By Matt Sepic, KWMU
St. Louis – The city of St. Louis is spending $3 million in federal money to upgrade its traffic signals.
It's part of an effort to ease congestion during the reconstruction of Interstate 64.
Les Sterman, executive director of the East-West Gateway Council of Governments, said engineers from a private firm will connect about half the city's traffic signals to a central computer.
"It's going to focus on downtown, but also on a number of arterial corridors, whether it's Manchester or Gravois or Natural Bridge, where there are many signals in sequence," Sterman said.
Sterman said the upgrades will remain in place even after the I-64 project is finished.
City employees will maintain the system after the engineering firm's contract expires at the end of 2009.