More than 900,000 speeding tickets have been issued along the Roosevelt Boulevard since the start of a speed camera program in June 2020. And, the agency monitoring the program says there are signs that electronic speed monitoring is slowing drivers down.
According to a new Philadelphia Parking Authority (PPA) report, speeding violations are down more than 91% as of last November.
The release of the new data in the Roosevelt Boulevard Automated Speed Camera Annual Report came as the parking agency asked the city to make funding for the camera program permanent.
The speed camera program went into effect in June 2020 with the goal to decrease speeding and help prevent some of the tragic crashes that the Roosevelt Boulevard, a.k.a. U.S. Route 1, has become infamous for.
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In the nine months or so of the speed cam program, more than 700,000 traffic tickets were issued, the PPA said. Then from Feb. 2021 to Feb. 2022 another nearly 225,000 fines were issued. The violations were mailed out after the PPA started using speed cameras at eight intersections.
When the program began in June 2020, about 1.66% of traffic volume was issued a citation, the PPA said. That number has steadily dropped to 0.07% of the nearly 13 million drivers using Route 1 in Northeast Philadelphia in February 2022, according to PPA data. The agency is still collecting numbers for the most recent months.
Roosevelt Boulevard, also known as U.S. Route 1, runs through Philadelphia from the Schuylkill River to the city's border with Bucks County. The 12-lane highway is particularly deadly for pedestrians over the last two decades, and the speed cameras were installed to lower the average speed of drivers.
Seeing success in slowing down drivers, the PPA is looking to expand the speed cam program.
They would like to add cameras to two new intersections, the West Roosevelt Boulevard between 7th and 9th streets and Roosevelt Boulevard near Summerdale and Pratt after NBC10 reported on a deadly crash that happened there in November 2021.
The program is set to expire in 2023 but the PPA is hoping the success will have the city allocate more money to keep it and expand it beyond just the Boulevard.
