Fairfield releases data on traffic signal synchronization

Traffic lights turn green for motorists on West Texas Street at Fifth Street Monday. Fairfield has finished a $89,638 effort fo better synchronize traffic signals on West Texas Street and Air Base Parkway. (Brad Zweerink/Daily Republic)

FAIRFIELD — Drivers on Air Base Parkway and West Texas Street should have a better chance than ever of hitting intersections on green lights.

Fairfield last summer finished an $89,638, grant-funded effort to synchronize traffic signals along these stretches during peak morning, midday and evening traffic hours. The city last week on its website released a report detailing the project benefits.

Motorists on these roads should be experiencing an average 12 percent decrease in travel time, a 50 percent reduction in stops and a 40 percent reduction in signal delays, translating to fuel saving of 8 percent, according to the report by the city, the state Department of Transportation and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission.

“Far better for the majority of traffic,” city Traffic Engineer Garland Wong said.

But driving down these streets during rush hour and hitting all green? That still would be someone’s lucky day.

“There’s so many factors involved with timing intersections,” Wong said.

He pointed to downtown Fairfield, which has long had synchronized lights, as being an optimal situation. This stretch of Texas Street has two lanes, no left-turn signals and cross streets that are evenly spaced out.

And, indeed, the lights here often turn red or green one after another, like dominos falling. Drivers have a decent chance of hitting all the lights green.

But Air Base Parkway and West Texas Street are four-lane roads with such variables as left-turn lanes and signalized intersections that are unevenly spaced. Plus, Air Base Parkway has far more traffic than the downtown and has several major city streets crossing it.

Wong talked of having to stop at 80 percent of the Air Base Parkway intersections on an occasion before the synchronization work. That improved to making it through two or three intersections in a row or more after the synchronization.

Still, working out traffic signal timing is a balancing act among competing interests.

“We have noticed some people on side streets waiting a little longer,” Wong said. “What we try to tell people is that once they get onto the main street, the flow will be better, and they recognize that.”

The report on the city’s website attempts to put a dollar figure on the times savings, fuel consumption savings and air pollution reduction attributable to the traffic signal synchronization. The total under the formula used comes to $5.5 million over five years.

Fairfield got the grant to do the project through the Metropolitan Transportation Commission’s Program for Arterial System Synchronization, or PASS. The grant paid for consultants to analyze such information as traffic counts, travel time and intersection turn movements to create the signal timing plan.

Perhaps the next traffic signal synchronization project will be along North Texas Street, Wong said. But this area has seen such recent changes as the North Texas Street interchange renovation project and the opening of Lowe’s.

“I think what we want to try to do is make sure the traffic is established there, that we know what we’re getting,” he said.

Reach Barry Eberling at 427-6929, or beberling@dailyrepublic.net.

Short URL: http://www.dailyrepublic.com/?p=135539

Posted by Barry Eberling on Feb 13 2012.

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