendation from Orange County Transportation Authority staff members, analysts would begin drafting plans and selecting routes for the controversial system, designed to speed the response time and increase the safety for emergency vehicles.

Similar systems are in place in five Orange County cities and several unincorporated areas, but OCTA senior transportation analyst Dean Delgado said the network being considered would be a coordinated, countywide effort. The early cost estimate is between $2.5 million and $5 million, depending on the scope of the commitment, OCTA records show.

While OCTA staff members laud the system as a technological advance to protect police and firefighters and hasten their arrival to emergency scenes, 11 cities have gone on the record to oppose the network, agency records show.

Many say it would upset efforts to regulate the flow of traffic.

If the system was put in place, signals at selected sites would be geared to interrupt their normal cycle when a police or fire vehicle approaches with its sirens activated.

The traffic lights would react to devices in the vehicles that emit a radio or light signal when the vehicle’s sirens are activated. At a four-way intersection, a red light would flash for all three sides of opposing traffic until the emergency vehicle was past the intersection, Delgado said.

Officials in Fullerton, the largest city to oppose the plan, said it would confound current countywide efforts to use coordinated traffic signals to soothe the Southland’s surface street traffic snarls.

The new system would foil the campaign to calibrate signals on busy thoroughfares so cars move through quickly in waves, or “platoons,” with fewer stops, said Fullerton engineering director Bob Hodson said.

“We think this new system certainly has some merit, but until the technology exists for these two goals to be compatible, we think this is just counterproductive,” Hodson said. He added that the city police officials do not believe the proposed signal control would help them greatly either. “It would just get things out of whack,” Hodson said.

The passing of an emergency vehicle could put the system out of its routine rhythm for as many as six cycles, creating logjams, Hodson said.

However, Delgado said the transportation officials have not picked the system they would use and that selection will be based in large part on how the potential network would affect traffic flow.

Many of the 11 cities opposed to the system cited OCTA discussion of using Measure M funds for the project as a major stumbling block to their support, Fullerton City Manager James L. Armstrong said.

“That money is set aside to make traffic flow better, not slow it down,” Armstrong said. “We just don’t think this was what voters had in mind when they set aside that money.”

Sixteen cities opposed using Measure M funds for the project, records show. The board of directors will examine the funding issue separately from the overall approval question.

Approval of the system Monday in Santa Ana would send analysts into meetings with agencies countywide, Delgado said. Those analysts would return in two to three months with a specific plan, pilot sites and a firmer price for the implementation of the system, he said.

Red Light, Green Light

The majority of Orange County’s 31 cities support implementation of a countywide system that would enable police and fire vehicles to preempt red traffic lights by a radio signal. The Orange County Transportation Authority will make a decision Monday.

SUPPORT * Anaheim (for Fire Department) * Brea * Costa Mesa * Dana Point * Garden Grove * Huntington Beach * Irvine * Laguna Beach * Laguna Niguel * Lake Forest * Orange * San Clemente * San Juan Capistrano * Santa Ana (for Fire Department) * Stanton * Yorba Linda * County of Orange

OPPOSE * Buena Park * Fullerton * La Habra * La Palma * Los Alamitos * Mission Viejo * Placentia * Seal Beach * Tustin * Villa Park * Westminster

Note: Cities of Cypress, Fountain Valley, Laguna Hills and Newport Beach (no response) have no position.

Source: Orange County Transportation Authority