Monday, November 14, 2011

Lacey, WA Says Red Light Cameras Are Working To Promote Safety

Warm up your typing fingers because this thread is about red light cameras, and that topic always gets a lot of reaction. Law enforcement and others say that the red light cameras we have in the City of Spokane help to promote safety by discouraging people from driving through intersections on red lights.

Opponents of red light cameras say that's just a line though- that the cameras are really to bring in revenue. Well, the City Manager for Lacey, WA says the lights really are promoting safety. Lacey expects to collect $100,000 less from its red-light cameras next year because fewer drivers have been cited for running lights at a particularly busy intersection over the past three years.

In fact, the number of citations has decreased by two-thirds since 2009. City Manager Scott Spence says those numbers, coupled with a decrease in collisions, show the cameras are working.

The Olympian has the story.

2 comments:

vanillajane said...

No comments? That's weird.

SRTC Staff said...

You're telling me. I think everyone is so wrapped up in this election stuff that they aren't interested right now in our old favorite topic, red light cameras. Who knows, they could even be going away locally under our Mayor Elect. I'm not sure about his stance on them.


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.