![]() While none of the city staff shared plans to expand speed camera as a result of the new authority, some cities already have camera enforcement in place or were already exchanged in expansion before the change in state law was announced. Few to no plans for speed camera expansion in cities statewide So far, no representatives of those cities have confirmed they are moving forward with plans to use the new authority authorized by the Move Ahead Washington package. ![]() The Urbanist contacted the ten largest cities in Washington, where roughly one out of every four Washingtonians live, and asked about any plans to utilize this new authority. So, Seattle will be authorized to operate 75 cameras to curtail speeds under that aspect of the law, while Tacoma can operate 23. The cameras allowed outside school, hospital, and park zones have to be in locations where localities have determined other traffic calming measures are infeasible or have not been “sufficiently effective.” The number of those cameras allowed is dictated by population, with one additional camera permitted for every 10,000 residents in a city. In addition, cities can add at least one speed camera, at a location identified as a “priority location” in a road safety plan as submitted to the Washington State Department of Transportation, or at a location where there has been a “significantly higher” rate of collisions than the citywide average over the past three years. For those types of cameras, there isn’t an upper limit on the number of cameras that can be added. Starting on July 1 of this year, speed cameras can be installed on any street adjacent to a hospital, park, or along a designated walk-to-school route for any school. More flexibility on installing speed cameras However, when Governor Inslee signed the Move Ahead Washington transportation package this spring, that authority to install speed cameras was dramatically expanded. In most cases, the only place where speed cameras could be used was in areas directly adjacent to schools, and the cameras were only able to be in use during the hours immediately surrounding school start and end times. Previously, state law dramatically curtailed where cities and towns could add automatic cameras to issue tickets to drivers who exceed posted speed limits. The rate of speeding involved fatal crashes statewide is increasing faster than the overall number of fatal crashes, according to the Washington Traffic Safety Commission. It’s also important to note that those numbers don’t necessarily reflect all of the streets where the posted speed limit is itself not set at a safe level, which suggests an underreporting of the actual death toll related to unsafe speeds. However, high rates of vehicle speeds, known to be one of the single biggest factors that determine the severity of injuries sustained from a crash, are not trending in the right direction.Īccording to the Washington Traffic Safety Commission, in 2021, the state saw a 30% increase from 2019 in the number of traffic fatalities where speeding was determined to be a primary factor in the crash. The change comes as Washington, along with most of the country, continues to witness the escalation of a traffic safety crisis without one clear cause. Soon a new change in Washington State law will take effect that could give jurisdictions another set of tools to reduce speeds on their streets and potentially save lives - if local jurisdictions take the state up on using their new authority. Now that expansion looks to be delayed well beyond the start of the 2024 school year. “However, without significantly increasing the staffing of the Police Department, we struggle to give proper attention to all of the competing demands for service, including effectively monitoring and providing enforcement to all of our school and park zones.Last year, the city council funded a doubling of the city's school zone camera enforcement program. “Traffic-related calls for service remain our number one response,” the ordinance reads. The department also argued the cameras could help with staffing levels. Revenue projections by the police department from the cameras totaled over $1.4 million. And in two school zones, over 80% of traffic was speeding while the school zone lights were flashing. In a proposed ordinance, the police reported that near the Rosehill Community Center, about 15% of traffic moving south was speeding. The police department took a look at some problem intersections they had identified and, probably not very shockingly, found that a lot of people speed in areas with high pedestrian traffic. Mukilteo is considering similar cameras as well, and in June, the city began studying the feasibility.
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