SEATTLE - The roads around this Pacific Northwest boomtown are getting smarter. And the hordes of commuters crowding Seattle's freeways could learn something from them - so could Washington and other cities struggling with gridlock.

More than just pavement, these roads are loaded with technology like sensors and cameras linked to the Internet, cellular phones and pagers to tell drivers in real time how to avoid the worst traffic.

The technology is widely available, but Seattle is at the forefront of a nationwide push to deploy information technology to manage traffic just as air-traffic controllers manage the skies.

Some Seattle drivers, like Richard Gillman, a software consultant who lives east of the city, are using the technology to transform their commutes from a nerve- wrecking nightmare into a leisurely drive.

Before starting his gold Mercedes every morning, Mr. Gillman reaches for the secret weapon that helps him read the roads.

The weapon is a Hewlett-Packard HPC LX 620 color palm-top computer with a Ricochet wireless modem that provides up-to-date data and pictures of the traffic between home and work.

"This computer is great because I can call up a map that shows the current traffic situation throughout Seattle," said Mr. Gillman, 54.

"My basic choice is two bridges into town. If it gets real bad I can go around Lake Washington or wait a while."

Knowing where the traffic is puts Mr. Gillman at ease - unlike the vast majority of Seattle commuters who sit in their cars, working the gas and brakes like bicycle pedals.

It is Monday morning in this misty metropolis, and hundreds of thousands of people who have flocked here, many to work for high-tech companies, are sitting in traffic. The stunning vistas of Puget Sound and the surrounding mountains are seen mostly through foggy windshields of slow-moving cars.

From high atop Columbia Tower downtown, MetroNetworks' traffic reporters warn commuters that the express lanes on Interstate 5, the major north-south freeway through town, are closed for repairs.

Many drivers find out about the closure after they are on the road heading toward the thickening bottlenecks. Like routed armies, lines of cars spill into downtown as rush hour stretches into late morning. SMARTER ROADS

The lane closures and the backups that followed led Seattle's local news broadcasts, and turned a typically hectic rush hour into a nightmare. It is just the type of problem that information technology could help alleviate.

Mr. Gillman's PC, the Web site http:// (www.smartTrek.org) and the information they provide are part of a new movement picking up steam around the country called Intelligent Transportation Systems. Federal and local officials, working with business partners, think the nation's traffic woes can be eased with the massive deployment of information technology around major cities.

Though efforts vary, the premise is the same. Local governments compile data on congestion, accidents and road conditions. Companies organize the information to make it easy for commuters to understand.

Some companies, like Motorola and Seiko, are developing products to deliver the information to commuters in real time, whether they are in their cars, walking down the street or waiting for a bus.

Advocates believe the technology can boost capacity on existing roads by up to one-third at a fraction of the cost of adding lanes.

SOME ARE SKEPTICAL

Skeptics argue that technology alone cannot solve the larger problem of too many cars on aging roads. Some also are worried that too much technology inside cars, like cellular phones and navigational systems, could distract drivers and cause more accidents.

"The problems in Seattle are typical of what is happening through our major cities; there are too many cars and not enough infrastructure," said George Shaffner, 51, a writer who lives in Issaquah, a suburb east of Seattle.

"There is too much traffic for this technology to have much of an impact at this point. They need to build more roads."

Some also have criticized the promotion of consumer technology, like computers and cellular phones, as a solution that will benefit only affluent commuters.

Traffic congestion in Seattle is bad and is getting worse as more companies plant roots and people follow the jobs. The population of the Puget Sound region, currently 2.56 million people, is expected to jump 50 percent by 2020, with most of the growth to the east of Seattle around Bellevue, Redmond and beyond.

Hopes are running high that the Seattle area, home to technology-based companies like Microsoft, Adobe Systems, Boeing, Nintendo and http://Amazon.com will warm up to the idea of using technology to improve commuting.

Officials spearheading the Seattle Intelligent Transportation Systems initiative, called Smart Trek, estimate that two-thirds of Seattle residents are connected to the Web and 41 percent have cellular phones.

BURSTING AT THE SEAMS

Like Washington and other major cities, Seattle is running out of room for new highways. Dowtown is surrounded by water with Puget Sound to the west, Lake Washington to the east and the Washington Ship Canal linking those bodies of water to the north. Long, steep hills run north to south, making travel east to west difficult.

"Downtown pretty much turns into a parking lot between 7:30 and 9:30 in the morning, and it is getting worse every day," said Kurt Schultz, 44, who commutes from Bellevue west into Seattle over the Rt. 520 bridge.

"It takes me about 45 minutes. But the drivers going in the other direction have it worse," he said, referring to the growing numbers who commute from Seattle east toward Redmond, the expanding high-tech corridor that is home to Microsoft and others. Without traffic, he could be at work in 15 minutes.

The quest for home begins early with rush hour starting around 3 p.m. and ending after 7 p.m. The three bridges leading east and north are jammed by 4 p.m.

