Portion of Interstate 280 to get traffic metering lights
(and a heads up on 101 lights in the next 3 years)
By Sarah Kwan
San Mateo County Times
(Edited for length)

Onramp traffic signals that regulate freeway traffic around the Bay Area will arrive this week in the northwest portion of San Mateo County. The series of lights along Interstate 280 comes courtesy of the City-County Association of Governments, which negotiated with North County cities and the California Department of Transportation to implement the system.
The metering lights will be activated on five northbound onramps: Sneath Lane, San Bruno Avenue, Westborough Boulevard, Hickey Boulevard and Serramonte Boulevard.
The activation of these lights follows the success of metering lights that were placed on a stretch of Highway 101 north of state Highway 92 in January 2007.
"There were positive benefits at the 101," said Sandy Wong, deputy director of CCAG. "So we decided to turn on the next spot where the equipment was set up."
One worry commuters have is a possible increase of traffic in cities during the wait to get onto the freeway. Like most metering lights, there will be end-of-queue detectors at the freeway ramp entrances that will cause the lights to change faster if traffic starts backing up into the city.
By 2011, CCAG plans to install metering lights on the southbound side of Interstate 280 and along northbound Highway 101 from Highway 92 to Millbrae, Wong said.

– Written by Joe