Signs alerting motorists of upcoming automated speed enforcement cameras were taken down in error and are expected to be reinstalled soon.
A city spokesperson clarified the situation to Sudbury.com this week, during which they also noted they aren’t sure when the city’s collection of six automated speed enforcement cameras will be installed and operational.
“We will be giving plenty of notice to the public and our media partners once we do,” they noted in email correspondence with Sudbury.com.
Although the city is required to provide a 90-day warning period via signs before speed trap cameras can be used to ticket motorists, the city prematurely removing signs in error does not trigger the warning period to restart, according to the spokesperson.
“This would be more akin to a sign being knocked down and reinstalled,” they explained.
At the city’s previous update in mid-November, staff estimated the city’s automated speed enforcement cameras would be operational by December or January.
At the time, they were waiting for the Province of Ontario to allow them access to licence plate information.
The signs taken down in error, which read “Municipal Speed Camera / Coming Soon,” are supposed to remain in place for at least six months, including three months leading up to cameras being active and the four months they are active at any given location (cameras are portable and expected to change locations three times per year). The section reading “Coming Soon” will be replaced by “In Use” when cameras are operational.
The yellow background in the signs’ “Coming Soon” section will also be replaced with white in what city Linear Infrastructure Services acting director Joe Rocca described in November as a “visual queue for motorists to know something has changed in this area.”
In place of the mistakenly removed “Municipal Speed Camera / Coming Soon” signs are new signs which read, “Community Safety Zone / Fines Increased / Begins,” with similar follow-up signs installed down the street indicating where the zones end.
Community safety zones are designated stretches of roads “where public safety is of special concern, recognized under provincial legislation.” Designating roads as such allows the city to double speeding fines (issued both through the automated cameras and police) and install automated speed enforcement cameras.
Despite what the prematurely installed signs indicate, affected roads are not yet designated as community safety zones. During the Jan. 16 city council meeting (which begins at 6 p.m.), the city’s elected officials are expected to vote on Community Safety Zone designations for the inaugural six locations automated speed enforcement cameras are slated to be installed:
- Bellevue Avenue (Sudbury, between Picard Street and Ralph Street)
- Algonquin Road (Sudbury, between Maurice Street and Field Street)
- Falconbridge Road (Nickel Centre, between Cedar Green Drive and 150m east of Pilotte Road)
- Municipal Road 15 (Valley East, between Justin Street and Louis Street)
- Hillcrest Drive (Walden, between Brian Street and Mikkola Road)
- Gary Avenue (Sudbury, between Lasalle Boulevard and Madison Avenue)
Six Deployable 250 Redflex portable speed detection systems are being purchased by the city to be installed at these locations, and are able to photograph licence plates during both day and night. Each unit includes two independent radar detectors, which individually measure the speed of a vehicle and must be within a predetermined tolerance.
Cameras will be up for at least two weeks before they begin resulting in tickets being issued, and will change locations every four months, shifting down a list of priority roads.
Ticket amounts will be $5 for every kilometre over the posted speed limit, up to 19 km/h in exceedance. Between 20-29 km/h exceedance, the fine is $7.50 per km/h, and between 30-49 it is $12.50 per km/hr exceedance.
The city has not yet clarified what their threshold beyond maximum-posted speed limits will be to trigger the issuance of speeding tickets.
“It definitely won’t be one over the speed limit, but it won’t be 20,” city traffic and transportation engineering analyst Ryan Purdy told Sudbury.com in October.
Tyler Clarke covers city hall and political affairs for Sudbury.com.
