CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- The City of Charlotte wants to make driving through uptown Charlotte easier and quicker.

Monday night, city council voted to improve its fiber optic communication network.

The best way to explain this story is to be on the road. On a normal day on Caldwell Street in Uptown, traffic moves pretty quickly. But on other days, traffic often backs up especially during Panthers games and other big events. The city wants to change that.

It's called the Intelligent Transportation Systems Project, also known as ITS. The city is spending $1 million to connect the central business district to the city's fiber optic communications network.

In other words, the city will be able to monitor and remotely adjust traffic signals to improve traffic flow. Specifically, the city will install nearly six miles of fiber optic cable, connect the cable to 27 traffic signals and add 20 traffic management cameras

The city says these upgrades are long overdue because the traffic signal system is decades old and has failing copper wire. The hope is to reduce the commute times in uptown Charlotte.