Photo Courtesy: The Spokane-Review
Adding more speed enforcement cameras in Seattle school zones received an unexpected welcome Tuesday before a city transportation committee.
The plan doubles the number of Speed Enforcement cameras from 19 to 38 “We saw almost a 50% drop in total collisions in Seattle and a 70% drop during peak times in school zones; and overall speeds are down” says Venu Nemani, Chief Safety Officer at SDOT.
But the plan calls for no additional cameras in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods where many are already located. “Residents are asking us to look at alternatives” SDOT’s Francisca Stefan is one of those working in the trenches “Because the disproportionate impact of ticket citations for neighbors and friends who are financially disadvantaged.”
But Members of the Transportation Committee struggled to make sense of that rationale “Not putting more cameras down here isn’t the solution” argued Councilmember Tammy Morales who represents one of those disadvantaged neighborhoods “The solution is changing the engineering and for people to be safe and for this district to stop being the district where 60% of the fatalities occur.”
But the project is complicated, expensive, and full of challenges “This best-case scenario does not account for very significant risks in engineering, in permitting, in construction and in procurement” Nemani told a disbelieving committee “It’s highly unlikely even if you started today that we could actually get this expansion done by the 2024-25 school year.”
That said: changes are in the works and a final plan could be ready for approval next month.
