10-Year Traffic Plan to Ease Congestion Gets the Green Light : Transportation: Signals will be synchronized on four major streets in the South Bay. First phase of the project is expected to be completed by end of the year.

South Bay drivers spend 4 million hours a year waiting in traffic on four major thoroughfares, transportation officials say. But they add that drivers can look forward to faster, less congested trips on major streets as the first phase of a 10-year traffic plan begins this month.

Traffic signals will be synchronized on four arterials over the next two years, said officials from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Work is expected to be completed on Western Avenue between Pacific Coast Highway and the 105 Freeway by the end of the year.

Traffic lights then will be coordinated on Pacific Coast Highway and Hawthorne and Sepulveda boulevards by July, 1995.

The 10-year plan will coordinate 300 intersections on major arterials and supporting routes operated by 19 South Bay cities, Caltrans and Los Angeles County.

Initial improvements mean red-light delays will be shorter and average rush-hour speeds will increase 3 to 5 m.p.h., said Victor Kamhi, manager of the South Bay Traffic Signal System Improvements Project.

“Part of the project is to get all of the cities to agree on some (signal) cycle times . . . and it’s timed so when you go from one light, to the next and the next, you’re constantly hitting green instead of constantly hitting red,” Kamhi said.

Coordinating signals is considered the best way to cope with traffic volumes that have increased dramatically in the South Bay since 1977.

In that time, traffic on Western Avenue has doubled from an average of 20,000 to 40,000 vehicles a day.

On Hawthorne Boulevard, one of the busiest arterials in the county, traffic was 40,000 to 60,000 vehicles per day in 1977. Now it is 50,000 to 70,000.

At half of the major intersections in the South Bay, traffic is at a virtual standstill for at least an hour a day, according to a survey completed in January.

After the first phase of the plan is completed, traffic delays are expected to be cut each year by 400,000 hours on the four identified arterials.

The 10-year plan will incorporate message systems, surveillance and expanded signal centers so facilities at Long Beach, Torrance, Gardena and Los Angeles can exchange information on changing road and traffic conditions.

“South Bay drivers will be able to move around the way they want to move around without building new freeways. We can’t build new freeways. We don’t have any room,” Kamhi said.