Saturday, February 21, 2009

Traffic cameras rolled out in West Hartford

West Hartford is experimenting with a solar-powered radar camera that takes photographs of drivers who travel more than 15 miles per hour over the speed limit at the intersection of Boulevard and Whiting Street.  Although the state doesn't allow towns to send tickets to drivers based on radar cameras (but legislation has been proposed and may be on the way this year), the town seeks to harness the power of moral suasion.  If you speed through that intersection, which is in a dense residential neighborhood near a school, you will be sent a photo of yourself from the town police reminding you of your bad behavior.

The town is setting up four displays, but only one has a camera.  The cost is $13,000.  The town claims this effort will be more cost effective than redesigning the roadway.  We'll see. West Hartford has been taking positive steps to slow down traffic along Farmington Ave. through various improvements and it's disappointing to see gimmicks when stronger action needs to be taken.  As a great example of a dense, inner ring suburb where many people live within walking distance of shopping, school, and work, West Hartford needs to do all it can to make pedestrians and bikers safer.  Perhaps if the traffic camera legislation succeeds, West Hartford's cameras will have the impact the town is looking for.  But it might be a better use of town money to combine that $13,000 with some stimulus money to do some shovel ready (ugh, sorry) traffic calming.
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Posted by Adam at 10:40 PM

3 comments:

  1. Couple of thoughts come to mind...15mph over the posted is way to fast, they should make it 7-10mph over IMHO, which BTW I still consider too fast if there are pedestrians involved.

    Second thought is they should back the cameras up with a patrol car on a regular basis, they tried the camera stunt in our town with poor results, several of our local politicians that passed through the area where the camera was located were caught DOUBLING the 25 mph speed limit and when confronted claimed it was an infringement on their "rights" and then pulled the system... So much for our rights to move about freely without being mauled by over zealous drivers.

    Aaron
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  2. Tickets should be given for 1mph over the speed limit. Limits are there for a reason.

    25mph is the limit because when you drive 26, you're nearly twice as likely to kill a pedestrian as when you're driving 25.
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  3. Instead of spending money on expensive cameras and tearing up the streets to install them, why not just buy a couple of squad cars to park at busy intersections. People automatically slow down when they see a police car. Some towns even put a dummy in the driver's seat. They can move them around. By the time people are close enough to see the car is empty, they have already slowed down.
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