“There’s just a lot to do in traffic,” he said.

The city plans to re-time traffic signals within every major corridor of the city, something that hasn’t been done in more than a decade.

He said Lincoln will start seeing driverless cars within five to 10 years. To meet that demand, the city will apply for a $40 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation to pay for detection and control systems to facilitate the use of such vehicles.

Burklund said many young people today don’t see vehicles as necessary and would prefer to use ride-sharing programs like Uber and Lyft to get around. Those programs are moving toward driverless vehicles.

“We’ve got to be ready for that change,” he said.

In addition, the city plans to start installing fiber optic cables at its traffic signal cabinets this year to improve its ability to control those signals and detect problems.

Many of these improvements will be part of a forthcoming initiative city officials plan to launch called Green Light Lincoln, he said.

“We’re going to start doing a lot of this stuff.”

Reach the writer at 402-473-7225 or kabourezk@journalstar.com. On Twitter @LJS_Abourezk.

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