State Rep: Team up red-light cameras with 'traffic calming'

An op-ed from State Representative Peter Villano, a supporter of safer streets, appeared in yesterday's New Haven Register:

Here is an excerpt:

I agree fully with the Register’s editorial recommendation that the next legislature should rework and approve the stalled red-light camera bill to help “spare people from injury and death.” In its current form, however, the bill lacks sufficient support from Democrats, the majority party in the legislature, to justify placing it on the calendar for the necessary three days’ notification, let alone calling for a floor vote by the full chamber.


Legislative opponents, among others, insist the bill is less about safety than about money — the revenue stream the red light-running fines of $50 per offense would produce for the municipality and the manufacturer of the device.


Whatever the validity of that claim, data demonstrate that the serious problem of red-light running must be addressed. The Federal Highway Administration reports that from 2000 to 2007, the average annual fatalities resulting from red-light running was 916 in the U.S. In 2007, there were 883 red-light running fatalities, and the numbers for recent years are still tragically high.


The inherent flaw in depending solely on cameras to promote public safety is that they do nothing to alter a driver’s behavior. They simply finger the guilty party after the offense has been recorded, an example of justified punishment but not prevention. A companion program is needed that alerts the heavy-footed motorist to changing road conditions ahead, to lane alignments, to structured changes, to slow down for pedestrians and crossing traffic at the busy intersection ahead.


A “traffic calming” program is developed to do that. Not a one-size-fits-all program, it is engineered to the specific demands of each traffic artery in harmony with in-street and neighboring environments. The toolbox bulges with options to control local or through traffic and is readily adaptable to local needs. Examples are speed humps, bump-outs (slight extensions of sidewalk), lane alignment change and shared lane markings. 


To gain support of skeptical legislators and citizens, the red-light camera bill — this year’s HB 5458, or a revised version — must require those devices to be used only in tandem with a local traffic calming program. With these added features in place, emphasis changes from solely penalty payment to public protection. During the legislative session, I had such an amendment prepared for HB 5458, but it was never called. However, it simply states that any municipality authorized to use “automated traffic enforcement devices” must by ordinance provide “for the use of such traffic enforcement safety devices as part of an overall traffic calming plan.”


That or similar language must be part of any future red-light camera legislation. We’re not entering new territory. These programs abound in this state: in New Haven, Hartford, Stamford, Norwalk, West Hartford and many other communities. My own community, Hamden, has four neighborhood-developed traffic calming programs in various stages of implementation. Red-light cameras and traffic calming programs complement each other. Linked legislatively, they will help create downtown and neighborhood environments that adequately and safely accommodate all users at all times.