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Jan 6, 2009 5:34 pm US/Central
Fort Worth Fixing Out-Of-Sync Traffic Lights
FORT WORTH (CBS 11 News) ―
The City of Fort Worth gets many complaints about its traffic lights. Drivers say they're not synchronized, which leads to unnecessary traffic backups.
"I can sit there for ten or so minutes," said Dan Morgan. "And if you're backed up in the left lane to go down University or Camp Bowie you're not moving for ten, fifteen minutes.
Along Lancaster, Hulen or Beach, the stories and the complaints are the same.
"It's really annoying! I want to get mad at everybody in front of me," said Ashley Rivers, "but I can't. It's the light's fault. Or it's more [the fault] of the city."
The city says most of its traffic lights are on their own timers.
But the city is spending $2 million to change that.
Engineers are working on a project that will allow them to manage 700 of the city's lights from a single command center.
The computerized system will keep an eye out for traffic backups and synchronize lights to allow traffic to flow smoothly.
There are just over 100 on the system now. "Since there are 700 of them we've got a long way to go," said Russ Wiles, who's managing the project.
When it's finished, planners hope they will be able to end delays at lights, help ease pollution from idling cars and give idle drivers better things to think about than how to beat annoying stop lights.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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