Lemar: Green Lights Are On The Way

I get how civil libertarians would object to red light or speed cameras on basic personal privacy grounds; the sense that you have the right to live your life without being under constant surveillance. Personally I don't want to be China even if it means living in a less well ordered environment.

However, I don't get how this becomes an issue of race- the car either went through the red light or not. You were either driving up a residential street at 60 m.p.h. or not. Let the chips fall.

I really do find this confusing.

You can't time or synchronize traffic lights if the walk lights stop traffic in all directions. There is a robust conversation going on right now about increasing traffic flow in the comments section of this story: https://www.newhavenindependent.org/article/safe_routes_for_all_2 Here is my take on it. If Connecticut’s city and state officials are serious about reducing carbon emissions and traffic congestion there are 3 things they can start immediately that will have a huge impact. 1: Just about every pedestrian crossing light or walk light at an intersection stops traffic in both directions. I have never understood why. Why is it necessary to stop traffic in all directions so someone can walk across the street? Yes, at very busy intersections it’s needed but at the majority of intersections it is not. When you cross the street, you cross with the green lights. I have traveled all over the country and I have never seen this practice anywhere other than Connecticut. I challenge anyone to produce a study that says this makes pedestrians safer. NYC has possibly the highest pedestrian traffic in the country, none of the crossing lights in Manhattan stop traffic in all directions. 2: Start eliminating the hundreds and hundreds of stand alone left turn arrows at intersections with traffic lights. How many times a day or week are you sitting at an intersection waiting to turn left but you can’t because you have a red arrow, even though you can see a half mile up the road that there is no oncoming traffic. There are busy intersections where they are needed yet hundreds of them could be eliminated. 3: Get rid of all the unnecessary No Turn on Red signs. People who visit here think right turn on red lights is illegal in Connecticut.

Toadster, on your points that you listed: it absolutely is possible to synchronize traffic signals that have exclusive pedestrian phases. I have personally worked on multiple corridors across the state, proposing new timings and offsets (the green progression) on signals that have all way crossings. Yes, a pedestrian phase may interrupt straggling vehicles, but it is incorrect to say that it cannot be done. Second, there is an ongoing debate about the safety of exclusive pedestrian crossings and concurrent crossings with the vehicle green light. But you don’t need a study to realize that someone crossing the road when all traffic is stopped is going to be safer than if traffic is turning across their crosswalk and it’s up to the drivers to behave and yield. Third, you do have a point about protected left turn arrows vs permitted left turns, whether you are allowed to turn without a green arrow usually depends on the geometry of the road, how many lanes you have to cross, visibility, etc. And finally, no turn on red should be the norm within city centers. RTOR has led to increased pedestrian and bicycle injuries and fatalities so that drivers can save a few seconds. Out in the suburbs and rural areas it’s fine, but in cities with lots of people outside of cars it’s a real danger.

@Carl Goldfield - it is confusing...somewhat, until you read into it.

https://www.propublica.org/article/chicagos-race-neutral-traffic-cameras-ticket-black-and-latino-drivers-the-most

These civil liberty advocates have researchl data showing how camera placement in Chicago affect groups, and ultimately, they are used as a municipal money-grab.

I'm not a fan of running light or cameras. I am a fan of good driving.

Civil liberties advocates still oppose the bill out of fears of racial targeting or unfair prosecutions; Lemar and other advocates argue the technology has improved and can save lives as car-caused deaths increase.

Speed cameras may not be racist, but road design is

https://www.wnyc.org/story/speed-cameras-may-not-be-racist-road-design/


Chicago’s “Race-Neutral” Traffic Cameras Ticket Black and Latino Drivers the Most

the hundreds of cameras that dot the city — and generate tens of millions of dollars a year for City Hall — have come at a steep cost for motorists from the city’s Black and Latino neighborhoods. A ProPublica analysis of millions of citations found that households in majority Black and Hispanic ZIP codes received tickets at around twice the rate of those in white areas between 2015 and 2019.

https://www.propublica.org/article/chicagos-race-neutral-traffic-cameras-ticket-black-and-latino-drivers-the-most


ANALYSIS: When Speed Cameras Are Racist
Or is our entire transportation system?

https://usa.streetsblog.org/2022/01/18/analysis-when-speed-cameras-are-racist/

ALW, beautifully said.

That “Civil liberties advocates still oppose the bill out of fears of racial targeting or unfair prosecutions” is infuriating to me.
Speed is about physics; not about politics; not about racism.
The Pro Publica article about Chicago cameras linked in comments, acknowledged that the cameras improved safety while noting a racial disparity. However “disparity” is not discrimination. It’s just statistical difference.

RTOR has led to LTOR and go through on red. It is abused because there is no enforcement. There is no need to turn our city streets into more of dragways than they already are and having to stop often is a good thing for safety.
BTW-- a few years ago, New Haven spent thousands on a traffic light study. The money is gone....what was the result of the study?
Also- Mr Goldfield is right. To connect traffic calming with racism is ridiculous and shows how tiresome the little boys who cry "racism" are becoming.

