City Hopes To Minimize Fix50 Effects

During the Fix50 highway construction project, the City of Sacramento will be trying to minimize congestion throughout the city.  The City says fewer drivers on the road is the most important thing that can be done to reduce traffic on city streets.

Tomorrow, the number of available lanes on eastbound U.S. 50 through Sacramento will be reduced by half.  The City says the worst congestion will likely be on streets closest to the freeway, but other major thoroughfares will be effected too.  Hector Barron is with the Department of Public Works.

"We have over 90 cameras throughout the city that we can look at traffic conditions at key locations," he says. "Where we have communication to our traffic signals, we can modify the signal timing as we see a problem -so kind of help the situation out there.  We've also gone to key locations and made some striping changes."

Barron won't say which signals are being changed or intersections are being re-striped for fear drivers may take that as an invitation to use them more.

Police officers will be on standby to manage intersections if traffic backs up.

The City and Cal Trans encourage you to avoid driving if possible.

The City warns phase one of Fix50 will effect everyone and that phase two will be worse.