The lines for the Washington state ferries bound for the suburb Bainbridge Island and beyond begin snaking out of Pier 52 in the early afternoon. Sometimes drivers must wait more than an hour to find a spot on the crowded boats. On an average day, about 6,500 Puget Sound residents take the state ferries to and from Seattle. The boats carry 212 cars and leave every 30 minutes.

JAMS ACROSS AMERICA

Since 1989, traffic has swelled by 30 percent in the Unites States, according to the Department of Transportation. By 2008, the number of cars on the road is expected to increase 50 percent.

The added traffic has taken a toll on the nation's roads. About 26.5 percent of all major roads are rated poor or mediocre, and another 32.5 percent are in fair condition, according to the Transportation Department. Furthermore, about 31 percent of all major bridges are considered structurally deficient.

The poor conditions contribute to nearly one-third of all fatal automobile crashes. Some help is on the way. President Clinton last year signed into law the Transportation Equity Act of the 21st Century, which provides $175 billion to repair and improve roads, and another $2 billion for safety programs. The act also provides about $1.3 billion to develop and deploy Intelligent Transportation Systems though 2003.

"Most of the nation's freeway system was completed by the 1970s, and we didn't really start worrying about it until it filled up," said Christine Johnson, director of the ITS joint program office at the Federal Highway Administration.

"Now we must move from the building phase into a new phase of managing the system. This has become more possible as computing technology has improved and become more ubiquitous," she said.

MANAGING THE NATION'S ROADS

Prodded with federal grants, four cities - Seattle, Phoenix, San Antonio and New York - have taken the lead in trying to develop and integrate technology into a system for managing traffic and public transit.

Similar projects are under way in the Washington area, spearheaded by a coalition of private companies and local organizations called Partners in Motion.

"In major metropolitan regions you can no longer build your way out of congestion, and we have to find other solutions," said Michael Richards, director of technology for Pacific Rim Resources, one of 25 organizations working to integrate Intelligent Transportation Systems in Seattle.

"We know that technology-based transportation solutions are not a panacea. But it is another wrench in the tool box, and it is available at a fraction of the cost laying more pavement," he said.

Federal highway officials estimate that for the cost of about eight miles of urban freeway, about $300 million, a metropolitan region the size of Washington could implement a complete ITS system.

DEPLOYING THE TECHNOLOGY

Seattle's Smart Trek program began last year with an $18 million federal grant to deploy 29 traffic and safety initiatives. In many cities, as in Seattle, many of the components have been in place for years.

About 30 years ago, Seattle transportation officials installed several closed-circuit television cameras along Interstate 5, a major north- south route, to help monitor congestion and accidents. Many more cameras have been added since then.

At the same time, electronic devices were embedded in roadways throughout the region to measure traffic volume. Later, traffic lights were installed on ramps along major arteries to smooth the flow of merging traffic during peak hours.

Those early technologies now form the backbone of the Smart Trek initiative. The state's Department of Transportation, with the help of the University of Washington Engineering Department, gathers data from those systems and makes it available to companies.

The businesses are working on ways to bundle and package the information to commuters. Some information is free, like a Web site and video monitors at transit terminals. Other services come at a cost, like customized traffic reports through cellular phones, palm-top computers and alphanumeric pagers. The equipment costs anywhere from $50 for the phones to more than $1,000 for the computers, while monthly alphanumeric transmissions can cost about $5 to $10 per month.

WASHINGTON GETS SMARTER

While things are bad in Seattle, they are even worse here. Washington is the second most congested region in America after Los Angeles, according to the Texas Transportation Institute.

As the population of the Washington area has grown, from 2.7 million in 1982 to 3.46 million in 1996, so too has the level of congestion. The annual number of miles traveled by all vehicles in Washington has jumped in that time from 16.08 billion miles to 33.3 billion miles, according to the Texas Transportation Institute.

The financial cost of congestion has jumped, from $45 a year per driver to $1,290 per driver.

Virginia Gov. James S. Gilmore III, hoping to ease the region's traffic woes, last week proposed spending $2.5 billion on immediate transportation needs, including extending Metrorail to Centreville and Tysons Corner, widening Interstate 66 and adding a bus-to-light-rail system between Tysons and the Dulles corridor.

At the same time, local transportation officials are working with companies to develop and promote intelligent transportation. While Seattle's Smart Trek is a coordinated effort, ITS projects around the Beltway are more sporadic, partly because of the challenges of getting local governments to work together.

One of the most ambitious projects is a service called SmarTraveler, a $12.5 million local government and private-sector initiative that provides up-to-the minute traffic reports along the region's main arteries and roads.

Started two years ago by Cambridge, Mass.-based SmartRoute Systems, the service disseminates real-time traffic information via cable television, telephone, some cell phones and the Internet http:// (www.Smartraveler.com).

