Sacramento State students can rest assure that the new traffic signal near the J Street entrance, the one holding up traffic for the past week, is temporary.Dennis Murphy, a traffic light engineer for the city of Sacramento, said the city and a construction company decided to install a temporary traffic signal as part of a project.

The signal was not warranted by traffic accidents.

“Temporary traffic lights are fairly rare, but I guess we’re having a blue moon,” Murphy said. “It’s really an issue of access and safety for trucks that are transporting construction materials.”

Construction work is visible from the bridge connecting Fair Oaks Boulevard and J Street.

“From what I know, they’ve been working on the levee,” Murphy said.

Once construction is complete, the orange traffic signals will be removed.

New traffic signals are usually installed after meeting certain requirements that follow state and federal guidelines. They are placed on a priority list, and traffic engineers from the city or county decide which locations should be considered for funding.

“It’s really an interesting process,” said Guillermo Arreola, a traffic signal design engineer. “The list is usually warranted by traffic accidents.”

Other criteria used by Public Works, a Sacramento traffic engineering service, to determine signal installation is the number of vehicles using the intersection, speed limit, pedestrian and bicycle activity, visibility, the type of area and the overall effect that installing a signal would have on traffic in the near vicinity.

Since traffic and pedestrian signals are expensive, the city places them where they are most likely to improve safety and enhance efficiency.

Arreola said investigations are conducted annually to determine what intersections are the most dangerous. As money becomes available, the city council and traffic engineers decide where to install new traffic signals.Public Works studies over 200 potential locations each year. According to its Web site, each new traffic signal costs $150,000 to design and construct and $5,000 per year to maintain.

The city of Sacramento investigates more than 1,200 requests each year, but current funding only allows for construction of one to three new traffic signals each year.

Arreola said the budget is $1 million every two years.

David Jeoffory, signal supervisor for the city of Sacramento said another expensive component has to do with energy saving.

The city saves energy by using a device which uses fewer watts.

Jeoffory said within the last year, the city has been in the process of adding the device to all traffic signals.