Council hears first reading for ordinance to allow photo enforcement at red lights; staff to complete engineering study

Winchester City Council on March 25 held first reading of an ordinance to allow photo-monitoring systems to enforce red-light violations at signals.

Deputy City Manager for Public Health and Safety John Piper outlined the proposal and the statutory framework: Virginia code permits localities to adopt civil enforcement of red-light running through camera systems connected directly to traffic signals. The system would take a series of photographs when a vehicle is detected passing through a red light; each case would be reviewed by a Winchester Police Department officer before a civil penalty is issued. The proposed civil penalty is $50, and vehicle owners would be able to appeal to general district court or submit an affidavit that they were not the driver.

Piper said the enabling state law restricts the number of traffic-signal photo-monitoring systems to one per 10,000 residents, which would limit Winchester to two camera-equipped intersections given current population figures. He said staff will perform required engineering studies and evaluate signal timing and traditional enforcement before any cameras are activated. The public-safety department supplied crash data for 2022–2024 to identify high-crash intersections; councilors noted one intersection with frequent collisions and discussed how photo enforcement could reduce crashes and ease demand on emergency services.

Councilors raised technical and procedural questions: how the system handles yellow-light events (Piper said only red-light violations would be cited and that engineering reviews would confirm yellow-light timings), how appeals would be processed, whether out-of-state plates can be cited (yes, as these are civil fines), and whether the city had evaluated vendors. Piper said the city’s existing contract with Ultimate (the vendor used for school-zone and bus stop-arm cameras) allows expansion into red-light enforcement and that the vendor takes a portion of collected fines under the current contract model; staff said vendor selection and procurement practices had followed established contracting approaches and that the number of court appeals in the school-zone program was small.

Council members asked staff to publish the engineering studies, traffic analyses and crash data on the city website and to include a 30-day warning period after installation before issuing citations, in line with the city’s previous school-zone program. Piper said staff will return with the completed engineering study and a recommended list of intersections if the ordinance moves forward on second reading.