While Seattle's Smart Trek relies primarily on freeway sensors and cameras to gather information, SmartRoute depends on a variety of sources, including local transportation officials, police, two airplanes and an army of 50 daily commuters who call in regularly to volunteer information on road conditions.

Like all private companies involved in ITS, SmartRoute Systems is still looking for ways to make money. One way is to sell advertising on its free Web site. Another will be in marketing customized traffic information through cellular phones and pagers.

SmartRoute General Manager Steve Kuciemba admits the marketing has been slow to catch on, though he would not say how his company is doing financially.

"This hasn't hit with the public as early as we had hoped, but I am convinced it will take off because people are hungry for information," he said.

SmartRoute Systems is not waiting for profits to establish a nationwide beachhead in the growing field of Intelligent Transportation Systems.

It has ITS command centers in 11 cities and plans to open a center in Baltimore this spring and have operations in the nation's largest 30 cities by the end of 2000.

Maryland and Virginia transportation officials, meanwhile, are working to update traffic management with information technology on their own and in cooperation with SmartRoute.

Maryland has its own Web site on traffic conditions (www.chart.state.md.us)and is working to add more cameras and sensors on major arteries, as well as more traffic warning signs, said Mike Zezeski, ITS program manager.

The Virginia Department of Transportation also is striving to expand its highway management system beyond the Beltway, adding more detectors and cameras. VDOT recently completed its signal systems project that covers about 800 intersections in Fairfax County to improve traffic management, said Jim Robinson, director of ITS programs for VDOT. The system synchronizes the timing of all 800 traffic lights.

In the District, the Department of Public Works has selected a consultant to design and upgrade the city's computerized traffic signals. The city also is providing SmartRoute with data to share with drivers.

CATCHING ON SLOWLY

Efforts in Seattle and Washington are still in their infancy. It is not clear when, or if, these myriad services will catch on with the public.

While technology advances quickly, public acceptance of new bells and whistles is often slower, especially if the price is not right. Mr. Gillman's palm-top and modem cost a total of about $1,000, out of range for many.

Several efforts already have fallen flat. Seiko, for instance, developed a wristwatch that provided customized traffic information in a coded format. Initial reports of the watch revealed that it was hard to read, and Seiko pulled out of the Smart Trek effort.

Still, anyone with a computer and Internet access can get to the Web sites for free. Traffic Web site designers hope to make their bundle selling advertising images in the open spaces.

Smart Trek officials note that hits on their Web site have swelled dramatically since the service began. They note that during the two days that the I-5 express lanes through downtown were closed, their Web site was clogged with viewers.

ITS advocates are convinced that the market for real- time traffic information will explode and improve the lives of millions of drivers.

****PHOTOS/BOX

SMART TOOLS

Roads around Seattle are loaded with technology to make commuting easier. Here is a look at some of the gadgets:

Transit Watch monitors at busy bus terminals give riders updates on where their bus is and when it will arrive.

The Hewlett-Packard Palm Pilot personal computer with wireless Ricochet modem fits in glove compartments so that drivers can call up current information on traffic conditions.

Alphanumeric watches provide travelers with customized updates on traffic and road conditions along their commuting route.

Traffic-metering systems use traffic signals to regulate the number and timing of cars entering highways during congested periods.

The SmartTrek web site http://(www.smarttrek.org) gives visitors real-time information on traffic conditions, public bus locations and congestion at ferry terminals, as well as links to ride-sharing web sites.

****MAP TEXT DRIVING SAMRTER IN D.C.

SmarTraveler has six cameras stationed at key choke points through the region that provide up-to-date images for its cable television program and web site. Six more cameras will be added by this winter.

1. I-95 and MD 212 (Powder Mill Road) in Beltsville

2. Capital Beltway and Landover Road near Redskins Stadium

3. New York Avenue and Bladensburg Road

4. I-395 at the split with the Southeast Freeway

5. US 50 and the Beltway in Fairfax County

6. Route 7 and Route 123 at Tysons Corner

OTHER SMART TOOLS

* Digital overhead displays on highways, including the Beltway and interstates 95, 395, 295 and 66, warn drivers of traffic congestion.

* Traffic meters at busy on ramps, like the Shirlington exit of I-395, regulate the stream of vehicles entering the interstate.

* Transportation officials track the movements of commuter trains and Montgomery County Ride-On buses using Global Positioning System technology.

* Remote weather sensors imbedded in the pavement let plow drivers know when and where ice and snow are forming.

* From the SmarTraveler command center at 400 Virginia Ave., SW, traffic experts gather and organize traffic data for its web site and daily traffic cable show.

WHERE TO GO FOR ROAD INTELLIGENCE:

Free SmarTraveler information:

Telephone: 202/863-1313. A caller can punch in the route number of the highway he wants information about.

Mobile phone: #211

Internet: http://www.smartTraveler.com for current traffic conditions

http://www.autotraffic.com for accident and incident information