What's up with that?
[Why does it cost so much to synchronize city traffic lights?]
Sunday, January 1, 2006
DPW’s Brian Harmon says when synchronizing city traffic signals, the check comes to roughly $200,000 per intersection.
On the eve of phases 4 and 5 of the city-parish master plan, when another 77 signals will be upgraded to the tune of $13.8 million, 225 put this reader question to Ingolf Partenheimer, acting chief traffic engineer for the parish.
The bottom line is that a large majority of the price tag is derived not from resynchronization, or even manpower, but from the cost of replacing the existing signals with the new tricked-out kind. These signals must then be connected to the Advanced Traffic Management Center . Partenheimer says the signals will communicate autonomously with the traffic center, reporting errors and problems and counting vehicles for later study and timing improvements. All this is aimed, of course, at easing traffic on surface streets, and decreasing emergency response times.
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