Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Requirements Changed To Use Photo Red Money

Spokane City neighborhood councils will no longer have to come up with 'match' money in order to use revenue the city collects from red light camera tickets. Money raised from the red light cameras goes into a fund to be used for 'traffic calming' measures by the City's neighborhood councils. Last night, City Council voted to get rid of the match money required to use those funds. Here are the details.

There are a lot of people out there who don't like the red light cameras because they say they are simply a money maker. City officials disagree though, saying it is aimed at improving traffic safety. Now that there is no match required, more safety projects will probably move forward across the city. Does that make you feel better about this program?

2 comments:

Not said...

I'd love to see more traffic calming measures here, but I think many of them would interfere with snow removal.
- Ventura

SRTC Staff said...

You're right Ventura, I know that plow drivers HATE things like bumpouts because they make it a major pain to do their jobs. There's a lot of pressure to add these kind of items lately though so that may trump the preference of jurisdiction staff.

There are a few traffic calming measures that can be installed that don't affect snow removal, such as radar speed signs, textured pavement, properly-designed chicanes, and realigning intersections.

I'm curious to see how neighborhoods will choose to use this money.


About SRTC

SRTC is the federally designated Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) for Spokane County. Urbanized areas with populations exceeding 50,000 people are required to have an MPO. SRTC was formed to address the county's transportation planning needs. It provides coordination in planning between the public, cities, small towns, the county, the state, transit providers, and tribes.

SRTC offers services including transportation monitoring, transportation modeling, census information analysis, travel demand forecasting, historical traffic count analysis, geographic information systems, and trip generation rates.