Starting Feb. 1 of next year, Redmond will no longer be a photo-enforcement city — at least at intersections.
The Redmond City Council voted unanimously at Tuesday’s meeting to terminate the city’s traffic-enforcement camera contract with the vendor, American Traffic Solutions (ATS), effective Jan. 31, 2012.
The Council’s all-aye vote, which sparked applause by a handful of crowd members, came two weeks after an Oct. 11 study session, where all seven council members agreed that the citation and collision data, compiled by the Redmond Police Department, was too inconclusive to justify extending the contract with ATS for another four years.
“The fact is this program did not make any difference in the number of people who go through the lights and make (illegal) right hand turns,” said council member Hank Myers, who is the chair of the public safety committee. “I’m looking forward to finding better solutions to traffic safety. … I think simply this was an ineffective program.”
While the five red-light cameras at three busy city intersections will be turned off at the end of January, there is a possibility that the two speed cameras in place on Northeast 116th Street near Einstein Elementary School will continue.
Tuesday’s approved proposal, drafted by Mayor John Marchione in a Tuesday memo, directed city staff to negotiate a new contract with ATS that would keep the two speed cameras active near Einstein Elementary from Feb. 1, 2012 through the end of the school year in June.
The city has yet to begin negotiations with ATS, but it plans to have a possible contract proposal in place for Council action sometime in January, according to Mayor John Marchione.
Council member Kim Allen suggested the city find a new vendor for its traffic cameras at the study session last month, but agreed Tuesday that continuing with ATS would work for now since the new agreement would only last four months.
Marchione’s recommendation also calls for the council to consider expanding the use of traffic speed cameras at other school zones, along with “research and develop intersection safety recommendations for future consideration and implementation.”
If the city does expand the speed camera program, the contract bid would be open to other camera vendors beyond ATS, Marchione said. He did point out that there might be other non-camera options that would improve traffic safety in school zones such as speed-limit indicators.
All the council members agreed something must be done to make drivers more attentive and aware.
“I just wish folks would be a little bit more conscious of what they are doing when they are driving,” said council member David Carson. “I’ve almost been hit twice in the last two months by someone who was plainly not paying attention.”
Council member John Stilin pointed out that “20 percent of the tickets handed out” were to repeat offenders, showing the program did not change driving behavior.
“I hope when we come back we have something that does a better job of getting people to just wake up and pay attention,” Stilin said. “I’m not sure it has to be a ticket. I think we need to do something at these intersections to make sure people are safe.”
Council member Hank Margeson said the mayor’s proposal gives the city more “options moving forward.”
“Anything we can do that makes us more aware as we drive our vehicles on the roadway is a good thing, because it is a privilege and not a right to operate a motor vehicle,” he said.
