Take a cab ride with Gregory Marshall. He is a guy who knows his traffic lights

"These are red right now,” said Marshall. "So we're going to catch all these red."

As he drives the streets of Houston, he can really tell the difference if the lights are timed.

"When I'm driving, if I don't want to stop, I kind of slow down before the light changes, green,” he said. "If you catch one within those matter of seconds of changing, then if you go ahead on and drive, you can catch all of them that are green at the same time."

About 70 percent of Houston's traffic lights are now timed one of the earliest initiatives rolled out by Mayor Bill White.

"One that I can just give you an example:  On Westheimer, between 610 and Beltway, there was about a 16 percent increase in the speed that people could go through that area once we re-timed the traffic lights,” said White.

But timing lights requires computer software that has to be licensed for each intersection. 

Now the White Administration plans to spend $300,000 on new licenses to time more lights.

"What it does is, it allows us to look at the future,” said Alvin Wright, a Houston Public Works Department spokesman. “And it gives us a license for not only the existing lights we have right now, but also for the future lights we plan on installing."

Marshall can’t wait.

"I think they'll have a good system, once they get everything coordinated, they'll have a good system going,” he said. "We'll be able to catch all of the green lights."

And it should help people like Marshall time their drives down Houston streets.