Photo Radar Coming to Kingston
During the last election, I heard clearly from residents across the city about the need to enhance pedestrian safety, particularly for children and youth heading to and from school. Recognizing this priority, City Council is moving forward with a new pilot program to introduce photo radar here in Kingston. As a first step towards improving pedestrian safety, last year the City introduced community safety zones around all neighbourhood schools. In each of these zones there are signs reminding drivers to be more cautious and fines for speeding and other traffic violations are doubled. This fall we’re looking to further improve pedestrian safety with photo radar.
Council has approved a two-year pilot program where we will have two speed cameras that will be rotated between 16 different community safety zones. Right now, City staff are looking at traffic volumes and pedestrian counts across all community safety zones, as well as those where there is a history of collisions involving pedestrians. From this data, the City will choose 16 different locations with the goal of spreading out photo radar enforcement across all areas of the community. This summer there will be signs installed at each of these 16 zones alerting drivers to the presence of a photo radar. Once the program goes live this fall, the City’s two speed cameras will be rotated among the 16 community safety zones every three months. Fines issued through photo radar will be used to help offset the cost of the photo radar program, but ultimately the goal isn’t to issue tickets – it’s to encourage drivers to slow down and help make our neighbourhood streets safer for everyone.