North Sound News

New traffic system to improve drive times in Snohomish County

BOTHELL, Wash. — A week after Everett got the notorious title of having the "worst congestion rate" in the country, relief could be on the way for Snohomish drivers, with the help of better-timed traffic lights.

Over the next few months, Snohomish County engineers tell KIRO 7 they will be installing new adaptive traffic signals to 47 traffic lights from Bothell to Everett.

The lights will be located along a corridor between the Bothell Everett Highway to State Route 526 near Boeing’s Paine Field.

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Engineers say about 40,000 commuters use that route every day.

A similar technology is already in place at more than a dozen traffic lights along Highway 99 and 196th Street. Lynwood traffic engineers tell us they are getting more compliments than complaints since the lights were installed in 2016.

Under the new project, the plan is to get the system up and running at the same time as the 2019 launch for the new Swift Bus route from the Seaway Transit Center near Boeing to Canyon Park Business and Technology Center in Bothell.

We talked to driver Terrance Nygedder, who also takes the Swift Bus on a regular basis.

He said improving traffic flow through adaptive lights could get more people on the bus and out of their cars

“They better get something working to get traffic flow much easier,” says Nydegger. “Hopefully, something will happen. We pay good tax money, it should go somewhere.”

This project is going to cost around $2 million in federal and local money.

According to Jim Bloodgood, with Snohomish County Traffic Operations, the technology won’t eliminate traffic altogether, but it is a tool to ease congestion.