Vivian Lay

And for eight years, she ran LA's traffic light system, trying to make traffic a little bit better in one of the most traffic-y cities in the world.

It reminds me a little of the extraordinary measures you hear every city taking, like

Beijing firing particulate into the air to make the smog like rain away before the crowds came for the Olympics.

So it's interesting to me that in many ways it was one of these extraordinary measures that was taken to try to solve a problem temporarily for the Olympics.

But then it continued.

Why did it continue?

LESLIE KENDRICK

L.A.

's success with traffic during the Olympics made a big impact.

Cities planning future Olympics called them for advice.

And in the years that followed, officials from Salt Lake City and Sydney and Beijing all wanted to study what L.A.

's transit leaders had built.

As the system continued to expand, it got even more sophisticated, with new high-tech tools that could sense the conditions on the roads and then respond automatically.

By the way, that last voice was Ed Rowe, who died in 2023.

When we come back, we'll learn about how L.A.

's traffic system has grown since the Olympics and why it is now known as the eighth wonder of the transportation world.

That's after the break.

Since 1984, the small, scrappy system that started with the Olympics has grown into one of the most sophisticated traffic management operations in the world.

Today, it's known as ATSAC, Advanced Transportation System and Coordination, and it controls almost all of the city's 5,000 traffic signals.

And while it would be malpractice to say that the system has solved LA's traffic issues, it has made traffic a little less bad.