The Moreno administration announced on May 21 a citywide plan to assess, repair, and modernize New Orleans’ aging traffic signal infrastructure. The initiative aims to improve public safety, reduce outages, and enhance traffic flow across the city.
Reliable traffic signals are considered essential for public safety, emergency response, and the daily movement of residents, workers, and visitors. Many of the city’s existing signals are at or beyond their useful life span. Some revert to ‘flash’ mode during or after rain events due to water intrusion.
Phase 1 of the plan will begin immediately with a five-to-seven-week assessment focused on intersections most susceptible to water intrusion and recurring ‘flash’ operations. This review is expected to identify between 25 and 40 intersections needing further repairs or replacement work. After this assessment, the Department of Public Works (DPW) will develop a repair strategy within two to four weeks that includes cost estimates and recommended scopes of work. Repairs may involve replacing damaged wiring, repairing collapsed conduit lines, upgrading signal cabling, and related infrastructure improvements.
As part of Phase 1 efforts, DPW will also implement asset management tools for tracking assessments and repairs in order to move toward a more proactive maintenance program using data from service records and reports made through NOLA-311. Safety-driven deployment of new signals—including flashing beacons and pedestrian signals—will be prioritized in corridors identified by the City’s Safety Action Plan. Coordination with police and emergency partners is planned for high-crash locations.
Phase 2 will focus on securing funding in 2027 for remote-accessible controllers and upgraded hardware as well as reviewing whether some intersections can be converted from active signaling to signage where appropriate.
“We are continuing to work with urgency to make significant improvements to longstanding problems. Reliable traffic signals are essential to public safety, emergency response, and the daily movement of residents, workers, and visitors,” said Mayor Helena Moreno. “This plan moves us from a reactive system to a proactive one identifying problem areas, making repairs, modernizing equipment, and using data to make smarter decisions.”
“At DPW we are committed to do things differently to ensure better outcomes,” said Steve Nelson Deputy CAO of Infrastructure. “This is a practical, safety-driven plan to fix what is broken, modernize what is outdated, and make sure New Orleans has a traffic signal system that works better for everyone.”
Residents are encouraged by officials report malfunctioning signals via NOLA-311 so issues can be tracked more efficiently.
