Dwindling property tax revenue has forced local governments in Michigan to look to motorists to refill their municipal budgets, according to a Detroit News analysis. In 2002, the city of Detroit issued a total of 126,007 traffic tickets. Last year, that figure grew to 245,249– a 94 percent jump. The percentage increase was even greater in small towns like Plymouth, which saw the number of tickets skyrocket from 440 to 2,584 — up 487 percent — over the same period. “When I first started in this job thirty years ago, police work was never about revenue enhancement,” Utica Police Chief Michael Reaves told the DetN. “But if you’re a chief now, you have to look at whether your department produces revenues. That’s just the reality nowadays.” Utica issued 3540 tickets in 2003 and 5518 in 2007 — a 56 percent increase. A few communities like Pontiac saw ticket revenue decrease in proportion to the number of police laid off, but eighteen jurisdictions overall reported a ticketing increase of more than fifty percent. The National Motorists Association cited Detroit suburbs as home to the worst speed traps in the country.
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Executives at photo enforcement firms American Traffic Solutions (ATS) and Redflex have been caught ignoring their own speed camera tickets. Arizona motorists may safely throw away citations sent in the mail as state law requires that they be personally served with a violation notice within ninety days of the alleged offense. Tickets that are not properly served must be dismissed within 120 days. That worked out well for Shoba Vaitheeswaran, 33, the spokesman for the Arizona office of Redflex Traffic Systems. A ticket filed against her in September 2005 was dismissed after she ignored it. Vaitheeswaran was not an employee at the time, as she has only recently taken over the media relations role from Michael Ferraresi, 28. Ferraresi, himself a frequent ticket recipient, has been through a revolving door with the Australian camera vendor and the Arizona Republic newspaper. After writing stories about the company for the Republic, Redflex hired Ferraresi to be spokesman– often speaking to his former colleagues at the paper about the company. Ferraresi is once again reporting for the Republic, a paper that offers enthusiastic editorial support for the use of speed cameras and red light cameras.
The Manchester Evening News reports that President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team has contacted Jack Opiola, a transportation principal for the firm Booz, Allen and Hamilton. Opiola the brains behind a program to tax drivers £5 (US $8) when entering the city of Manchester during peak hours. “I was ‘noticed’ by key people in the Obama campaign and I have been providing input to his strategy team in Chicago, including information about Greater Manchester’s bid,” Opiola said. Previously, Senator Obama’s most specific transportation proposal was a proposal to create a $60b toll road bank. In March, Obama endorsed New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s scheme to charge a $9 toll on cars and a $22 toll for trucks that enter downtown Manhattan during working hours. Hoping to fill the gap with specifics, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) last month submitted a detailed $544 billion transportation re-authorization proposal designed to encourage the new administration to shore-up the domestic economy with heavy spending on infrastructure projects.
University of South Florida researchers have uncovered fundamental flaws in the first U.S. study that claimed red light cameras decrease accidents. Since 2001, the insurance industry’s report on the benefits of red light camera use in Oxnard, California has been cited by hundreds of cities as the basis for the adoption of photo enforcement. Researchers Barbara Orban, Etienne Pracht and John T. Large attempted to replicate these findings and discovered that the Oxnard numbers, intended to serve as the model of peer-reviewed scholarship, simply don’t add up. “The regression analysis of [Oxnard study authors Richard] Retting and [Sergey] Kyrychenko does not support their conclusion that red light cameras reduced total or injury crashes,” the University of South Florida team wrote in the American Journal of Public Health last month. This sounds familiar…
The graduate of an insurance industry “boot camp” is behind efforts to legalize the use of red light cameras in Florida. State Representative Ron Reagan (R-Bradenton) twice attended the Insurance Campaign Institute, a special program designed to place insurance agents in positions of political power bankrolled by twenty insurance companies. “Essentially a political boot camp, the comprehensive political training program covers all facets of the campaign trail, from organization to grassroots strategies, fundraising, direct mail, advertising, media relations, public speaking, debate preparation, campaign research, and use of insurance community strength,” the Independent Insurance Agents of America explained in a 2001 press release. Reagan credits his 2002 Florida House victory to the Insurance Campaign Institute. To repay his industry backers, Reagan introduced the Mark Wandall Traffic Safety Act, a measure giving cities the green light to install red light cameras. Although the bill is portrayed as a response to the tragic death of a constituent in 2003, Reagan’s legislation is designed to create millions in new revenue for the insurance industry. And here’s how…
Following this week’s successful voter referendum banning photo enforcement in Cincinnati, residents in two more Ohio cities are looking to oust red light cameras and speed cameras. The sponsors of the Cincinnati initiative are now exploring the possibility of putting ticket cameras on the ballot in Toledo. In Chillicothe, more than 17 percent of the city’s 13,000 registered voters has already signed a growing online petition demanding camera removal. “The undersigned will take action to elect new city council members therefore removing all those responsible for this unconstitutional act unless the said members make motion to remove and terminate this contract the city signed with Redflex Traffic Systems immediately,” the petition states. The possible consequences of the revolt were not lost on city leaders who are expected to discuss the issue at an upcoming city council meeting. One of the camera system’s main supporters, however, blamed residents for the program.
