Emergency Signal Plan Still Awaits Green Light

An effort to use high-tech devices on traffic signals and emergency vehicles across Orange County is being revived by county officials who abandoned discussions once before because of that ever-present snag--money.

The Board of Supervisors agreed last week to ask city and county officials, including police chiefs, to try again to decide whether it’s feasible for a countywide plan to install the system.

The idea seems unassailable: Provide a safer route for emergency vehicles by turning signal lights red in three directions except that of the oncoming fire engine, police car or ambulance. But, as with most things in government, it’s not that simple in practice.

The Orange County Fire Authority, which provides fire service to the county’s unincorporated areas and 19 cities, supports installing the system--called traffic signal preemption--but only if it’s paid for by non-fire funds. The agency has suggested using money from the county’s half-cent sales tax for transportation--a position opposed by city officials, who want to keep the money for more pressing needs such as road repair.

The devices are expensive: A 1991 study by the county estimated it would cost $2.1 million to equip 230 of the most heavily traveled intersections.

There’s also a rift about effectiveness: County Executive Officer Jan Mittermeier told supervisors that some traffic engineers differ with fire officials about whether the devices are that helpful.

Paul Grimm, the traffic engineer for Buena Park, chuckled when asked if a countywide consensus were possible on the devices. The city has equipped its intersection signals, fire engines, police cars and emergency vehicles with preemption sensors since the 1960s.

“The city’s very happy with them,” Grimm said, “but traffic engineers tend to be less excited about them because it tears up the coordination” of the city’s traffic flow.

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Some devices have been installed at high-use intersections in six cities in the county: Buena Park, Huntington Beach, Newport Beach, San Clemente, Stanton and Westminster. Studies in the 800 cities that use the system across the country estimate that response times improved 17% to 25%.

The debate was revived last year with a report by the county grand jury urging countywide adoption of traffic signal preemption and uniform standards to assure that the sensors are compatible. The grand jury recommended that the Fire Authority convene a summit of fire chiefs to create a plan for equipping the county, but there hasn’t been “much activity in that arena,” said the authority’s spokesman, Capt. Scott Brown.

“Studies suggest they’re a good safety device and they reduce the potential for accidents,” Brown said. “They would aid our emergency resources so they could go where they need to be more safely and smoothly. But then that’s where you get to the issue of who’s going to pay for it.”

He said the devices would assist the agency’s ever-present campaign to educate drivers about what to do when an emergency vehicle approaches.

The system has the cautious endorsement of even those who generally oppose government’s attempts to spend money. Bill Ward, a longtime leader of Drivers for Highway Safety, formed 15 years ago to protest the installation of car-pool lanes, said the idea is sound.

“My worry is they’ll over-plan it,” Ward said. “The idea is great, but they have a tendency to spend a whole lot of money in the planning stages. They ought to just do it.”

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Perspective is a weekly column highlighting trends or events that define Orange County or an issue affecting Orange County. Readers are invited to call Los Angeles Times correspondent Jean O. Pasco at (714) 564-1052 or send e-mail to Jean.Pasco@latimes.com