The Ada County Highway District is rolling out new school zone flashers throughout the county.

So far, 51 school flashers have been replaced with a new system. The new system has cellular modems that engineers can program remotely, allowing ACHD to quickly change times when the schools change their schedules. This has become more important in recent months as schools have had to shuffle their schedules alternating between remote and hybrid learning. Previously, ACHD crews had to visit each school flasher location in the field to change the programming times which could take up to an hour.

School flashers slow down traffic to 20 mph when they are flashing near and around schools. They are programed to come on in the morning and in the afternoon at release times.

ACHD is replacing all 248 existing school flashers with this new system. This is expected to be fully rolled out by the end of February.