On Tuesday, voters in Cincinnati, Ohio made it clear that photo enforcement is not welcome in the city. A majority of voters approved an amendment to the city charter prohibiting local officials from ever installing either red light cameras or speed cameras. Referendum co-sponsor Josh Weitzman hopes his coalition’s victory inspires other cities “This election is further proof that people do not want to have traffic cameras,” Weitzman told TheNewspaper. “Politicians in cities across the country need to take note of this if they plan on getting re-elected.” Cincinnati city council members had been trying for the past four years to install the devices that promised to generate between $2m and $12m in annual revenue. Advocates were stopped in 2005 when former Mayor Charlie Luken vetoed a camera ordinance saying, “Let’s be honest with the public– we didn’t think about this until we came up with a budget problem.”
The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) on Friday announced the creation of a new office whose primary goal will be to lobby state governments to convert their freeways into toll roads. While some congressional leaders expressed hope that the change represented by FHWA’s new Office of Innovative Program Delivery would be reversed by the next administration, there is reason to believe that the incoming administration will continue supporting public private partnership (PPP) initiatives. For now, the toll road promotion office sits at the top of FHWA’s organizational chart to emphasize its primary place within the federal transportation department.
Chicago, Illinois Mayor Richard M. Daley (D) is counting on a host of new fees and taxes on drivers to balance the city’s 2009 budget. To wit: a new contract took effect on Saturday authorizing private vendor Redflex to more than double the number of red light camera equipped intersections in Chicago to 290. The first phase of the program had already mailed 1.1 million tickets worth $110m using just 136 cameras, thanks to contract provisions that ensure a steady stream of revenue. “The Office of Emergency Management and Communications has developed and executed the industry’s most stringent performance metrics and key performance indicators,” the new contract states. “(These) include citation issuance minimum yields to equal 85 percent or greater and system uptime to equal 95 percent or greater… At a minimum, installed systems must maintain a minimum 85 percent prosecution rate.” So far, the prosecution rate has been 94 percent. Daley rewarded Redflex by approving a no-bid contract extension. Read it and weep…
Virginia House of Delegates rep David Poisson (D-Loudoun) has introduced legislation to create a system to track the driving habits of Virginia motorists, imposing a tax on every mile driven, opening the way for congestion charging. Poisson argues that the legislature should adopt so-called “Road Pricing” during the 2009 session to compensate for dwindling gas tax revenue. “Inflation and escalating construction costs have severely eroded the purchasing power of fuel-tax revenue,” Poisson said in a statement. “At the same time, tax receipts are dropping as soaring gas prices and a weak economy reduce traffic volume. When people do drive, it is in more fuel-efficient cars, which only makes our revenue problems worse. Clearly, we can’t continue this way.” Well of course not. Only the facts tell a slightly different tale…
A total of 199 attacks on speed cameras in the UK last year cost operators over £500k (US $800k) in repair cost. The figures, reported by the Mid Sussex Times in response to a freedom of information request, do not include the far more substantial amount of revenue lost before replacement devices could be put in place to resume ticketing. Most recently, a pair of cameras were destroyed in Cambridgeshire on October 25 at around 7pm. One of the devices issued tickets on the A605 Elton bypass while a second was stationed near Peterborough. This represents the third time the A605 camera has been set on fire in the past six months. In the past fiscal year, Cambridgeshire spent £93k (US $150k) repairing cameras. including replacing an automated ticketing machine at Stow-cum-Quy, after an April 14 attack. The replacement cost was £35k (US $55k). Other areas have seen smaller repair bills. Sussex officials spent just £16k (US $25,900) to resume ticketing after fifteen separate attacks. For example, activists in Crawley burned the camera located on the C406 Bewbush Drive in August 2007, while a March 2008 attack merely involved tampering with the lock on the camera housing.
