By Courtney Almeida

City responds to photo radar mandates by Alberta Transportation

Feb 26, 2019 | 8:32 AM

Following Alberta Transportation Minister Brian Mason’s commentary on photo radar being used as a “cash cow” by municipalities last week, the City has released a statement on traffic safety.

The City release states that they “have already incorporated into practice many of the guidelines announced by the Government of Alberta,” and that reports show “proven results on the success of Automated Traffic Enforcement (ATE) and noticeable change in driver behaviour, shown by a reduction in violations.”

As an example, the City points to the intersection of 100 Street and 132 Avenue Northbound. In 2016, 1,682 violations took place at this intersection, compared to 271 happening in 2018.

“Grande Prairie has more authorized zones, in that we use photo enforcement in different areas of the City. One of the things we’ve done, is we’ve made every school zone and playground zone an authorized zone. Some communities that just have a highway through them might just put them along the highway corridor for instance but despite the higher number of zones, often times we have lower levels of enforcement hours,” explained Chris Manuel, Deputy Director of Protective Services for the City of Grande Prairie.

Last week, Alberta Transportation announced plans to make the system more transparent and to stop practices geared to raking in money, rather than keeping roads safe.

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Set to begin in June, municipalities will have to present plans to use photo radar that are backed up by collision data to prove adequate usage.

The new mandate came after a provincial report found that 27 municipalities using photo radar in Alberta, generate $220 million a year in revenue while reducing collisions by only 1.4 per cent.

Manuel, says the new reporting system will be the biggest change for the City after the new order takes effect.

“We’ve already done quarterly reporting to the province onsite but now we’ll do statistical reporting with site selection as well, which is a little bit of a change but something that is fairly easy for us to do.”

As a result of increased traffic safety concerns, in 2014, the City adopted the “Safe City Roads Action Plan” to help reduce the number of collisions resulting in injury. City reports show a 45% decrease in injury collisions within the last three years, since the implementation of the plan.

“We aren’t going to say that would all be attributed to Automated Traffic Enforcement but certainly, it’s been a significant piece of the strategy that we’ve utilized.”

The City is also reporting that revenue collected from ATE  has steadily decreased. From 2017 to 2018, revenue decreased by 13.9% at an evaluation worth approximately $457,705. In 2017, the City reports that ATE revenue collection totaled $3,288,895 and in 2018 collections totaled $2,831,190.

The report also shows that 40% of all ATE hours were registered in school and playground zones.

“They are definitely focused on safety,” said Manuel.

“I mean, the fact that half of the hours worked, are worked in school and playground zones which are not the places that you would catch the most revenue. I mean, if this was about revenue.  Frankly, we’d be doing a poor job in that the revenue has been declining in the last three years, not increasing.”

Another finding shows 48% of speeding violations and 44% of intersection violations were recorded by out-of-town registered vehicles.

Money collected by the City from ATE violations goes towards the City’s general revenues.

In a statement, the City of Grande Prairie says its, “committed to building a community that is safe for all residents and visitors.”