Have you noticed the Mercer Mess getting any better?

Seattle’s Mercer Mess is notorious for long backups and congestion, but the Seattle Department of Transportation says things are improving with a new signal system.

“Before installing our new system, wait times during the height of work-week rush hour backups (between 6-7 p.m.) was approximately 34 minutes … Today, during that exact same time frame, the wait is down to 17 minutes,” the Seattle Department of Transportation writes on its blog.

RELATED: Commute from hell through South Lake Union

SDOT says it has effectively cut drive times in half through the Mercer Street area over the past eight months. It’s crediting a new adaptive system controlling traffic lights between Third Avenue and I-5 along Mercer Street.  The new system installed in March — called SCOOT (Split Cycle Offset Optimization Technique) — has senors monitoring each lane of traffic on the road. That information informs traffic lights.

The department admits that the times aren’t perfect, “by a long shot.”

According to SDOT’s data:

Before the Mercer Adaptive Signal:

• 5 p.m. weekday – 14 minutes
• 6 p.m. weekday – 16 minutes
• 7 p.m. weekday – 18 minutes

After the Mercer Adaptive Signal:

• 5 p.m. weekday – 4 minutes
• 6 p.m. weekday – 6 minutes
• 7 p.m. weekday – 7 minutes

That’s much better than the two seconds of improved time reported in 2016, after two years of construction and $74 million in upgrades. But it remains just as bad when Seattle was discussing the Mercer Mess in 1977.

Follow @http://twitter.com/Mynorthwest