It’s a tale as old as time in Baltimore: You’re stuck at a red light while the next couple of traffic signals ahead of you are green.

Your grip on the steering wheel tightens, your eyes narrow. Green light — gas. The approaching light immediately turns red — brake. Your Google Maps ETA goes up by a minute; blind rage consumes you.

But fret not, frustrated driver, for change is underway.

Baltimore’s transportation department has been retiming most of the city’s roughly 1,400 traffic signals citywide and plans to finish implementing changes by early next year, according to a new project webpage.

Officials awarded a $4.5 million contract in early 2023 to lead consulting firm Mead & Hunt, which, with a gaggle of subcontractors, started traffic counts and data analysis in October of that year. Engineers have broken the project up into six geographic regions.

New timing patterns are already in place in South and East Baltimore, as well as the Central Business District. Engineers are wrapping up with new timing patterns in Central North neighborhoods such as Station North, Charles Village and Remington this month, and will then move on to the West and Northwest sections of the city and finish around February 2026.

The effort, which can also include changing the timing of pedestrian signals at intersections, is billed as one that will increase pedestrian safety and reduce traffic congestion. It also aims to tackle one of the perennial complaints from city drivers that the lights don’t appear properly synchronized and make traffic worse.

Let’s hope it goes better than last time.

In the summer of 2018, the transportation department made some “tweaks” to downtown signal timing that backfired into a traffic carmaggedon, according to Baltimore Sun stories. The agency director at the time told The Sun that the changes had thrown off a “delicate” alignment that required undoing.

Periodically making changes is “part of maintaining a healthy traffic system, as traffic patterns naturally change over time,” Clea Baumhofer, Baltimore’s chief of traffic engineering, said in an email.

Drivers have certainly already experienced some changes as a result of the current retiming initiative.

Along President Street, peak-hour light cycles appear shorter than in the past, in an attempt to make traffic flow more consistently, though underground fires last fall briefly affected the downtown rollout. At some intersections, pedestrians now have longer lead times to cross the street.

Retiming lights used to be a paper-and-pen exercise relying on eyes on the ground. But newer techniques can involve drones flying overhead, video recordings, streetside traffic sensors and even artificial intelligence.

The transportation department has not previously responded to requests from The Baltimore Banner to interview engineers or observe ongoing work to get a sense of how they are doing it. Last year, The Banner tried to cobble together information about the project through public records requests.

Engineers got intersection traffic counts, including how many cars made turns or continued straight, by analyzing video recordings. They also did on-the-ground visits to assess traffic conditions. After calculating and implementing a new timing plan, they’ll observe again and make necessary tweaks.

Another reason that retiming is necessary: The majority of Baltimore’s traffic lights are old. Like, timing patterns controlled by a physical clock that can only be adjusted manually, old.

Over time, those clocks can get out of synch. Heavy rains or winds can also knock lights out; when the wind somersaults them around the overhead wire, it can choke the power and lead to signal failure.

Replacing them all with new, modern signals would be incredibly expensive. As a bit of a salve, 150 downtown traffic signals have gotten new ThruGreen devices installed on them. The devices should help them better communicate with the department’s central traffic control center and allow them to be adjusted remotely.

The new project page includes an interactive map on which residents can track progress and see which specific intersections are getting a new timing pattern, as well as the ones with remote management capabilities.

Just don’t expect to always hit a series of green lights — timing patterns are also meant to be Baltimore driver-proof. Calvert and St. Paul streets, for example, are not meant to be superhighways, and timing patterns will try to prevent motorists from driving them like one.

So next time you’re stuck at a red light, take a deep breath and don’t blame traffic — you are the traffic. Unless someone is blocking the box (the Baltimore pastime of driving into an intersection and getting stuck because traffic ahead is backed up) when you get the green — you’re allowed to blame that person.