About time. This segment of university is horrible.

This is obviously new technology and this synchronization could not possibly have been done several years ago, right?!

Great to see this happening! That being said, this seems to be the lowest hanging of fruit, why was this not done 10 years ago? Each day thousands of people waste hours on this stretch.

About 4 years ago when PA's former head of transportation left, he was awarded a contract for millions of dollars to fix traffic light timing. I vaguely remember the figure of $3,000,000.

We all continue to waste hours all around town at poorly timed lights where absolutely nothing moves; this is just one of the problem areas.

Now if they would only fix Oregon Expressway. It's been horrible ever since they replaced the lights two years ago. It may be Santa Clara County responsibility, not sure, but it's backed up to Page Mill going east at 2 PM nearly every day because of poor synchronization.

The tech hub of the Universe and P.A. is JUST getting around to syncing traffic signals. Sometimes you wonder?

Montreal had synchronized lights in the 1950s! Here we are in the "heart" of high-tech land and we're finally getting to this! I hope the idea spreads to Sand Hill Road, Page Mill Road, and our other main arteries.

Also, why not synchronize Lytton lights for travel toward the southwest, and Hamilton for travel toward the northeast? This gets around businesses' objections to one-way streets but would speed alternative ways of getting through downtown.

While they're at it why not synchronize the lights on Embarcadero between Trader Joe's and El Camino Real as well? This problem seems to be getting worse and starting earlier by the week!

Next up: prohibit all tall ship traffic south of Dumbarton Bridge; build two (2) new Dumbarton spans -- one east-bound; the other west-bound -- each with five (5) lanes; tear down the old Dumbarton bridge. The current Dumbarton bridge, in my opinion, is the biggest traffic problem at present for East Palo Alto, East Menlo Park, and several nearby or adjoining areas. Several off-ramps on Highway 101 are quite jam-packed at present; to boot, Dumbarton is an eye-sore. I suggest a new, low, flat, and wide bridge consisting of two spans, one in each direction.

Better yet...require all cars traveling along this route to be transported via those car carriers that you see delivering automobiles to car dealerships. A land-based car ferry service.

Then once drivers get to the Dumbarton Bridge, they have a choice of either crossing the SF bay via the existing bridge OR being transported across the bay by another ferry service.

The last option is to eventually construct an underwater 'tube' for additional car lanes and/or directional traffic to and from EPA/Newark.

Having traveled a fair amount, I can say that traffic lights here are way behind the times. Those who say that for the heart of Silicon Valley to not have synchronized lights is unbelievable.

I have seen lights work where the lights have sensors to see where the traffic is signalling to proceed and amends the light sequence as well as sensing when pedestrians are still in a crosswalk and do not change until the pedestrian has done crossing - no more countdowns. We don't even turn our traffic lights to flashing mode late at night so we have to stop and wait for the sequence at past midnight!

It is about time we caught up with the rest of the world.

"While they're at it why not synchronize the lights on Embarcadero between Trader Joe's and El Camino Real as well? This problem seems to be getting worse and starting earlier by the week!"

The former transportation czar had that task on his plate for about 8 years and for 8 years we all had to sit there at red lights even when Paly wasn't in session -- summers, weekends, late at night... and the city praised him for his "contributions" and awarded him that multi-million-dollar contract to work on light timing.

But as our Mayor says, we don't have a traffic/congestion problem and to take alternate routes. Too bad there are so few alternate routes to Embarcadero.

"The traffic problems prompted East Palo Alto City Councilman Larry Moody to publicly call for coordination between Palo Alto, East Palo Alto and Menlo Park to help resolve the situation..."

Coordination? Among city bureaucracies?? And across a county line too??? That's grossly unnatural!!!

About time! Not sure why this isn’t happening sooner. I live on Cooley Ave there are days where I can’t even get out of my driveway because of traffic.

@SimpleAlternatives : I really hope you're kidding.

All that's really needed are those nifty devices that extend the yellow light just long enough to enable a car to clear the intersection prior to the red 'stop' light.

The 552 VTA 'Rapid' busses have them installed to ensure a continuous run & the only time the bus actually has to stop is to pick-up/drop-off passengers or in the event it is situated several cars behind at a 'red' intersection.

A continuous flow of heavily congested traffic via synchronized signals is only going to offer an illusion of getting somewhere faster. Instead of cars speeding up & slowing down, you will have something more along the lines of a controlled crawl. Besides, synchronized green lights will always be hindered by left turn light signals as someone always has to stop somewhere in the traffic equation.

How 'bout y'all Google [traffic signal synchronization green wave palo alto] and look at the history before complaining that the signal synchronization is behind the times. All the traffic signal controllers were replaced years ago with ones that would support various adaptive signal schemes.

@resident, ok. I did and retrieved some 2016 articles where the critical point seems to be they "plan" to synchronize the lights -- as in the FUTURE tense -- which doesn't at all negate our criticism of the fact that it still hasn't happened.

Remember the old joke about the Company X marketing manager whose wife was still a virgin? Why? Because he kept telling her how great it was going to be.

Web Link
Palo Alto seeks to make 'waves' with traffic lights
City plans to roll out time-of-day signals, adaptive technologies

I really like the Park & Ride idea. Commuters will go for it because the Park & Ride lot will be cheaper. Send a bus to downtown and a bus to Stanford.

I look forward to the day I can speed down University Ave at 50 mph.

The article cites expected performance improvement but fails to mention any simulation studies that yielded these predictions. I would hope that simulations are done before changes are implemented, because otherwise it's quite possible that the proposed changes may actually make matters worse.

Yes, please improve traffic flow on University Ave in PA and EPA; this will be a significant improvement to the region if a successful project and it’s a needed project, in my opinion and experience.
Also hope 101 and Willow to be completed soon....?