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Public Works details traffic‑calming data and cost barrier to expanding photo‑speed enforcement
Summary
Public Works presented speed and crash analytics, described a high‑injury network and said expanding camera enforcement beyond the 26 school‑zone cameras on the current contract would require separate procurement and significant up‑front funds; the committee struck a related resolution after the briefing.
Bobby Vincent, Director of Public Works, presented the department’s citywide traffic analysis and explained how the city prioritizes speed‑reduction investments. Vincent said staff used 90th‑percentile speed data and a high‑injury network to target locations for traffic calming, and described a portfolio of engineering, education and enforcement measures.
"95% means that 9,500 of them are driving at and or near the speed limit," Vincent said to illustrate how a small share of speeding drivers accounts for the majority of unsafe behavior on many corridors and to explain why engineering and targeted enforcement must be paired. He described treatment tools the city is using, including speed tables and lane‑reduction projects and listed active multimodal, streetscape, bridge and complete‑streets projects totaling hundreds of millions of dollars in planned or active work.
Staff also briefed the committee on the photo‑speed monitoring contract and financing. Presenters said a $5,000,000 contract currently covers up to 26 cameras in 13 school zones and that adding high‑risk intersection segments (HRIS) would require a separate procurement. Staff provided illustrative estimates showing an eight‑to‑nine‑hundred‑thousand‑dollar annual cost example to expand HRIS coverage at six additional school locations and said that, under current state law as interpreted by staff, HRIS citation revenue would not be remitted to the city (i.e., may flow to the state), making expansion unsustainable without legislative change or dedicated local subsidy.
Council members asked whether cameras must operate 24 hours a day; staff said state code allows 24‑hour operation but the department provided example costs based on more limited hours used in school‑zone enforcement. The committee later voted to strike the resolution that had requested study/installation of additional cameras; staff said they will return with procurement options and a plan to recover or recapture revenue if council wishes to pursue expansion.
Vincent directed members to the department’s neighborhood traffic management program materials and said the department plans to publish more of the data (including Urban SDK speed/volume analytics) on the city website later this summer.
