Improvements made Friday to the traffic signals on Main Street, including installation of left-turn arrows at intersections with Cunningham and Jefferson streets, have already helped improve traffic flow, officials said.

Traffic studies during the lunch hour Tuesday showed travel time was reduced by 11 percent, the state Department of Transportation said in a press release.

More improvements are expected by this Friday, when the city will have new controllers installed on Route 68 and several side streets, John Evans, Butler's zoning inspector said. They are the old controllers that were removed from Main Street, but are much newer than the equipment they will replace.

"This will allow the signals on these side streets to be interconnected with the signals on Route 8," the press release said.

People began complaining that traffic was tied up worse than ever after the road was reconfigured in May from two, 9-foot-wide lanes in each direction to one 13-foot-wide lane each way, with a turning lane in the middle.

PennDOT said then that changes were likely.

A meeting was held July 27 with PennDOT, city officials, Wooster and Associates, the city's engineer, and Trans Associates, the engineer for PennDOT, to review the new interconnected signal system on Main Street.

"We basically reviewed everything," PennDOT spokesman Jim Struzzi said. "We decided to have another look at the system."

Censors were installed and traffic studies were done to determine how to improve traffic flow.

The studies showed signals on the side streets were not interconnected with the ones on Main Street, Struzzi said.

"Once we learned that, the city offered to put those in," Struzzi said.

Also as a result of the studies, the Main Street signals' timing changes were adjusted to allow increased traffic flow, particularly at peak hours.

Officials also determined the pedestrian crossing devices were not interconnected with the rest of the system, Struzzi said.

"They were stopping that particular intersection, but not the rest of them so traffic would back up," he said.

That problem has also been corrected.

Further reviews will continue through the end of August.

"Additional signal timing adjustments will be made as a result of these field reviews if necessary," the press release said.

Struzzi said adjustments to the system were included in the original contract for the Main Street improvement project, so there was no additional expense.

Also, Wooster and Associates agreed to donate its time, so there was no further cost to the city, Evans said.

Mayor Leonard Pintell was pleased with the improvements. He said everyone involved did a good job.

"I think the problem has been completely resolved now," Pintell said.

Despite all the improvements, traffic on Main Street was gridlocked during the lunch hour on Wednesday. But it wasn't because of the equipment.

Work on the new Main Street Viaduct had traffic on the old bridge restricted to a single lane, with flaggers directing the alternating directions of traffic.

Vehicles were bumper to bumper the entire length of Main Street in the southbound lane. Northbound traffic seemed somewhat lighter.

Ron Miller of Butler, who was heading south, trying to go back to work after lunch, had time to talk while he was stopped in traffic. He said all of the intersections were tough to get through.

"It's terrible trying to get across Jefferson, Cunningham, North, New Castle, any of them," Miller said.

"It's terrible," he said. "I've been on this street for 20 minutes."