Carl Goldfield, et al., red light cameras can have a disproportionate impact, even if they are deployed in a race-neutral fashion using legitimate criteria for their siting. The cameras cost money and would be installed on a tiny fraction of streets. It makes sense to install them on high volume streets where speeding is common. In New Haven, these streets are largely located in black and brown neighborhoods (Whalley Avenue is an example). While drivers of all backgrounds use these streets, people drive most frequently in their own neighborhoods. As a result, black and brown drivers would likely get a disproportionate share of the tickets.

Toadster et al. pedestrian and car traffic volume varies by time and location. In some cases, it makes sense to do as Toadster suggests, in some cases it does not. The current Walk signal system makes sense in locations and times when there are lots of pedestrians around, particularly where right turn on red is permitted. It does not make sense in the times and places when this is not the case. The same is true for left turn signals. They improve traffic flow at peak travel times, which is why they were installed. They can be unnecessary at other times. Signals are often designed accordingly.

Robn, Paul only listed some of the civil liberties concerns regarding red light cameras. They center on the (mis)use of the data produced by the cameras. The data could readily be used for purposes totally unrelated to traffic safety and could become a component of a surveillance state.

Eric Mastroianni is a decent human being. But we will need to adopt a mileage tax or other alternative funding system if we want to maintain or improve the current road and mass transit systems. The gas tax is the largest source of revenue for these systems, paying both capital and operating costs. Electric vehicles, which don’t pay the tax, are becoming an ever-increasing share of the cars on the road.

This 37 year old woman didn't have to die this way, nor did any of the victims before her: https://www.newhavenindependent.org/article/hit_run_driver_kills_pedestrian. The question is: Is it possible to install the right kinds of cameras, the right way, and by doing so reduce speeding and save lives?

Per the CDC (https://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/calculator/factsheet/speed.html), the answer is YES: "The studies reported reductions in average speed of between 1 percent and 15 percent and reductions in the proportion of speeding vehicles of between 14 percent and 65 percent, relative to similar controls. Speed cameras also reduced total crashes 8 percent to 49 percent and fatal and serious-injury crashes 11 percent to 44 percent, in studies that compared pre- and postcrash data collected near camera sites."

It's pretty obvious to most of us that drivers will continue to zoom around at speeds that kill if we don't enforce our speed limits. So how do we enforce? Do you really think that pulling people over is the best utilization of our police force, which can't even fill all of its open positions, or will result in a fair & safe outcome for people of color?

Cameras are a better way I'm disappointed in everyone (in the state legislature and out of it) who would rather let people continue to get killed by cars than try a simple pilot of a proven solution.

I realize that there are discrimination / disproportionate impact concerns vis-a-vis red light cameras, and I think that to address these concerns, careful thought needs to be put into 1) speed camera placement, and 2) income-based ticketing and/or license points. A $200 fine can be crushing to someone living paycheck to paycheck, but is no deterrence at all to a millionaire. The famous $1,000,000 speeding ticket in Sweden (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-10960230) is brilliant and we should be seeing more of that.

Kevin, if I follow that logic I abandon traffic enforcement in Black and Hispanic neighborhoods to avoid a disparate outcome.

Ethanjrt, the legislative opposition to red light cameras is multi-faceted (I was on staff the first few times the proposal died). Much of the opposition comes from suburban legislators who believe that red light cameras are simply a money grab by the cities or that the speeding problem can be fixed by redeploying police officers (it can’t). Part of the opposition comes from black and brown legislators, for the reasons discussed above. And there are also bona fide civil liberties/privacy concerns. I favor red light cameras, but these issues have to be addressed.

I also favor income-based fines, which are widely used in Europe. But they are unlikely to be adopted here. Many lower income residents do not pay income taxes. They pay all sorts of other taxes, but those taxes cannot be used to impute income. And income would need to be verified, at least for a sample of offenders. This would slow an already sclerotic criminal justice system.

In theory, we are already paying for traffic enforcement to control driving. I don't know what the excuse is for ignoring traffic violations until there's a near continuous disregard of traffic signals and laws in New Haven. A never ending string of red lights definitely adds to road rage. But it's not just light timing. Last night someone passed at least 6 cars and nearly had a head on collision on Fitch Street, because no one else would pass a city bus on a blind curve. Insane! and not uncommon behavior. We need a dedicated and accountable traffic enforcement division independent of the police department.
Timing lights works great in places that have a uniform street grid. New Haven's streets are nothing like that, timing lights effectively will be impossible. The lights on the main corridors through town could be timed for the speed limit, favoring the direction of rush hour traffic, with a pedestrian crossing light each cycle (assuming have that capability). New Haven's system of street is complex and requires an automated smart control system that reacts to the current traffic conditions. That will be extremely expensive, and will probably require federal funding. Until then we must insist that the Police Department write tickets. Seeing other's pulled over is an extremely potent deterrent to unsafe driving. If not deterred, repeat offenders won't be able to afford to (legally) drive eventually.

Carl Goldfield, as my subsequent comment notes, I support red light cameras. But for the enabling legislation to pass, concerns about disparate impact need to be addressed. FWIW, I was on the legislative staff for 30 years, including ten years with the Transportation Committee.

As Three-Fifths suggests, part of the issue is road design. Whalley is poorly designed for drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists. State Street, in my neighborhood, carries a similar amount of traffic. But it is narrower, which reduces (although certainly does not eliminate) speeding.