Cameras help cities keep traffic moving

We've all been there, glaring at an empty street while the light refuses to budge from red. Or cruising along, somehow hitting every green light along Bel-Red Road. Or trying in vain to squeeze into the left-turn lane before that magic green arrow disappears.

Mike Whiteaker can empathize. He's been there, too. And most days, he sees it all play out on a wall of monitors showing the views from 20 cameras perched atop light standards throughout Bellevue.

At a growing number of Eastside intersections, it's not luck or serendipity that governs how quickly we make it through. It's how traffic signal operations engineers like Whiteaker program the stoplights, and how they and their computers react to everything from accidents to parades to accommodate the traffic we create.

Bellevue has had its own traffic management center since the 1970s, in a nondescript building along 116th Avenue Southeast, near City Hall.

There, an engineer behind a bank of computers can tweak signal timing with a click of the mouse to stop cross traffic so police can safely tend to an accident, or make the lights stay green longer along ever-busy Northeast 8th Street to speed shoppers toward Bellevue Square during the holidays.

Many of Bellevue's smaller neighbors, including Redmond, Renton and Issaquah, are following suit, deploying traffic cameras, miles of fiber-optic cable, programmable signals, traffic sensors and new software to major intersections.

All say they're looking to technology to help unstick streets that are already jammed or getting there.

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"We've had a lot of growth and we've filled up our streets and we're not going to build very many more, so we need all the efficiency we can get out of what we have," said David Alm, Redmond's transportation operations manager who is putting together the city's center.

Traffic management centers will become more commonplace as populations continue to grow, predicts Mark Hallenbeck, director of the Washington State Transportation Center at the University of Washington.

"Traditionally when you ran out of roadway space you just built more roads and everybody was happy," Hallenbeck said. "But in urban areas the value of land is too high. We want to use it for other purposes."

Plus, he says, it's become easier for cities to win federal grants to manage traffic rather than build new roads.

Bellevue, for example, recently received a Homeland Security grant to add 15 cameras over the next two years, said Traffic Engineering Manager Mark Poch. They'll be placed along evacuation routes to help the city keep the roads clear during emergencies. As a bonus, they'll nearly double the number of cameras the city has looking at traffic each day.

Engineers staff the center from 6:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. most days, with extended hours during major holidays, festivals and events such as Vice President Cheney's visit in 2003 and the city's marathon.

Poch says they're on the lookout for unusual backups, accidents and other disruptions. During Cheney's visit, they helped law enforcement monitor the crowds, and adjusted the signals to help flush traffic out of downtown quickly.

Some of Bellevue's 174 traffic signals have up to eight timing plans to handle early, late, peak and other levels of traffic, and about 90 percent of the signals are connected to the system.

"You observe. Is it one signal, or just more traffic than normal?" Whiteaker said. "If we see huge southbound movement in Factoria, we'll just tell it to run the p.m. timing plan."

In the traffic center, stickers mark camera locations on a floor-to-ceiling map of the city. A framed picture of a traffic camera hangs on another wall. Below, dozens of videotapes line a bookshelf, packed with footage from snowstorms, construction sites, holidays and specific intersections.

Whiteaker says the engineers refer to them for hints on how to handle events and program effective signal patterns. On Mondays, they often review the past week in time lapse, Whiteaker said.

"We always try to improve on what we did last year," he said.

Early warning

Issaquah: Expect right-lane closures on State Route 900 Tuesday through Friday, between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. in the northbound direction and 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the southbound direction for roadside restoration and plantings.

Bellevue: Up to three lanes of Interstate 405 through downtown Bellevue in both directions will be closed nightly between 8 p.m. and 5 a.m. Monday through Thursday. On Monday and Tuesday nights the offramps at Northeast Fourth Street will be closed from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. and the southbound on- and offramps at Northeast Sixth Street from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m.

Karen Gaudette: 206-515-5618 or kgaudette@seattletimes.com