Red light cameras back on Thunder Bay city council's agenda
Red light cameras could still be coming to Thunder Bay, Ont., intersections.
The cameras — which are triggered when a traffic light turns red, capturing images of any vehicles running the light so fines could be issued — have been previously considered by city council.
In 2021, councillors voted the measure down, citing high costs.
But a report going to council on Monday says changes to provincial rules may make a red light camera program more feasible in Thunder Bay.
"Currently the City of Thunder Bay Court Services processes Highway Traffic Act offences under the Provincial Offenses Act (POA)," the report states. "The provincial court system is not designed to manage the high volume of offences generated by automated enforcement systems. Automated enforcement offences have been found to be better suited to be processed in the Administrative Penalty System (APS)."
The APS system would see image processing handled by municipal screening and hearing officers outside of the provincial court system, the report says.
Those officers would allow cases to be resolved faster, "while full local control allows the system to scale and adapt to future needs.
"This approach eliminates reliance on provincial judicial resources and avoids the risk of delays or withdrawn charges due to court backlogs and allows the limited court resources to be used for other matters," says the report.
Matthew Miedema, director of the city's engineering division, said the APS system could be used for other automated enforcement measures, such as school bus stop-arm cameras and automated speeding detection.
"What we are recommending Monday night is to proceed with [a] further business case," Miedema said. "We're not recommending the program be started; there's still a lot of homework to do."
"The red light cameras are one aspect of this," he said. "We're best to look at other automated enforcements as well."
In addition to cutting down on vehicles running red lights, the cameras have been shown to also reduce right-angle, or T-bone, collisions by 25 per cent.
However, the report notes, the cameras also tend to cause a 15 per cent increase in rear-end collisions; those, however, tend to be less serious than right-angle collisions, often resulting in only property damage and minor injuries.
Angle collisions, the report says, are more likely to cause injury or death.
If city council does decide to go ahead with red light cameras, the goal is to have them in place by the end of 2027, he said.
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