After traffic chaos, order restored to Montgomery commute

Officials fix traffic light glitch

Most traffic lights in Montgomery County were clicking with military precision during Friday morning's commute, ending two days of bumper-to-bumper mayhem caused when the central computer that controls traffic flow went haywire.

County experts late Thursday resolved the breakdown between a computer that gives automatic commands and a modem that transmits them to more than 750 stoplights, telling them to keep synchronized and stay green longer when traffic gets heavier in one direction than the other.

"It was fantastic this morning," Gagan Nirula of Silver Spring reported by e-mail. "The same five-mile stretch that took me almost an hour yesterday took less than 15 minutes today. My only fear is that they might realize that they set the timers to extra-long on Route 29 South traffic lights and we'll be back to the 25-, 35-minute stretch on Monday."

Valerie Frank, who said her commute through the Four Corners area had been "massively effected" when a series of lights lost synchronization, said the lights were blinking green in perfect sequence Friday.

"I am really delighted to report that my commute this morning was normal," said Frank, who lives in Silver Spring. "All the lights in my area seem to have been restored to normal functioning, just as reported in The Post this morning."

"Normal" also was the word of choice for Stephen Kaludis, who reported Friday that his daily trip from Potomac to North Bethesda on Tuckerman Road took 12 minutes. That same trip cost him an hour's time on Wednesday and 45 minutes on Thursday, he said.

County spokeswoman Esther Bowring said all but a few lights were responding to the central computer this morning. She said engineers continued to work to get them to behave and to trouble-shoot the problem that caused the system to crash.

She used the same word as others, saying that if anyone was stuck in traffic Friday morning, that was just "normal" for the commuters in the second most-populous county in a region that is the second most-congested in the nation.