Iowa City City Council Discusses Traffic Enforcement Cameras (POLL)

Iowa City Council members voiced both safety and privacy concerns about the prospect of installing traffic enforcement cameras during a work session Monday, but seemed to grudgingly be in support of the idea.

"I'm not crazy about cameras," Councilor Reginia Bailey said. "...(But) I think that there is a real safety concern here. ...When we talk about heavily pedestrian areas and the number of red light runners in those areas, it's concerning."

Mayor Matt Hayek concurred the traffic enforcement cameras were "worth exploring." He related that he had near-crash of his own as a result of someone running a red light.

City Councilor Connie Champion - the sole person to speak against the lights - said she didn't like the fact that whomever the car is registered to will get the automatically generated ticket, not necessarily the person who is doing the driving.

"My main objection to the whole thing is that it's not the person who gets the ticket, it's the car." she said.

During his presentation Monday night of the red light data that the council requested previously, Iowa City Transportation Planner John Yapp said he was surprised at the high number of vehicles running red lights citywide.

"Since our last discussion in March on this issue, we did collect additional data on the question of how much red light running is there, really," he said. "We suspected there was more red light running than we had data on."

According to Yapp, of the roughly 14,500 vehicles entering 10 different intersections, an average of 0.6 percent ran a red light during peak hours, between 7:15 and 8:45 a.m., and 4:15 to 5:45 p.m.

Although the city had 28 collisions caused by red-light running from 2007 to 2009 at those same 10 intersections, representing 4 percent of collisions, the council wanted more data before deciding whether to join Cedar Rapids and Davenport in installing traffic enforcement cameras.

They will vote tomorrow on whether to move forward to seek a company to install the cameras - and generate their traffic information.

Councilor Terry Dickens said more important than the speeding citations mailed to the car owners is how the lights will cause people to think differently about the way they drive through intersections.

"I think there is a big behavioral difference," Dickens said. "Just since we've started talking about this, I just notice my own self. When I come up to a corner and see that light blinking how many seconds until it changes, and I don't speed up anymore, I slow down.  It's already created at least some thought, and I think that's maybe as big as anything,"

When Bailey asked Yapp how many cameras Yapp would recommend to be installed, he said five to seven.

Yapp said they would look to install them at interesections with high pedestrian concentrations, such as downtown Iowa City, as well as those with a higher rate of red light running collisions, such as Sycamore Street and Highway 6.

Councilor Susan Mims said the traffic enforcement cameras would be good for intersections with heavy pedestrian traffic.

"On one hand (the cameras are) not something I'm excited about, but from a safety standpoint, I'm willing to move forward and look at seeing what we can come up with in terms of a contract, and start with five to seven intersections that have real heavy pedestrian (traffic)," she said.

The intersections were chosen by the number of complaints received about red light running, he said, adding pedestrians usually made the complaints.

"Some intersections have higher instances of red light running than others," Yapp said. "The highest intersection for red light running was Market street and Dubuque street, the second highest was Clinton street and Jefferson street intersections, at between 1.5 percent and 1.7 percent of vehicles entering the intersection run the red light."

Yapp said the two interesections with the highest red light running also have the highest number of pedestrians. During the p.m. peak, Dubuque and Market had 340 pedestrians, while Clinton and Jefferson had 421 pedestrians.

Yapp clarified that red light running occurred if a vehicle crossed the stop mark, or crosswalk, after the traffic light turned red, and entered the intersection. Vehicles entering on a yellow light, such as for a lefthand turn, were not counted.

A company contracted by the city would be in charge of collecting the data, but Iowa City Police Chief Sam Hargadine said officers could review the red-light camera data. Hargadine added installing the cameras would make the roads safer for everyone.

The intersections that were monitored included:

• Market/Dubuque
• Highway 6/Sycamore
• Jefferson/Gilbert
• Highway 6/Boyrum
• Burlington/Riverside
• Highway 1/Orchard
• Burlington/Gilbert
• Jefferson/Dubuque
• Burlington/Madison
• Burlington/Clinton