Driving through Fresno getting faster

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- Synchronized traffic signals decide whether lights are red or green depending on how much traffic is going in either direction. Which should make getting around town quicker.

City Public Works Director Scott Mozier says Fresno's spending $25 million in federal and state grants to synchronize traffic lights all over town.

Mozier said, "We've accomplished some pretty major traffic synchronization projects on corridors like Herndon, Blackstone, Shaw and Clovis avenues and now we are getting into smaller, lower volume corridors, but very important."

Funding for the Ashlan corridor between Blackstone and Peach has just been approved. Soon electronic sensors and cameras will be installed to help traffic move. So far, synchronization of main streets has made travel about 25 percent faster. The manager of the project, John Stanboulian says it's cheaper than building more streets.

Stanboulian explained, "Adding 18 to 25 percent capacity to a corridor is substantial, the only other way you can add capacity is more lanes, which is cost prohibitive."

All the traffic information is fed into a central command center downtown. Computers do most of the work, but Jeff McMullen is the "hands on" operator of the system, tweaking things when needed.

"In the morning everybody is going to work and in the afternoon they are coming from work. So it's usually just in one direction. And at noontime they are going every which way. And we are trying to coordinate not in one direction but both directions all the time, so it's a real challenge."

Synchronization not only improves traffic flow, but reduces air pollution by reducing the amount of time cars are idling, waiting for the lights to change. New streets will be coming on line every month. The goal is to synchronize the whole city within a few years.

In order to take advantage of synchronization, the best thing for drivers to do is follow the posted speed limit because if you go too fast you are likely to hit a red light quicker, and everybody you passed will catch up.