Valley trying to give drivers the green light

Since the city’s incorporation, engineers in Spokane Valley have taken over efforts to make hitting a row of green lights less a sign of a driver’s good fortune and more the result of careful planning.

“It’s really something that just goes on all the time,” senior traffic engineer Inga Note said of efforts to improve traffic light synchronization.

Although a large-scale overhaul of traffic light systems in the Valley isn’t included in the city’s six-year road plan, computers in several signals have been upgraded. Where pavement has to be torn out for other road work, there are also plans to install fiber-optic cable that can connect signals to each other and to a larger system.

“Eventually we’d like to get them all hooked up,” Note said.

In the meantime, many signals are timed by hand and others turn green when cars trip sensors in the pavement.

“The problem with time-based (signals) is sometimes the clocks will drift,” said George Gregory, chief traffic signal technician for Spokane County.

Additionally, lightning storms and power outages can cause lights to lose their rhythm. When that happens, Gregory and his crew are called to reprogram the signal’s computer.

Efforts have also been made to change the timing schemes along the Sprague-Appleway couplet and elsewhere to make traffic flow more smoothly.

“This is pretty easy at this intersection,” Gregory said as he prepared to change the light sequence at Sprague and Gillis to make it more coordinated with traffic on the couplet.

The new city took over traffic management when it assumed control of roads previously owned by Spokane County and Washington state, excluding Interstate 90. Both entities still take care of the same traffic lights that they used to, but now they perform the work on a contract basis with Spokane Valley and signal timing is up to the city.

Future signal changes are likely farther east on Sprague and on roads like Sullivan, Note said.

The fiber-optic technology is part of the design for upcoming projects on Barker and Argonne.