Traffic Signals

AS PART of the "One Great Idea" series carried by both the Daily News and the Morning Yawn , Zahav chef/owner Michael Solomonov last week suggested that the city's traffic lights be synchronized. Not quite equal to Copernicus' revolutionary idea that the earth orbits the sun, but solid. Synchronized lights speed traffic, reduce fuel and pollution. So why are we out of synch? Follow the bouncing ball as Steve Buckley, deputy commissioner for transportation in the Streets Department, synchronizes his answers to the questions of Your Favorite Columnist.

Wednesday's warm and sunny weather was propitious for the new solar-powered traffic light at Woodbury-Glassboro Road in Mantua Township, at the entrances to a Target store and Timber Creek Shopping Center. "We are always looking for ways to use green energy, so we're happy to be the first to be doing this," Gloucester County Freeholder Heather Simmons said of the four-way signal, which is topped with six solar panels. It is the first of its kind in New Jersey, according to the state Department of Transportation.

THE PROBLEM: It's easy to get lost on Aramingo Avenue - at certain intersections, there are no street signs. This is just one of several bones D. Michael Blackie would like to pick with PennDOT about its ongoing reconstruction project on the broad and well-traveled boulevard. A handful of intersections between Lehigh Avenue and Westmoreland Street have been missing street-name and directional signs for a while now, the Port Richmond resident said. When the road was repaved and traffic signals were replaced, the signage that had been hanging from the signal arms was removed.

RE JENICE Armstrong's recent column on Steve Harvey and his relationship advice: Over recent months, I've been in a number of passionate discussions about this topic. I have no problem with Harvey writing a book with subject matter rooted primarily in his opinions and experiences. He has that right. The issue I have is the way he's being embraced by women, mostly black but some white, as a relationship guru. They're also using his book a sort of road map to solve their own relationship problems.

CAPE MAY COURT HOUSE - The Garden State Parkway's infamous Cape May County traffic lights, the scourge of Shore-bound drivers for generations, are headed toward their final summers. Work will begin in late 2011 to remove the signals, the only ones on the 173-mile toll road, according to a spokesman for the New Jersey Turnpike Authority, which operates the parkway. The lights at Exits 9, 10, and 11 existed at intersections in the Cape May Court House section of Middle Township before the parkway's debut in 1955.

The newly painted city trucks had a hopeful slogan: "Philly's traffic lights are all turning green. " But, no, there will still be red lights, and drivers will still have to stop for them. While they're waiting, perhaps they can take comfort from the fact that the new traffic signals are saving the city electricity. And money. Mayor Nutter and a bevy of officials were at 52d and Chestnut Streets Monday, cheering on Streets Department workers as they began replacing 55,000 incandescent green and yellow traffic signals with energy-saving light-emitting diode (LED)

A southbound River Line train struck a minivan at a Riverton railroad crossing Thursday, seriously injuring the vehicle's driver, according to authorities. The minivan, carrying two adults and an infant, was traveling north on River Road, parallel to the tracks, when it turned into the path of the train at Main Street shortly before 11 a.m., NJ Transit spokesman Dan Stessel said. The crossing gates were down, and red lights were flashing, Stessel said. A red light at the intersection and an illuminated no-right-turn symbol also were activated, he said.

Philadelphia's traffic lights are all about to go green. The city plans to replace 55,000 green - and yellow - energy-hogging incandescent traffic signals with efficient light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, said Andrew Stober, director of strategic initiatives in the mayor's Office of Transportation and Utilities. When the project is done in two years, every traffic light at the city's 2,800 signaled intersections will be equipped with the low-wattage LEDs. (The red lights were switched to LEDs about 10 years ago.)

To ease the daily traffic jam at the Philadelphia end of the Ben Franklin Bridge, engineers hope to eventually build a "flyover ramp" to carry cars directly onto the Vine Street Expressway. That $120 million solution is many years away. In the next few months, though, crews will make modest improvements to traffic signals and lane markings to speed bridge traffic, Delaware River Port Authority officials said. And they hope to get approval in July for new lanes and ramps in Center City to fix a chronic chokepoint near Broad Street and the Vine expressway.

On Easter afternoon, Sharon Boyd was standing on her front lawn in West Mount Airy, smiling at her husband and son as they moved new 10-foot columns onto their once-enclosed porch. After nearly two years of dealing with insurance adjusters, lawyers, building inspectors, and contractors, the Boyds were finally rebuilding the porch - wrecked when a speeding SUV rammed into a traffic pole on Lincoln Drive, launched into the air, and crash-landed inside it. As Boyd eyed the traffic, her dog, Peaches, in her arms, she thought, "Not again.