After School Camera Rejection, Suffolk Looking for New Route to Safety

Suffolk County is looking for new ways to boost safety one day after putting the brakes on the speed camera school zone program.

County Executive Steve Bellone told reporters Tuesday that after spending the past year researching programs across the country and on Long Island, the county has decided not to implement a program similar to the one in Nassau County that sparked widespread controversy.

Bellone said that while taking public safety into account “in a program like this, you need public support to sustain it over a long period of time.”

Bellone’s announcement comes as at a time when Nassau County is expected to shut down its school-zone speed camera program. Critics in Nassau have complained that the program’s implementation was poorly rolled out, and was more about raising revenue than emphasizing school zone safety.

Now Suffolk is looking to partner with stakeholders who can provide input about school zone safety.

“In the past, we have implemented successful driver awareness programs, including our red light camera program, which has shown to reduce serious vehicular accidents,” Bellone said. “As always, we will continue to explore all avenues to improve the safety of our residents.”

But in a region as complex as Suffolk County, where some schools are in heavily trafficked areas, and fall under various municipalities, whether by county, town or village, as well as some served by county and others by local police, one size does not fit all, officials say.

County agencies expect to partner with PTAs and other organizations “to look at each area on a case-by-case basis,” county spokesman Justin Meyers told Patch.

“We don’t have proposals on the table,” Meyers said. “We’re studying the issues to see what are the options out there.”

Options could include increasing the number of crossing guards or police presence to adding signage.

The assessments would would be evaluated based on individual school districts, or in some instances even a school-by-school basis, Meyers said, pointing out that in some communities, one school might be on a highway, while another might be set back from the road.

County Legis. Sarah Anker, who is expecting to create a new school zone safety commission, said Tuesday that goal was to “make sure we have the safest roads around our schools as possible.”

The county does not expect the decision to opt out of the program to impact its 2014 or 2015 budget, Meyers said.

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