(Image: SDOT)
The Seattle City Council’s transportation committee will hear an update Tuesday on the city’s plans for 19 new school safety zone cameras and changes in state law that have started the Department of Transportation on the path to selecting five locations for newly allowed speeding detection cameras.
According to the briefing slated for Tuesday morning, the new school safety zone cameras are set to come online this year joining a network of setups across Seattle the city says have been effective in reducing dangerous crashes and slowing drivers. CHS reported in October on the process to select the blocks for the 19 new cameras.
On Capitol Hill, drivers will encounter a new camera zone in front of 10th Ave E’s private Bertschi Elementary that will operate between 7:35AM-8:30AM and 2:35PM-3:35PM on school days. Nearby TOPS K-8 will also add a camera on Boylston Ave E between E Lynn St and E Roanoke. “Flashing beacon schedules are adjusted for holidays, early release days, summer school, and other events,” the city notes.
The expansion will double the number of cameras in the city including existing speed cameras near Montlake Elementary and Garfield High School. CHS reported here in 2022 as the new camera system was put in place along 23rd near Garfield. The Montlake camera setup — the most prolific ticket issuer in Seattle — has been offline during that campus’s multi-year expansion. The school is expected to reopen in the fall.
The city, meanwhile, is moving forward under new state law toward planning newly allowed speed detection cameras that can be installed near High Crash Risk Locations, Park and Hospital Zones, School Walk Routes, and Roadway Work Zones. According to Tuesday’s presentation, SDOT is making plans to move forward with five locations for “full-time speed cameras” after a “safety and equity analysis.”
City analysis shows cameras make for safer streets. Beginning in 2006, Seattle began deployment of Red Light Cameras to reduce the frequency of red light running and associated collisions. Seattle now has 31 Red Light Cameras deployed. Revenues from Red Light Cameras support the City’s General Fund. Camera types including school zones have joined the system. Seattle has also deployed Block the Box Cameras at six intersections and Transit Lane Enforcement Cameras at six locations. In 2023, the city council also passed legislation identifying 10″ restricted racing zones” as a preliminary step for future deployment of cameras to detect speeding violations in those zones
The council now has work to do tying it all together. It will need to pass legislation updating the city’s laws to allow the new camera zones. Other legislative priorities for the programs include consolidating financial policies for the various camera types deployed by the city, and, SDOT hopes, create a “single holistic program” to administrate the technology.
You can view the full presentation (PDF) here.
$5 A MONTH TO HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE THIS SPRING
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Can we please make this 500 more instead of 5 more? I don’t understand why speeding can’t be enforced 100% of the time now.
Agreed! But honestly, I’m just here to see all the folks freak out and scream about how this is, in fact, a money grab by the city or some terrible burden on the working poor.
There’s an easy solution…. don’t speed… It’s not a tax on the poor… it’s a disincentive to break the law. I do get it when some people say it doesn’t affect rich people because basically they can afford to do as they please because paying the ticket doesn’t bother their budget.. We could do as the Norwegians and Finns do and ticket on a sliding scale based on income… then it becomes significant no matter how much money you have – it can be up to 10% of a person’s yearly income. The most expensive speeding ticket I’ve seen listed was the equivalent of $130,000. That would likely make you think twice almost no matter how much $$$ you have.
Prepare yourself for the panic braking when they turn that Montlake camera back on… People go flying down there at about 50…
Could it be that the Montlake camera is quite a distance from the actual school and not well sign posted.
The people who go speeding down that street probably do it every single day… they know exactly where the school zone is, but they still do probably 2X the speed limit…
People are still speeding by 10-15mph over the non-school speed
I’m con cameras camp. They are intrusive and can be turned against innocent people. Imagine ICE having the info.
However? These cameras are welcome. School zones should be covered.
I still remember the days when you blasted through school zones.
Gotta get money some way.
Anyway, want to have people slow down in a given stretch? Send cops to drive their cars up and down that stretch.
Next question.
why use cops for that when a camera and speed radar can do it with automation – no human needed, no bias in who they’re pulling over, almost zero cost to run, etc
High school students do not need a 20 mph speed limit in front of their school. I think they are sophisticated enough to understand cars, and the 25 mph regular speed limit should be fine. And the real danger to Garfield students takes the form of school shootings. Address that issue and you will actually be keeping the kids safe from imminent harm.
Running red lights by entitled people is rampant in Seattle. More cameras will hopefully make a difference.
Some things have unintended consequences… I have noted that since the introduction of the pedestrian pause (where there is an interval when all lights are red, but the crosswalk is walk, ostensibly to give peds a head start) that it is far more common to see at least 1-3 drivers go through full reds at the change… they know they won’t be t-boned…
Speeding is seen as entitlement too… I was heading down 23rd yesterday and a big box truck was actually doing the speed limit. Some yo-yo passed the whole lot of us from several cars back by zooming into the oncoming traffic’s turn lane at an intersection.