NJ Transit has turned its six new traffic signals in Palmyra and Riverton to flashing yellow, responding to residents who were seeing red.

But the measure is temporary - just until the lights can be properly "synchronized."

And unhappiness over new traffic signals is spreading up the South Jersey Light Rail Line to other old towns unaccustomed to lights at every corner.

"They say you can get used to anything," Burlington City Mayor Herman Costello says with a sigh, looking out at the city where he has lived for decades. "I just don't know how long this is going to take."

Where once there was one signal (Broad and High), now there are seven, the mayor notes.

"Washington, Wood, Stacy, York, St. Mary, Tatham," the mayor says, ticking off the other intersections with Broad that NJ Transit has signalized.

"Two songs before it turns" is the way Tamy Clark, a 26-year-old cosmetologist, describes the frustration she experiences at the lights.

The 34-mile, Camden-to-Trenton light rail line is expected to begin operating sometime this fall, NJ Transit officials say.

In addition to being late, it is also seriously over budget at a cost of more than $1 billion.

The traffic lights are "being tested and adjusted," the agency says, and are necessary to provide the kind of safety that residents along the line deserve.

At Tony's Barber Shop in Riverside, patrons cuss at the newly signalized intersection outside.

"People are really getting disgusted," owner Tony D'Agostino said, looking out at a sea of traffic islands and lanes that pedestrians have to negotiate to get to his shop.

The intersection of Pavilion and Franklin avenues, Lafayette Street and the railroad does not look safer to them and is certainly not more convenient, they say.

And this is before the trains have begun to run on a regular basis.

Back in Riverton, Clara Ruvolo, who's running for mayor, said Wednesday she's backing off the suit she threatened to file against NJ Transit now that the agency has switched to blinking lights.

"They were using us as guinea pigs," Ruvolo said, saying that now they can "get the bugs ironed out" without jeopardizing the safety and convenience of residents in her town and its sister borough, Palmyra.

Bob Martin, Ruvolo's opponent in the Republican primary, questioned the timing and utility of Ruvolo's suit.

"It's the same number of lights that were in the plan that Mrs. Ruvolo supported three years ago," Martin said.

Palmyra Mayor Bob Leather agrees.

"From the very beginning, we were told there would be traffic lights at every intersection," said Leather, a Republican who lost his party's support because of his opposition to the light rail line. "We said at the time there was going to be inconvenience."

"They've adjusted the lights God knows how many times," Leather said, but no amount of tinkering is going to make the delays inherent in them go away.

The traffic lights have already discouraged truck traffic and slowed cars, and will help protect pedestrians once the trains begin running, Ruvolo said.

Leather has no argument with that.

"I just wish the people who were for the light rail from the beginning had been honest and said `This is part of light rail too,' " he said.