High-Tech Hardware Keeping Huntington Signals in Sync

Dear Street Smart:

My husband and I have noticed some very peculiar devices atop some traffic signals here in Huntington Beach. They are at Adams Avenue and Magnolia Street and also at Brookhurst Street and Yorktown Avenue. Could you explain what these radar-looking devices are and what they’re used for?

Julie Ross

Huntington Beach

The devices are radio antennas and part of a new system, expected to be completed within a year, to synchronize the signals at all of the city’s major intersections.

Measuring about 2-foot-square with a spike in the center, the devices pick up a radio tone emitted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology based in Boulder, Colo.

The tone is emitted at specific intervals and picked up by receivers nationwide. In Huntington Beach, the signal is picked up at exactly 3 a.m. each day, automatically resetting the clocks on synchronized traffic lights to compensate for any loss due to power outages, mechanical failures or “electronic drift,” said Bruce Gilmer, the city’s associate traffic engineer.

Currently the signal is picked up by remote receivers at each major traffic light.

Under the new system, Gilmer said, the signal will be picked up by a single receiver at City Hall, then broadcast to antennas like the ones you saw.

*

Dear Street Smart:

As you travel west on the Santa Ana Freeway and transition to the Garden Grove Freeway, there is a sign indicating that the speed limit on the transition ramp is 35 mph. I, and the rest of the traffic, am going from 55 to 60 mph on the freeway, and we all easily maintain that speed as we make the transition. I am certain that if I slowed down to 35 mph, it would be extremely dangerous.

Is there any explanation why the speed limit is 35 mph with everyone going 55 to 60, which appears to be a very safe speed at that location?

Michael D. Fenderson

Laguna Beach

The sign is advisory only, according to Maureena Duran-Rojas, a spokeswoman for Caltrans. You will not be cited if you exceed it.

Signs without words, it turns out, are recommended speeds. Signs that say “speed limit” mean it.

That particular sign was posted, Duran-Rojas said, because Caltrans considers 35 mph to be the optimum speed to “allow a comfortable ride” along the transition ramp, as determined by a device called a ball bank indicator designed to measure just such a thing.

Consisting of a little hanging ball, the device is placed on the dashboard of a test car, which then takes the curve in question. As speed increases, Duran-Rojas said, the ball moves in an arc, the width of which measures centrifugal force. A certain force, she said, is considered optimum.

And just what does Caltrans consider an optimum speed?

“If you have a bag of groceries,” the spokeswoman explained, “you would be making a turn that would not upset it.”

*

Dear Street Smart:

Is there a law that there should be addresses on all homes and buildings, not only in Orange County, but throughout the state?

It is impossible to find anything, anywhere, when you do not have an address on a building or a home. I feel for the new people moving here, as we like them to do. Between the freeways and no addresses, they are likely to be quite bewildered.

Elaine Glick

Anaheim

Yes, there is a law requiring all buildings in the state to have street numbers. It’s called the Uniform Fire Code and, according to Scott Brown, a spokesman for the Orange County Fire Authority, its main purpose is to help police and firefighters find locations.

“Addresses are a very, very important part of our emergency response ability,” Brown said. “We need to be able to find out where we’re going.”

In Orange County, street addresses must be assigned by the Environmental Management Agency before new construction is approved, Brown said. Later, enforcement of the code is up to individual cities.

When vegetation or something else hides a house number, Brown said, “we give [homeowners] a very strong recommendation that they should immediately clear it out. What it truly becomes is an education issue; emergency response is time driven, and seconds count.”

*

Street Smart appears Mondays in The Times Orange County Edition. Readers are invited to submit comments and questions about traffic, commuting and what makes it difficult to get around in Orange County. Include simple sketches if helpful. Letters may be published in upcoming columns. Please write to David Haldane, c/o Street Smart, The Times Orange County Edition, P.O. Box 2008, Costa Mesa, CA 92626, send faxes to (714) 966-7711 or e-mail him at David.Haldane@latimes.com. Include your full name, address and day and evening phone numbers. Letters may be edited, and no anonymous letters will be accepted.