City Expands High-Tech Fix for Midtown Traffic

By Ted Mann

New York City announced plans Tuesday to expand  a system of sensors, cameras and automated traffic lights designed to ease congestion in Midtown.

The Midtown in Motion program, first launched by the city’s Department of Transportation last July, has proven a successful, DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan said at a press conference from the agency’s traffic command center in Long Island City, Queens. As she spoke, giant banks of monitors showed Midtown around some of the city’s bridges and highways moving smoothly — for now.

The first phase of the traffic-management system, covering 100-square blocks from from First Avenue to Ninth Avenue, has sped up the flow of vehicles by 10%, Sadik-Khan said. Taxis move an average of 8% more quickly through the area.

With the planned expansion, traffic cameras, pole-mounted sensors and centralized signal control stretch north between 42nd and 57th streets. The new zone covers 260-square blocks in the city’s most heavily congested neighborhood, Sadik-Khan said.

In the DOT command center, engineers monitor information from every intersection in the management area — including the speed of traffic movement and length of the queues at traffic signals — and adjust signal patterns to ease the flow of cars.

A system of cameras transmits images of the city streets to help DOT staff identify the causes of traffic jams. Engineers can set segments of traffic lights according to three pre-designed traffic algorithms or remotely adjust individual traffic signals to address back-ups.

The DOT will spend $2.9 million in city and state funds to expand the traffic-management system, Sadik-Khan said.

In addition, the agency will spend $2 million on 200 new signal-control units to remotely adjust stop lights — a purchase enabled by a $1.6 million grant from the Federal Highway Administration. The city now operates almost 9,000 such signal controllers, helping to control the flow of traffic from the management center in Queens.