A relatively cheap fix could reduce worsening traffic woes
Some people think we're wasting too much time on the road, stuck in traffic. Actually, we should spend more time on the road, improving the traffic systems.
Panos Prevedouros raised the traffic issue in the last mayoral race. After the election, people concluded that given the rail mandate, there was no need for further concern about traffic, and we haven't heard anything more about traffic systems since then.
But the fact is that congestion is worse than ever, and from all indications, nothing is being done. If we want to spend less time on the road, we'd better bring in the tech, just as Panos suggested earlier.
BACK TO THE FUTURE
Our city has lost touch with the traffic technology being developed around the world. We need modern systems, not those from the 1970s. By best practice, O'ahu should have a plan to optimize its signals every three to five years, but we don't.
Yes, we have the old magnetic sensors which can read one or two car lengths at a signal. But they can't tell you how many cars are waiting. We claim we have a handful of timed signal groupings on O'ahu (Hawai'i Kai, Beretania and Nimitz), but these cover small areas where the more effective practice is to cover large regions.
We've been putting money into webcams and a "traffic control center" that can change signals remotely, but our technology is way behind, and we wind up changing signals either by eyeball or after expensive "studies." There are 800 signals on O'ahu. Four teams could reprogram 200 signals per year, but no teams are doing any regular updates. It's a sad case.
CATCHING UP
In 2000, when Seattle retimed and synchronized some 500 intersections, officials there achieved a 20 percent drop in congestion on three major arteries. Former Mayor Paul Schell said: "It's the one investment we can make in the near term that will make a difference in people's lives every day."
While Honolulu's Web site, www.honolulu.gov/cameras/traffic.htm, can warn people about traffic jams, it doesn't do anything to manage them. That's not enough — we need a signal light coordination system to properly manage our traffic.
City officials likewise have spent money on light-emitting diode signals to save on electric bills and maintenance costs, but that doesn't improve traffic flow. Saving maintenance costs is not a solution. We have to improve the operation of our systems.
New nonintrusive sensors can tell us all about the traffic on a given roadway or intersection. Small, fast processors can read those sensors, process sophisticated algorithms, derive regional solutions and provide coordinated green light times to traffic signals over large geographical areas.
The technology is ready for us, but are we ready for the technology? And why aren't we using it already?
COMMUTER HEAVEN
There are various levels of signal coordination:
ATSAC was developed by Los Angeles. It's provided to other cities free, but you need traffic engineers to manage it. ATSAC can reduce delays by 10 to 35 percent over large areas. Once, when the L.A. engineers went on strike, some created artificial gridlock with their laptops — they were able to improve or mess up traffic at will. It's a powerful system.
GETTING IT DONE
The goal is to recalculate green light times in a way to provide continuous greens ("greenwaves") along as many routes as possible. When you get the green, you should be able to go at least six blocks without a red or, with a good system, 10 blocks or more. ATSAC could easily achieve that.
To install ATSAC, we would need 20 qualified traffic engineers. They would work the intersections in teams. It would take five years to complete the project. Right now, the city has only one or two traffic engineers. That's not enough.
Luckily, we can train traffic engineers here. Panos runs the traffic engineering program at the University of Hawai'i. It has been awarding master's degrees since the 1960s and doctorates since the 1990s. If we need more engineers, there are plenty on the Mainland, including UH grads.
To minimize transitional disruption, we could stage the coordination of the first 400 signals in the urban core over two years, then work on the rest later. We would see huge traffic flow improvements in the first few months. You'd be able to save at least five minutes, for example, driving the length of Beretania Street.
The project would not involve roadway, bridge or underpass construction — just better calculation of the green times. The equipment would be installed plug-and-play into the existing street cabinets. Once the system is installed, we would need only about 10 traffic engineers to maintain it, and we'd be good to go for years.
YOU'D BE HOME BY NOW
Despite the rhetoric, rail will not manage our traffic. We need to bring in modern technology for that. If we can spend $5 billion and more for rail, then we can spend a relatively modest $50 million to manage our traffic.
Obvious options, like additional one-way streets, fewer left turns, and fewer cars, would improve traffic flow very quickly. But these things run counter to popular tastes and attract political resistance. What we need is a good signal-coordination system. It's low-hanging fruit and our best option. And it can have a magical effect on our lives.
But let's not get too optimistic. The mayor and the City Council have ignored the congestion problem so far, and that's likely to continue. While we're waiting for a solution, you can write your congestion rants to the newspaper editors, the mayor and the council, and then vote for technology candidates in the next election.
