Overall traffic speeds trending down on Ottawa streets with photo radar, data suggest
CTV
Data complied by the City of Ottawa suggest traffic is slowing on roads with photo radar cameras and the overall percentage of people speeding in those areas is also on the decline.
Data from the City of Ottawa indicate that photo radar cameras are influencing the habits of drivers in the capital.
Every month, thousands of tickets are issued to speeding drivers in areas where automated speed enforcement (ASE) cameras are installed. There are 40 cameras in operation right now, with plans for 20 more, and city staff say they appear to be making a difference.
"The ongoing evaluation of ASE sites indicates that the ASE program has significantly reduced speeds at the various sites. The change in the 85th percentile speed (the speed at which 85 percent of traffic is travelling or below), compliance, and per cent of high-end speeders has trended down and created safer driving behaviours and ultimately a change in road safety culture," Kourouma said in a statement to CTV News Ottawa.
For example, in the area of Innes Road between Provence Avenue and Trim Road, where a camera was installed in 2020, the 85th percentile speed was 71 km/h in June 2020. The speed limit is 60 km/h. The percentage of high-end speeders (those travelling 15 km/h or more above the speed limit) was 6.1 per cent. By June 2024, the 85th percentile speed was cut to 60 km/h and the percentage of high-end speeders was reduced to 0.3 per cent. The camera issued 2,400 tickets in the first six months of 2021, and 1,580 in the first six months of 2024.
Eight photo radar cameras have been in place since 2020. Aside from Innes Road, there are also cameras on Longfields Drive between Highbury Park Drive and Via Verona Avenue, Bayshore Drive between Woodridge North Crescent and Woodridge South Crescent, Katimavik Road between Castlefrank Road and McGibbon Drive/Sewall Way, Watters Drive between Charlemagne Boulevard and Roberval Avenue, Ogilvie Road between Appleford Street and Elmlea Gate, Smyth Road between Haig Drive and Edgecomb Street, and Meadowlands Drive West between Winthrow Avenue and Thatcher Street.
The percentage of high-end speeders in each of those zones had dropped from between 3 and 12 per cent, depending on the area, to less than 1 per cent by June 2024 with the exception of Katimavik, where it was 1.1 per cent; however, the percentage of high-end speeders in that area was 12.2 per cent in August 2020.
The photo radar camera on King Edward Avenue between Cathcart Street and St. Patrick Street was installed earlier this year and quickly became Ottawa's busiest, issuing tens of thousands of tickets since March.
