Ramp meters coming to I-80 in Reno (temporarily?)

[roadfro]

I-80 ramp signals to control flow of traffic

Northern Nevada will soon have its first freeway ramp signals.

The red-green lights, commonly found on ramps in Las Vegas, San Francisco, Los Angeles and other major urban areas, will be operating in Reno July 6 or soon after. They could last into late 2012 – or stay permanently.

The lights are being installed on eastbound on-ramps to Interstate 80 at Keystone Avenue, Center Street [Virginia St/Downtown Reno interchange] and Wells Avenue. It's a stretch of I-80 where the Nevada Department of Transportation recently started a $72 million freeway improvement project.

With traffic now funneled down to two lanes in each direction, merging has become more difficult and the number of accidents was beginning to increase. The solution, officials said, was installation of ramp signals on at least a temporary basis.

<See article link for remainder of story>



These are the first ramp meters in Northern Nevada. These are due to the I-80 rehabilitation design-build project going on in the Reno-Sparks area--one component of this project is the complete reconstruction of the Interstate's original concrete pavement from the 1960s/70s.

The three meters being installed at the I-80 EB ramps near downtown Reno are a temporary installation, using wood poles for mounting the signal heads. As the article indicates, two of the three installations are being evaluated for permanent installation. At the very least, the Wells Ave meter should become permanent, due to it feeding into a drop lane to US 395 south, which sees major merge issues during morning and afternoon rush hours. The meter at Center/Downtown Reno may be a bit more tricky, sense the ramp is not long and may lead to considerable backups on the side streets if the meter doesn't have enough green frequency.

[vdeane]

Ugh.  I agree with most of the commenters - close the ramp!  They should also ticket people who merge below freeway speed.

[roadfro]

Most of the comments are people ignorant of how ramp meters work and complaining about bad driving. Granted, the Wells and Center/Virginia ramps are somewhat short in comparison to ramps in Vegas and California areas that use ramp meters, so the timing of the meters in relation to ramp length will be crucial.

The problem that prompted this is that the I-80 mainline is down to 2 lanes, where before it was 3 lanes with ramp-to-ramp auxiliary lanes. The flood of traffic that comes on from Virginia (and Wells, to a lesser extent) has no merge space now. NDOT could maybe close the Wells EB on ramp in the interim, but that is not a long-term option at Virginia/Center, which serves both downtown Reno and UNR.