The city of Meridian will soon be getting an upgrade for its traffic light system.

The city council Tuesday approved a project to replace the control boxes for all of the traffic lights downtown.

The city already has several hundred thousand dollars in state money available to cover most of the work.

City officials say the current boxes that control downtown traffic lights are obsolete.

"We're just replacing the old obsolete lights. it will give us better control of what's going on downtown," said public works director Monty Jackson. "We'll be able to put lights on flashing, when you need to, rather than make all of the lights flash at one time. We'll be able to isolate them on an individual light."

The project could cost as much as $600,000 to complete, with at least eighty percent of that covered by state grants. Work to replace those controllers should start sometime next year.