The South Portland City Council gave the green light Monday to making improvements to traffic signals at busy intersections on Broadway, Highland Avenue and Route 77.

Councilors voted unanimously to endorse the state-funded project, which is intended to ease congestion off Casco Bay Bridge.

Changes to the timing of the traffic signals are expected to allow vehicles to pass from the bridge, along Broadway and through the Cottage Road intersection without having to stop at a red light.

“Basically, we start on the bridge and end near Red’s,” said City Manager Jim Gailey, referring to the ice cream stand. “It is

our hope that the bottleneck we are experiencing will somewhat alleviate itself, and we will start seeing a better flow of traffic.”

Gailey told councilors that many of the improvements involve

making changes to a computerized traffic control system. Updates to traffic lights will be made at the following intersections:

• Erskine Drive and Route 77.

• Broadway and Anthoine Street.

• Broadway and Waterman Drive.

• Broadway and Ocean Street.

• Broadway and Cottage Road.

• Highland Avenue and Cottage Road.

Improvements also will include the installation of new pedestrian crossing signals with a lighted numerical countdown to let people know how much time they have to cross the street.

The pedestrian signals will be handicapped accessible. They will make a noise to signal to people who are visually impaired when they can cross the street.

Although the state Transportation Department will cover the

installation costs, the city will be responsible for maintenance, as well as striping the new crosswalks. The initial cost to the city is less than $1,000. The work is expected to be done by spring 2009.

Councilor Tom Blake said he appreciates that the state is providing services to the city, since South Portland contributes a lot in state tax revenues through its business economy.

“They’re giving something back to us. I have high hopes this will be very successful,” Blake said. “We could got from Cape to Portland and hit only one or two lights.”

Councilor Linda Boudreau noted that the state made similar changes in the Maine Mall area, but that roads still have a lot of congestion.

Gailey said that the engineering company that will coordinate the traffic signals near Casco Bay Bridge also will work to fix problems with the traffic signals in the Maine Mall area.