BOISE — The Ada County Highway District is discarding an adaptive traffic light program that was supposed to ease congestion at the county’s busiest intersections, including Eagle Road and Chinden Boulevard, and State Street and Glenwood Street.
But ACHD spokeswoman Nicole DuBois said the system the county purchased from Rhythym Engineering was flawed, and created issues for drivers rather than eliminating them.

“We got lots of complaints from the public, and we were out there constantly trying to work on it, the vendor came out here several times trying to work on it,” she said. “It just didn’t live up to our expectations and the public’s expectations.”

The adaptive system uses a mounted camera to count how many cars are stopped at a certain light. That information feeds back into a program that tells the light how to respond.

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DuBois said sun glare, fog, and other problems kept the program from accurately detecting when an intersection was backed up. Read More