City council to consider installing 50 photo radar cameras in school zones

Toronto city council is expected to debate whether to install 50 speed photo radar cameras in school zones by December at the next council meeting.

The Infrastructure and Environment Committee forwarded a motion to council from city staff on Wednesday, detailing what it would take to implement the automated speed enforcement program.

The province of Ontario passed legislation in May of 2017 called the Safer School Zones Act that would allow automated speed enforcement in school zones and areas with speed limits under 80 km/h, but regulations surrounding the law have not been enacted.

Toronto can’t issue tickets using the photo radar cameras until those regulations have been passed.

City staff has been working with the Ministry of Transportation, Attorney General, and other municipalities to help develop the program, but say they say they are not aware of how long the regulatory drafting process will take.

The city has been working with municipalities to set up a joint processing system.

A pilot project of Automated Speed Enforcement cameras that was held between September and December 2018 in eight different school zones found almost 250,000 vehicles were detected going above the speed limit, with almost 90,000 going 10 km/h above the limit.

The highest speed detected was 202.3 km/h on Renforth Avenue.

The project’s purpose was to collect data to better understand the processing and administrative requirements of the enforcement program.

A request for proposal and testing of the cameras is still ongoing, so it’s not immediately clear how much the cameras would cost, but staff say all resources required to conduct the Automated Speed Enforcement program are included in the 2019 budget.

Staff estimate by 2020 the program would generate over $7 million in revenue and exceed $11 million over the following two years.

They are recommending the cameras be installed in December so an educational campaign can be conducted that would include issuing warning letters to drivers.

Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong raised some concerns to staff over the use of a USB system that would be used to collect the data. The data would then taken to a processing centre before tickets are sent out between two to three weeks from the initial offence.

Staff informed Minnan-Wong it was a condition of the Privacy Commissioner to use USB sticks. USB stick are also used for red light cameras.

The report on the Automated Speed Enforcement program is expected to come before council on July 16.