The City of Regina will be expanding its red light camera program.
At Wednesday’s City Council Meeting, council voted 8-2 to continue the program and expand it to more intersections while also beginning to issue tickets for rolling right turns at right lights.
Currently, there are red light cameras at four intersections in the City. Albert Street and Saskatchewan Drive northbound, Lewvan Drive and Dewdney Avenue, Albert Street and Parliament Avenue, and Saskatchewan Drive and Albert Street westbound.
The program currently costs $370,000 a year. Included is $316,000 for the camera’s lease, operating and maintenance costs, and $54,000 to fund a traffic safety clerk with the Regina Police Service. The expansion of the program will see a cost of $43,750 per location for any new cameras.
Councillor Andrew Stevens said that the program and its expansion are not a cash grab.
“This doesn’t net us money. So to folks who think this is a simple cash grab, it is not,” he said. “I think the administration, in the data, makes clear that the balance is safety first.”
Between 2019 and 2021, the program had a yearly average revenue of $129,000 in fines. The City said that ticketing for rolling right turns is expected to bring in additional revenue of approximately $120,000, for a total of $250,000.
The revenue is used to offset the cost of the program, with funds coming from the province’s automated speed enforcement fund at a yearly average of $241,000 to offset the cost for the program.
Mayor Sandra Masters said since the program began, it has made the City safer.
“They reduce severe collisions, and so there has been a reduction since their inception by about 38 percent of severe collisions.”
She said that after three years of collecting data, SGI and city administration found that there was more they could do with the program.
“There is a significant number of people who are rolling through red lights to make right turns,” she said. “If we are trying to make roads safer, from everything from vehicles, cycling, pedestrians to transit, then this would be something to try and effect a change in behaviour to reduce any incident.”
Also apart from the expansion, council has asked the administration to ask the province to amend The Traffic Act and give the city the authority to ticket for “speed on green” speeding through intersections in an attempt to beat the red light violations.
