Keeping tabs on road conditions in King County just got easier thanks to several enhancements on the “My Commute” Web page.

Since the service debuted in 2001, King County Road Services Division has added more and more online traffic cameras.

Starting with just six cameras, the My Commute page now features 34 cameras keeping county residents constantly in touch with current traffic conditions.

In addition, Web site features have been upgraded to offer more information in a more user-friendly format, including:

• Higher quality and larger maps to provide more detail,
• Cameras from other jurisdictions displayed on the map,
• Road closure information integrated directly into the site,
• Improved ease of use, and
• An alternate format for small-screen devices like PDAs and cell phones with Web browsers.

“We know from comments e-mailed to us that people use the traffic cameras to monitor traffic conditions for things like going to and from work, seeing if they need to leave early to get their kids to school, and during adverse weather to learn about road conditions beyond their neighborhoods before venturing out,” said King County’s Harry Clark, who managed the project to update the My Commute service.

Clark said his team wanted to update the My Commute map to accommodate the growing number of traffic cameras, and make general usability better.

The team also wanted to provide this and other resources in a format that could be easily viewed from Web-enabled small screen devices, such as Blackberrys and cell phones with Internet access.

The county’s system of traffic cameras is well used, particularly when travel conditions are uncertain. During last November’s storms, the eastbound camera at Woodinville-Duvall Road and West Snoqualmie Valley Road received 1.18 million page views.

Another camera that was visited regularly during that time period was the camera at West Snoqualmie Valley Road Northeast and Northeast 124th Street, which received 663,486 page views.

The county’s camera network is not just for motorists. Images from the cameras are fed into the Roads Division’s Traffic Control Center, where staff monitor the real-time traffic conditions and can intervene quickly to deal with emerging problems.

Staff can adjust traffic signal timings, dispatch law enforcement or emergency medical personnel, and advise motorists.

Upon detection of an incident or other disruption to the flow of traffic, the operators in the Traffic Control Center can notify the appropriate authorities to clear the incident. The cameras are used as a public safety tool and are not intended to identify speeders or enforce traffic laws.

The expansion of the My Commute system will continue this year. New cameras will be installed and activated as capital improvement projects are completed.

In 2007, the division expects to install two new cameras on Avondale Road at Novelty Hill Road, one new camera at Novelty Hill Road at Redmond Road, and one new camera at 124th Ave Southeast and Southeast 320th Street.

Additional projects are in the works to further expand coverage along the congested corridors in the years ahead.