Traffic lights have drivers playing the waiting game

Keith Sikora, a cameraman who lives in Burbank, is among the latter. His inspiration comes from the traffic lights in his city, where he has found himself sitting at red lights late at night for no discernible reason.

Wait! Wait for the red

at Angeleno and Third;

no other cars for miles.

"The lights just don't seem to talk to one another," Sikora said recently. "Each intersection is oblivious to what the next intersection is doing."

More than 40 miles away, in Irvine, Dennis McGillishas developed an endless fascination with the lights along Irvine Center Drive -- a road that under different names cuts a swath across 10 cities in Orange County.

He has much the same beef. He sits at red lights for cross traffic that doesn't exist.

"We got out at noon every day to go to lunch and look at it and shrug our shoulders and say 'Why is it that way?' " McGillis said. "We have these signals that are smart and intelligent, but they're not being used to their full potential."

He should know. McGillis has been selling electronics for more than 35 years.

On my daily dog-walking route in Pasadena is the intersection of Del Mar Boulevard and Hill Avenue, a junction that I have long suspected is sponsored by OPEC.

Traffic isn't bad there. But if you are traveling north on Hill Avenue, just as you get a green light at Del Mar Boulevard, the next light -- about 200 feet away -- turns red. It's been this way for months.

If you believe that traffic signals near you aren't synchronized as well as they should be, you're probably right.

Relatively few cities in the region have state-of-the-art technology when it comes to traffic signals, according to several transportation engineers I spoke with recently. Even the city of Los Angeles -- the widely acknowledged leader in advanced traffic signals -- is undergoing a $150-million upgrade to its lights.

Both L.A. and Orange counties are making big pushes to help dozens of cities get their lights in sync, with the emphasis on big arterials that cross cities. The O.C., for example, is syncing up Euclid Street, which in 15 miles crosses six cities and four freeways.