Sending Mixed Signals About Traffic Lights

A dispute between bureaucrats and elected officials, and questions about funding have prevented Los Angeles from replacing traffic signals that go dead during blackouts with ones that can operate on backup batteries, according to interviews and documents.

During the power outage Monday, traffic signals went dark in areas affected by the blackout. When power was restored, some lights blinked red until they could be reset by city signal operators.

After the state’s 2002 energy crisis, the California Energy Commission mandated that all cities convert incandescent traffic lights to low-energy, light-emitting diode lights when replacing traffic signals. LED lights use about 10% of the energy consumed by traditional signals.

A second benefit is that LED lights can be more easily powered temporarily by batteries when the power goes out.

More than half the signals in the state have been changed to LEDs, according to the Energy Commission. But Los Angeles has yet to make the upgrade, without which it’s not practical to install backup batteries.

City officials said it would cost an estimated $19 million to $25 million to convert the approximately 4,300 intersections with traffic signals in Los Angeles. And it would cost an additional $1,800 to $3,000 per traffic signal to install a backup battery.

The California Energy Commission grew so frustrated over whether the city was buying the right kind of lights that it asked the city in 2004 for all documents relating to Los Angeles’ LED plan.

Not satisfied with the city’s response, the commission made another request in January. “I think in the past we’ve been frustrated with their efforts,” said Tim Tutt, a commission advisor.

Though unhappy with the city’s efforts, Tutt said the commission was pleased that Antonio Villaraigosa seemed committed to the LED program, both as a councilman and mayor.

“I’m not sure where in the innards of the city departments the [blame] lays, but we hope they can make progress in changing out the old lights,” Tutt said.

The city’s LED plan has stalled over two primary disagreements:

* Who would do the work. Three City Council committees want to hire a contractor, but the city’s Department of Transportation has recommended that city workers do the job.

* How long it would take. The council committees want to do it in two years, the Transportation Department in five. The city’s administrative officer, Bill Fujioka, has backed the Transportation Department, but he said Tuesday that in light of Monday’s events, he’s going to revisit that opinion.

“We at the Department of Transportation have no dispute with anyone,” said John Fisher, the assistant general manager of the agency. “We made an initial recommendation that wasn’t accepted, so we provided information, and we’ll be glad to proceed however the council directs us.”

At one point in the summer of 2004 it appeared that some old traffic signals would burn out and the city didn’t have the LED lights immediately on hand to replace them. At the time, the chief of the Transportation Department, Wayne Tanda, said he would go to retail stores and buy the bulbs.

But Tanda appears to have bumped heads over that issue and others with the wrong council member -- Villaraigosa. Tanda announced his resignation in late August.

Tanda “didn’t exactly impress the Commerce Committee, which I chair, and from what I heard, he didn’t exactly impress the head of the Transportation Committee, who is now the mayor,” said Councilman Tony Cardenas. “Maybe that’s one reason that the change is being made.”

A call to Tanda was returned by Fisher, who declined to discuss the resignation.

Another issue surrounding the use of backup batteries is money. Whether it’s worth spending the money will probably come down to the question of public safety -- whether having the lights working in a blackout would, for example, help clear the way for first responders such as police and firefighters.

Cardenas said it might make be worth investing in enough backup batteries to power lights at highly trafficked intersections or along key corridors during blackouts.

But Councilman Bernard C. Parks said the money might be better invested in ensuring that police and firefighters have safe stations and backup communications systems.

Brian Humphrey, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Fire Department, said that although backup traffic signals are a worthy idea, the department would rather have signal priority equipment that would allow firefighters to extend green lights and more safely navigate intersections on a daily basis.

Discussions about traffic signals and power outages are nothing new to the City Council.

One evening in August 2000, a brief power interruption knocked out nearly 30% of the San Fernando Valley’s 1,000 traffic signals. That triggered 300 signals to flash red, which brought traffic to a standstill.

Resetting the signals took until well into the night. The City Council then introduced a motion saying the city “should carefully investigate ways to prevent such a prolonged disruption to the traffic signals in the future.”