Rudolph Promises Traffic Controls; Cambridge Parking Tickets Banned

Cambridge Traffic Director Robert E. Rudolph promised the City Council Monday that he would have the first of the City's computer-controlled traffic lights installed before July 30.

The Council, which recently has severely criticized Rudolph for his tortoise-like pace on the lights project, heard the Traffic Director tell them that he had "made quite a bit of progress" since his last appearance two weeks ago.

"Any further delays will not be due to me or members of my department," he claimed. The first electronically controlled lights will be installed on upper Massachusetts Ave. Some councillors have charged that Rudolph has delayed this project as much as two years.

Rudolph said that eventually, the computer will operate lights all over the City and that it will automatically regulate them to changing traffic flow.

Despite his optimistic report on the lights, Rudolph was criticized by a number of councillors who charged that parking tickets drawn up by his department had caused police to tag automobiles for non-existent violations.

Violations are listed on the back of the tickets, but the councillors charged--and Rudolph confirmed--that some of these "violations" are not violations at all. He said that the extra violations would become illegal only after he had revised Cambridge's parking regulations. These "violations" had been listed, he said, at the request of the courts, which didn't want to reprint new tickets, after the revision.

"This is the most embarrassing thing I've ever heard of. It's outrageous," Councillor Andrew T. Trodden told Rudolph.

The Council passed an order by Trodden that "the use of the present parking tickets be stopped pending a combined study of the violations designated on the rear of tickets by the chief of police, the city law department, and the clerk of courts."

Trodden's order raised the possibility that the police would have no parking tickets for considerable time. "Let it be chaotic until they come back with new tickets," he said after the meeting.