Call it chaos theory for modern-day New York: A computer hiccups in Long Island City, and anarchy erupts in the streets of Manhattan.

That was the lesson for drivers Tuesday night and yesterday morning after hundreds of malfunctioning traffic lights sparked massive gridlock.

Lights out of sequence. Red lights that never turned green. Green lights that never turned red. No lights at all.

"If we leave, there's going to be an accident," said a police officer using only outstretched hands to halt speeding traffic at Ninth Avenue and 33rd Street, where downtown traffic had an uninterrupted green during the morning rush. "I almost had three guys hit me already."

Officials said as many as 240 traffic lights were affected. The mayhem broke out during the Tuesday evening rush, after a computerized clock at traffic command center in Long Island City went kaput, said transportation spokesman Tom Cocola. The computer controls the synchronization of Manhattan's traffic signals. "It felt like a Y2K exercise being played out," Cocola said.

All but a handful of the out-of-whack signals had been remedied by mid-morning. And while the possibility of a saboteur hacker was not ruled out, "the inclination is more that there was some problem associated with our machinery and electricity," he said.

Department of Transportation officials essentially rebooted the system at about 8 or 9 p.m. Tuesday, seemingly fixing the problem, but glitches resurfaced early yesterday, particularly on Ninth, Tenth and Eleventh avenues.

At one point, the DOT was fielding more than 100 complaint calls per hour, mostly from motorists. While teams of engineers were dispatched to repair signals on the blink, police officers helped direct traffic. The DOT also relied on its network of live cameras. Drivers and residents can report any continuing signal problems at 212- or 718-CALL-DOT.

newsday

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