There is nothing worse than being behind a long line of cars on your way to work, but what may be even more frustrating is that long line is avoidable.

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Jay Miller from Orlando writes in this week ...

"Every day, thousands travel north on Rosalind from SR-408 toward Colonial. Until three weeks ago, the lights were timed perfectly without reds. Now they are staggered and traffic is terrible! What gives?"

As we discovered, Rosalind Avenue's recent morning drive problems might in fact be associated with another street altogether: South Street.

The City of Orlando told us that a re-timing consultant suggested some recent changes to the area's traffic signals. That consultant found that during peak travel times, South Street was found to have much heavier traffic than Rosalind Avenue, a road that South Street intersects. That fact doesn't surprise local businesses much.

Jennifer Encarnacion has worked at Exit Realty near the intersection of South Street and Rosalind Avenue for the last seven years.

"This traffic is very extensive here on South Street, so at all costs, I try to avoid it,” she said.

She only has to look outside her own office window to know how busy traffic conditions are.

"Daily, you work at the office and you hear so many honks. We're out here now you can just hear the cars moving along. Sometimes you might get lucky and see a car going the wrong way and then a lot more honks. So there are a lot of interesting things going on at this intersection," she said.

Jennifer even claims that some clients don't want much to do with the heavy downtown streets.

"So I work with several professionals who want to be closer to the highways per se to avoid the local traffic on the local roads," she added.

How much busier is South Street than Rosalind? The City of Orlando found that on average South operates with 2,400 vehicles per hour while Rosalind sees about 1,400 vehicles per hour, about a thousand less.

In addition, the city found that the South Street queues have been "consistently observed extending to the South Street and State Road 408 off-ramp intersection and at times into the off-ramp."

With the city's conclusions, a new, larger band of green light times was configured along South Street to alleviate the traffic on that 408 off-ramp. That, in turn, may have temporarily offset the Rosalind Avenue timing beginning at South Street.

City officials also told us that conditions along South Street have appeared to improve. As for Jennifer, her message for heavier traffic is "Bring it on!"

"So it's exciting for me as a real estate agent to know that Orlando is growing," she said.

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