DUBLIN — For now, a controversial visitors enforcement software received’t be coming to Dublin.
A majority of the Dublin Metropolis Council on Tuesday agreed that putting in red-light cameras wouldn’t be value the fee and certain wouldn’t scale back crashes on the metropolis’s extra problematic intersections alongside Dublin Boulevard.
The council’s determination towards exploring putting in red-light cameras got here after Metropolis Supervisor Colleen Tribby and metropolis officers introduced nationwide knowledge exhibiting “meaningful reductions” in deadly automobile wrecks and different crashes on streets the place the gadgets had been put up. Council members, nonetheless, weren’t satisfied the numbers utilized to Dublin’s roads.
In an interview Thursday, Councilwoman Jean Josey stated that Dublin officers determined to check the cameras on the repeated request of residents who complained of drivers working purple lights.
“The data that we were presented clearly did not show a need for the cameras,” Josey stated. “We’re sensitive to the fact that residents are frustrated so we want to look at what else we can do at intersections.”
If the council was to maneuver ahead, two corporations had been being eyed as probably getting a metropolis contract: Verra Mobility and Modaxo, the biggest such distributors within the state.
In 2021, Verra Mobility acquired Redflex, after the previous Redflex CEO was sentenced to 30 months in federal jail and ordered to pay over $2 million in restitution for bribing a metropolis official to get contracts for the red-light cameras.
Redflex as soon as had a number of metropolis contracts within the Bay Space, beginning within the 2000s, however issues with their know-how and fines as massive of as much as $500 later induced a backlash.
Hayward, San Mateo, Burlingame, San Carlos, Belmont, Redwood Metropolis, San Rafael and Menlo Park dropped the seller, some citing the unreasonably excessive fines and questioning the effectiveness of the operation, the place a ticket would arrive within the mail.
Fremont in 2017 paid practically half one million {dollars} to residents after tickets had been issued in what town referred to as a programming “snafu” that concerned shorter yellow lights, an issue that was documented in different Bay Space cities.
He stated as soon as the cameras had been put in at sure intersections, drivers would do one in every of two issues: both “gun it and run the red light, or they would slam on their brakes” and trigger a rear-end accident.
“I don’t remember it being this panacea for speeding and red-light runners,” Salinas stated. “In fact, the cost to maintain the program and the amount of revenue we took in, I believe, was cost neutral. We didn’t make money, and we didn’t lose money.”
In brief, he stated, “we just didn’t think it was worth the hassle.”
Newark Mayor Mike Hannon, quite the opposite, backed town’s determination a number of years in the past to resume their red-light digicam contract. He stated “at the end of the day, we’ve seen it does save lives, it saves property damage.” Newark has not had a visitors fatality this 12 months, which Hannon attributes on to the cameras.
“Irrespectively of the cost, I want to make sure folks feel safe,” Hannon stated.
In Dublin, officers recognized Dublin Boulevard as a possible website for red-light cameras, the place 47 whole collisions between July 2020 and July 2025 at intersections alongside Dublin Boulevard. The boulevard’s intersection with Village Parkway had 15 collisions, there have been 9 at Dougherty Highway, seven at Tassajara Highway and 6 at Hacienda Drive.
The council could revisit the thought, with Vice Mayor Kashef Qaadri and Councilman John Morada open to extra discussions, together with after the soon-to-be-expected extension of Dublin Boulevard.
