Gate City to get smart traffic signals along Yellowstone corridor

POCATELLO — Smart traffic signals are coming to the Gate City along it’s busiest road, Yellowstone Avenue.

The Bannock Transportation Planning Organization (BTPO) has received a Strengthen Mobility and Revolutionizing Transportation (SMART) grant for $1.3 million to install sensor-based traffic monitoring, otherwise known as smart traffic signals, at 19 traffic lights along the Yellowstone Corridor.

“The smart program is strengthening mobility and revolutionizing transportation,” said Mori Byington, BTPO’s Planning Director.

Smart traffic signals are meant to optimize traffic flow by analyzing data about vehicles and pedestrians passing through an intersection and autonomously adjusting the timing of traffic lights, according to the current conditions of the intersection.

While the BTPO has been implementing smart traffic light technology like radar and cameras for about twelve years, the improvements made from this grant will expand the capabilities of the lights in the Gate City.

Byington said there were three issues with the current traffic light system that they wanted to address with these new smart traffic signals.

Current traffic sensors don’t track pedestrians while moving through the crosswalk. Sometimes bicycles aren’t detected because they’re out of the zone of detection. The sensors only detect vehicles that are at the stop bar and a little bit behind that.

Once these smart traffic lights are installed, the city’s traffic system will have new capabilities that will increase safety and decrease time spent at the intersection.

The intersections in the area around Idaho State University and in front of the Pine Ridge Mall will have the capability to detect if a pedestrian is still crossing the road, and if so, delay the green light for oncoming traffic. Sensors will have additional ability to detect bicycles that would’ve gone unnoticed before. Traffic light sensors will be able to detect traffic up to a quarter of a mile away, increasing it’s data about traffic through the intersection.

The first of the new smart traffic lights will be installed in early spring.

Byington said adding these signals along the Yellowstone Corridor is a pilot test and they’ll try multiple options along the road. After the lights have been installed and monitoring traffic for a year, BTPO can apply for additional funding to upgrade the lights to the options that worked best.

In the future, they hope to install the lights throughout the rest of the Portneuf Valley. There are around 70 signalized intersections that could be upgraded.

“Now, it could take years to get everything upgraded if we don’t get an additional grant, but that would be the plan, to do all the signals,” Byington said.