San Jose has cleared the bureaucratic hurdles to launch its pace digital camera pilot program, paving the best way for town to put in them by the top of subsequent spring.
The town was one among six municipalities — becoming a member of Los Angeles, Oakland, Glendale, Lengthy Seaside, and San Francisco — approved in a invoice handed by the state legislature in October 2023 to check pace cameras to enhance visitors security and cut back fatalities.
Nonetheless, earlier than town might procure its digital camera methods, the Metropolis Council wanted to approve a use coverage and influence report, as required by state regulation.
“We’ve made some progress in making our streets safer, but often say even one life lost is one too many,” San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan mentioned Tuesday. “Last year, we lost 51 lives on our streets. This year we’ve lost 44 and we know we can do better. We’re going to continue to invest in quick-build safety improvements, public information and education, community engagement, and yes, enforcement to ensure that people are following our laws because we have them for reasons just to keep everybody safe.”
San Jose’s program will set up 33 pace cameras across the metropolis, together with at the least one in every of its 10 districts. State regulation requires inserting cameras in geographically and socioeconomically various areas, for as much as 5 years, with its sunsetting no later than 2032.
The insurance policies authorized Tuesday by the San Jose Metropolis Council stop the recording of video and using cameras to research immigration standing, monitor criminality, or for regulation enforcement functions.
Lam Cruz, a division supervisor on the Division of Transportation overseeing the venture, mentioned town has recognized 63 potential areas, specializing in locations the place knowledge reveals a excessive prevalence of damage or loss of life and the place the cameras can function 24 hours a day. The cameras is not going to be in class zones as a result of state guidelines will solely enable operation for 3 hours a day when college is in session.
The town will log out on the ultimate areas in April, utilizing a data-driven method and consulting with the seller it selects.
“We’ve developed a list of 63 locations where there are high, fatal and severe injury crashes, including areas where there’s just a lot of injuries and where data shows that speeding, red light running and where vehicles are failing to yield to pedestrians are a contributing factor,” Cruz mentioned. “We looked at locations near pedestrian generators, such as schools, senior housing and near retail. Staff also looked at traffic data where there’s a significant number of vehicles exceeding the 10-plus mile per hour threshold.”
Cruz mentioned research by the Nationwide Transportation Security Board discovered that pace cameras might cut back deadly and extreme crashes by 20-37%. The precedence security corridors recognized by town contribute 46% of deadly and extreme damage crashes regardless of making up solely 6% of town’s streets.
She added that 30% resulted from rushing and 70% of deadly and extreme crashes occurred on streets the place the posted pace restrict was 35 miles per hour or larger.
Whereas this system might value as much as $17.9 million, San Jose has acquired $8.5 million in grant funding to assist offset a number of the monetary burden. The town will cowl the remaining prices via native funding and quotation revenues, however the state has required town to reinvest any internet income from this system into visitors calming measures.
As soon as the digital camera areas are finalized, town will start a 30-day public outreach course of. After the cameras are turned on, there’s additionally a 60-day warning interval, no matter what number of violations an individual commits.
First time offenders will solely obtain a warning. Fines for subsequent violations will then begin at $50 for exceeding the posted pace restrict by 11-15 miles per hour and escalating upwards for extra egregious offenses.
Packages may also be in place to make sure that the price of citations doesn’t disproportionately influence folks with decrease incomes.
“The process in the bill is set up so if there are specific parameters met by the individual. They have to submit certain income documents and declare their income,” DOT Deputy Director Heather Hoshii mentioned. “Then, we will have programs set up to either reduce their fines or, if they qualify for diversion, to be able to provide work, potentially removing graffiti or picking up litter or some other action to void the payment requirement of their citation.”
District 9 Councilmember Pam Foley, who additionally chairs the Imaginative and prescient Zero Process Pressure, emphasised that town was not collaborating in this system to generate profits however relatively to curb rushing and make the roadways safer as town as soon as once more is on tempo to satisfy or exceed final 12 months’s visitors fatalities mark.
“We are on track to meet or exceed that goal, which is not a record I want to win,” Foley mentioned. “I want to have this down to zero, as in Vision Zero, which is our goal in creating safe streets and the speed cameras are just one tool. We know that speed cameras work.”
