Drivers not fully adjusted to speed of ramp lights

Stephen Curran

Monday, April 11, 2005 | 11:06 a.m.

Educating Clark County drivers on how to merge using the newly activated ramp lights at three busy intersections is likely to be a "continual, evolving process," the engineer who oversees the automated lights said Thursday.

The lights, used to govern the flow of vehicles onto congested freeways, were activated at three separate spots on U.S. 95 on March 29, yet the fast timing of the red and green signals may still be confusing the drivers not expecting them to change, Niel Rohleder, system administrator for the Freeway and Arterial System of Transportation, said.

At the lights' current rate, drivers frequently drive toward the lights not expecting them to change to red, he said. At the southbound on-ramp off Cheyenne Avenue, the lights let through 20 cars a minute, thus changing from red to green every three seconds.

Another two sets of lights were installed along the southbound ramps for eastbound and westbound Lake Mead Boulevard.

Among the first ticketed by the Nevada Highway Patrol for running the light was a Las Vegas traffic management employee, OC White, city engineer and vice chairman of the RTC's FAST operations management committee, said.

"I don't think it's clear," he said.

The difficulties come after a lengthy public relations and outreach process by the RTC, a key supporter of the project. Even still, more studies and education may be necessary, Rohleder said.

"We've spent a lot of time on ramp meters and I think we'll be spending a lot more," he said. "It's going to be a continual, evolving process."

The Lake Mead Boulevard lights are metered at six cars a minute -- the light changes every 10 seconds.

About 100 citations have been issued since March 29, although the number has dropped in recent days as roughly 90 percent of drivers stop for the lights, Trooper Loy Hixson, a highway patrol spokesman, said.

"It's actually less than I would've thought," he said. "Because of all the information we've put out with the commercials and all we got the word out."

The highway patrol previously said that more than 20 people were cited on March 29.

Of those drivers who are cited for failing to stop at the red lights, most go through the green light for a car ahead, unaware that the light is timed for one car at each green, Hixson said. The violations occur in spite of multiple signs warning drivers that the lights are on, he said.

Few details were available about a crash early Wednesday morning on the Cheyenne Avenue on-ramp. That crash kept the on-ramp closed for much of the morning, eyewitnesses said. Hixson said he did not know if that crash was related to the lights.

Rohleder said there "have been some crashes in the area (of the ramp meters)" but did not know when or where they had occurred.

Hixson said one rear-end collision March 29 was attributed to the lights. Hixson said the crash occurred when a driver accelerated toward the on-ramp and did not notice the car ahead was stopped. No serious injuries were reported.

Rohleder, when asked by committee members on Thursday, said the quick timing was needed to keep the cars from backing up onto the heavily used surface streets.

Ingrid Reisman, a spokeswoman for the RTC, said her office had not received many calls or e-mails from drivers unaware of how to use the lights. Reisman said she was unaware of any incidents on or near those on-ramps.

"People seem to be getting the hang of it," she said. "It (people's comments) have been more general about the concept of the ramp meters (instead of complaints)."