Faced with one of the tightest budget crunches in its history, the state of Arizona is wasting no time in deploying its newly authorized freeway speed cameras. Redflex Traffic Systems runs the photo radar program in return for an expected cut of $20,361,300. In Phoenix, the Australian company has activated a number of fixed camera systems in the past week. Seven cameras are now active on Interstate 10, seven on the 101 and three on 51. In Mesa, three cameras are ready to begin ticketing on 60. In total, Redflex expects to deploy 100 fixed and mobile cameras. Each camera can generate thousands of $181 tickets for the state’s general fund. The state estimates that fiscal 2009 will see 428,839 citations worth $77.6 million. In the following year, the number will grow to 571,785 tickets worth $103,493,085. The state’s contract with Redflex provides an option to double the revenue by increasing the total number of cameras to 200.
A report released last week by the U.S. House Committee on Transportation documents 4k cases where employees in federal vehicles in Washington, D.C. and New York City skipped-out on parking tickets last year, turning their backs on $700k in unpaid fines. “Over one-half of all workers in the southernmost section of Manhattan are government employees,” the report explained. “Essentially, all of lower Manhattan is a free parking lot for government vehicles.” FBI officials told the committee that a thorough investigation failed to yield any suspects for 218 parking infractions. In 2007, D.C. meter maids wrote the Army, Navy and Air Force 158 parking tickets worth $27,840. (None of the recruiters challenged the DC citations due to their “demanding work schedule.”) The report noted that most meter maids ignore federal vehicles because they know there’s no point issuing a citation. “Federal law requires employees to pay parking tickets received on U.S. government vehicles, but… The DC Department of Public Works does not boot or tow government-tagged vehicles, ‘as a matter of long-standing policy.'”
In a four-hundred-page review of Suffolk County, New York’s financial situation released earlier this month, officials highlight the rationale for adding automated traffic enforcement devices. “At this point the County needs to make hard decisions,” the 2009 county budget review states. “Do we raise property taxes? Do we seek state approval to raise the overall sales tax rate? …Do we raise revenue from traffic tickets by instituting red light cameras?” Yes, well, county cannot install red light cameras without first obtaining permission from the state legislature. Since 2001, Albany’s frustrated the county’s attempts to convince lawmakers in Albany to grant this authority. Photo enforcement supporters believe that support from Governor David Patterson (D) will finally deliver the changes in state law needed to begin operations. The county has even begun taking steps to establish a parking violations bureau to handle the photo tickets.
Next Tuesday, Washington state voters will consider Initiative 985. If adopted, I-985 would force local jurisdictions to synchronize traffic signals at high-volume intersections, open High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes during non-peak hours and prohibit the imposition of tolls to raise general revenue. I-985 pays for the synchronization mandate by, among other things, diverting red light camera profits into a traffic congestion relief fund. The measure’s co-sponsor, Tim Eyman, says taking away camera profits would stop local governments from installing the devices as a cash grab. After I-985 qualified for the ballot, five cities dropped plans to adopt photo enforcement. As you’d imagine, the revenue provisions have sparked vicious and vociferous opposition from groups that stand to lose money from the new deal.
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