While dozens of fire crews were working to extinguish the massive fire at the Lynnview Apartments on Monday afternoon, traffic engineers were working behind the scenes, helping to keep cars moving.
Engineers in the city’s new Traffic Management Center in City Hall monitored traffic flow with cameras on all adjacent streets. They identified where backups were occurring and changed signal timing to help ease congestion as much a possible.
“City traffic engineers were able to watch the event, diagnose a solution and re-program the traffic signals on a detour route, all from City Hall. The benefits of this system are very obvious and powerful,” said Public Works Director Bill Franz.
Over the past six years the city has built a so-called “Intelligent Transportation System” using federal grants and local matching funds. ITS uses high-tech cameras, traffic controllers and fiber optic connections to collect traffic data from Lynnwood’s 57 traffic signals. It sends that information to the Traffic Management Center, giving engineers the ability to watch, analyze and modify the traffic signals.
One of the many great things that the FORMER administration was responsible for bringing to Lynnwood.
Good piece on Lynnwood traffic!
However, I find it nearly impossible to believe there is any intelligent supervision of traffic signals in Lynnwood. The signals are so inconsistent, and just plain bad I try to avoid Lynnwood at all costs.
Some mornings southbound you can get EVERY red light from 188th southward. Sometimes you only stop at one or two.
Just can't believe anybody ever takes care of the signals in Lynnwood!