After 11 years, county engineers complete retiming of traffic signals on eight
South Bay expressways.

Published Tuesday, December 27, 2005, in the San Jose Mercury News

Changing lights from red to green
Retiming traffic lights helps 8 south bay commutes

By Gary Richards

Without a doubt, the No. 1 driving beef since Roadshow was born 14
years ago has been this: Why is my light always, always red?

It's not that way anymore.

For the first time in 11 years, county engineers have completed a
major retiming of traffic signals on eight South Bay expressways. To
check if it worked, Mr. Roadshow enlisted the help of several
commuters. Instead of seeing red, they found a sea of beautiful
green.

I sat in my car in disbelief. There I was on Lawrence Expressway, in
a persistent rain after darkness had settled over the valley during
the peak of the evening commute.

Up ahead, the Lawrence gantlet: closely aligned intersections at
Benton, Lochinvar, Homestead, Lehigh and Pruneridge. How many times
over the years have I cursed these streets, where the signals always
seemed red, always ready to snare me in their grasp. Inch ahead a few
feet, stop. Inch, stop. Inch, stop. Traffic always idling in a sea
of red brake lights.

Not this night.

Green at Benton.

Green at Lochinvar.

Green at Homestead.

Green at Lehigh.

Green at Pruneridge.

Whoeeee! Flying down the road! At 35 mph to 40 mph. Stopped at
Interstate 280, then green-green-green down to Saratoga Avenue. I'm
moving! Man, it felt good.

And I'm not alone.

"You're going to see more green time," said Dan Collen, deputy
director in the county roads department. "At least we hope so."

Santa Clara County road engineers recently completed the first major
retiming of traffic signals on local expressways and adjacent streets
in 11 years, 139 lights from Capitol Expressway in East San Jose to
Oregon Expressway in Palo Alto.

Since Roadshow was born 14 years ago, badly timed traffic lights have
been the No. 1 complaint. In a county survey three years ago, more
than seven of 10 people said that improving traffic light
synchronization was the most pressing need on the eight expressways.

So I had to find out if this new timing plan worked. I lined up
several commuters to help me test every expressway the week of Dec. 7.
The task was simple: Drive during commute hours, morning or night.
How many green lights would we get vs. red lights?

The tally: Impressive.

Sweet green: 82 lights. Damned red: a mere 33.

By nearly a 3 to 1 ratio, lights were green more than they were red.

Almaden Expressway was the most impressive. There, Luis Arevalo of
San Jose dashed through 12 green lights in a row from Blossom Hill
Road to Alma Avenue. Twelve!

"Before the upgrade, it was hit and miss on getting greens," said
Arevalo, a 48-year-old construction inspector with the city. "It
seems more consistent now."

Consistent. That's an understatement.

Capitol Expressway: 16 lights, 12 green. Page Mill-Oregon Expressway,
green prevailed 12-2. Congested Montague, green again: 11-4.

Pleasant surprise

"The whole ride was pleasant and a bit of a surprise," Betty Fellows,
55, of Redwood City said of her trip along Foothill Expressway. "It
took five or six minutes less then the I-280 drive, with only one
bottleneck, and that wasn't really too bad."

The cost: cheap, baby -- just $1 million to install new equipment and
study traffic patterns. By comparison, the bill to widen I-880 at
Brokaw Road was $73 million.

The benefits include more than just a snappier drive. The county
predicts that drivers will save nearly 460,000 hours in time and that
translates into $6.5 million a year in savings for businesses and
commuters. Drivers cumulatively will save nearly $1.3 million in
gasoline costs annually.

In addition, county studies say that with cars stopping at an
estimated 22 percent fewer red lights, emissions from carbon monoxide,
nitrogen oxides and reactive organic gases could decline 15 percent.

And those estimates are conservative. San Jose retimed 409 signals on
city streets during the past two years and engineers were hoping for
up to a 20 percent reduction in travel time and the number of red
lights drivers regularly hit. They got much more than they expected
-- as much as a 45 percent decline, according to a city follow-up
report.

The expressways have served as the backbone of Silicon Valley
transportation for the past 40 years, with four of every five
motorists using them several days a week. But the county roads
department is often at the end of the money chain, and improvements,
even low-cost ones, can take years to complete.

Greens not guaranteed

The hours during which the new timing plans are in effect vary from
morning to midday to afternoon, and vary from expressway to
expressway. Not every commuter will get a wave of green lights.
Someone stuck at the end of a platoon of cars could see the red flash
before getting through the next intersection.

A nasty spot will remain at Montague Expressway and First Street --
that signal is not tied into the new synchronization plan because
timing has to be linked to VTA's nearby light-rail stop. Another
crunch point is on San Tomas at Highway 17, where needs on state,
county and city roads can conflict.

And there will still be gripes from people who live on some side
streets, such as the ones along Foothill at El Monte Road.

"Residents are now held captive in their neighborhoods," moaned Martha
Daly of Los Altos. "It is extremely difficult to enter or exit the
side streets due to backed-up traffic at rush hour."

And Mike Melligan of Campbell is convinced the lights on San Tomas are
not better: "Until these improvements were made on San Tomas, we used
to be able to drive from Hamilton to Monroe with stops at only one or
two lights," huffed Melligan, a 49-year-old economics and civics
teacher at Wilcox High School.

Be patient, teach. There have been problems with pavement loops along
San Tomas. Once fixed, you may enjoy a commute as snappy as mine on
Lawrence.

Whoeeeee.


Where is the longest red light in the South Bay? Let Roadshow know.
Time the light, list the location, time of day and how many other cars
are waiting with you.

Contact Gary Richards at mrroadshow@... or (408) 920-5335


SIDEBARs

SEEING GREEN ON EXPRESSWAYS

Nearly 140 signals on Santa Clara County expressways and adjacent
intersections have been synchronized for the first time since 1994.
Lights are adjusted three times each weekday. The morning and evening
commutes favor peak direction traffic, while a midday plan balances
out timing patterns.

Expressway Morning Midday Evening
Almaden 6:30-9:30 9:30-2:30 3-7
Capitol 6:45-9:30 9:30-3 3-7
Central 7-9:30 Not timed 3:30-7
Foothill 7-9 Not timed 4-7
Lawrence 6:30-9:30 ***9:30-2 3-7:30
Montague 6:30-9:30 11-2 3-7:30
Oregon-Page Mill *6:30-9:30 Not timed 3-7
San Tomas **6:30-9:30 10:30-2 3-7:30

* Oregon synchronization starts at 7:30 a.m.
**Timing begins south of I-280 at 7 a.m.
*** North of I-280 only

Source:Santa Clara County Roads and Airports Department


EXPRESSWAY FACTS

Construction on Santa Clara County's eight expressways began 46 years
ago, and today they carry more than 500,000 vehicles a day.

HISTORY: County voters passed a property tax increase in 1960 to begin
construction of the first expressways. A second phase -- upgrading
the current roads into freeways -- was to have been paid by a second
bond measure in 1974, but it was defeated.

THE EXPRESSWAYS: Almaden, Capitol, Central, Foothill, Lawrence,
Montague, Oregon-Page Mill, San Tomas. Southwest Expressway is not a
part of the county network, but is a San Jose city street.

USE: More than four of five valley commuters use the expressways
several days a week, and 37 percent of commuters take an expressway to
work.

MONEY WOES: The entire county road system -- which includes rural
mountain roads as well as the expressways -- has an annual budget of
about $52 million. But it would cost $450 million to make the most
critical of improvements to the expressway system during the next 20
years.

Source: Santa Clara County