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10 stouflville suntribune thursday march 10 2005 traffic lishts setting smarter staff photomike barrett smart traffic lights could increase traffic capacity at intersections such as yonge street and davis drive by roy green staff writer imagine being able to increase the traffic capacity of hwy 7 yonge street weston road and other congested roads by 10 per cent and imagine doing it without having to widen those thoroughfares its already happening in los angeles and now its coming to york region the region and the fed eral government are about to sign on to a pilot project for smart traffic lights oth erwise known as adaptive traffic control signals the signals are linked to sensors in the road that monitor volume and self- adjust the amount of green time displayed at busy intersections said lizuarte simas the regions manager of traffic control systems it is constantiy measur ing the traffic flow and will adjust to fluctuations mr simas said a good example is in toronto where they wired a number of intersections around the skydome la perhaps the worlds most autocentric location began the switch during its preparations for the 1984 olympics and has comput erized 3000 of its 4200 traf fic signals la perhaps the worlds most autocentric location began the switch during its preparations for the 1984 olympics and has computerized 3000 of its 4200 traffic signals city engineers say theyve tweaked an extra 10 per cent capacfty out of major streets without building or widening roads and reduced startandstop traffic by 15 per cent while the region isnt ready to begin making pre dictions mr simas said a successful pilot could lead to wider use of adaptive traffic control although planners havent decided on a loca tion for the pilot project newmarket regional councillor tony van bynen says theres a prime exam ple in his municipality it could work wonders for both the davis drive and yonge street corridors newmarkets primary prob lem areas mr van bynen said in york regions case the federal government will pay half the 500000 cost of the pilot project under transport canadas intelligent transportation systems program davis drive had over 1000 collisions between 1999 and 2003 traffic congestion on hwy 7 might be a higher priority according to georgina regional councillor danny wheeler a member of the trans portation and works com mittee yonge and davis can be trying at times but ive been on hwy 7 a lot of times when its basically just stop and go the important thing is to get it up and running mr wheeler also sound ed a cautionary note upon learning the la system comes with the state-of- theart price of 250 mil lion 70 per cent of it fund ed by the federal govern ment hopefully we dont have to deal with that transit ridership here is going up every year and rapid transit is coming in the fall he said that will make some people get out of their cars and it all helps to ease gridlock in york regions case the federal government will pay half the 500000 cost of the pilot project under transport canadas intelligent transportation systems program ww community care yw access t centre of york region were here for you looking for nursing home placement for yourself or a loved one call the ccac of york region at 18884702222 this message brought to you as a community senice of theeconomist suvsuntribune