The City of Kirkland is using technology to keep traffic moving.
The city is in the process of adding 25 traffic lights to the city's "Intelligent Transportation System."
The technology was installed along Lake Washington Boulevard, Lake Street, Market Street., 98th Avenue Northeast and Northeast 85th Street in 2015.
There are cameras at the intersections that engineers are watching at the Traffic Management Center at City Hall.
The traffic lights are linked together and monitored by traffic engineers who have the ability to change the signal timing.
"Transportation is a limited resource. We can only move so many people through each of these streets. We're trying to squeeze as much mobility out of every lane we can," said Joel Pfundt, the city's transportation manager, " What ITS [Intelligent Transportation System] does is it really allows us to maximize that and how many people we can move at any given time."
The next phase of the project, underway now, will upgrade 25 traffic signals in Totem Lake and along 100th Avenue Northeast.
"We can coordinate, manage, and monitor our transportation system remotely which means, because we have limited staff, we can manage the system and make sure it's working right without having to go out in the field to solve problems, come up with better timing plans, " Pfundt said.
They can also record traffic patterns during hours the intersections are not monitored. They can play back the video and adjust the signal timing going forward.
The project is scheduled to be completed this spring.
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