Councillor suggests alternate use for school-zone speeding funds

Take radar revenue, reconfigure roads: Allard

https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/allard-wants-school-zone-speeding-re...

A WINNIPEG city councillor hopes to spend photo radar revenue from school zones to reconstruct roads in ways that slow down the drivers in those areas.

Coun. Matt Allard, council’s public works chairman, is calling for a staff report with options to reallocate that cash from the police budget to public works. In a new motion, the councillor notes school-zone tickets have been criticized as a revenue generator and stresses more must be done to stop drivers from speeding near schools.

“Some of the data indicates that there isn’t (enough) in terms of changes in driver behaviour despite the photo enforcement locations,” said Allard (St. Boniface). “What’s proven to work is actually reconfiguring the road where there’s a high volume of tickets.”

He suggests the public service check out traffic-calming options to see what would work best in school zones with speeding concerns, which could include speed bumps or road narrowing.

Allard said he doesn’t know how much revenue police could lose through the move, though he said budgets could be gradually altered to ease the loss.

“I’m convinced that we need to do more than just photo enforcement. We need to follow that up with other road improvements in order for speeding to properly be addressed,” he said.

The councillor said he believes photo radar vans have been effective at slowing down some speeders, but the city needs to take further action to address others. If the effort succeeds, that could eventually reduce or eliminate the need for photo enforcement, he said.

“I think the program is a good one (but) I think it needs reform,” he said.

The Winnipeg Police Service raised $9.6 million in photo-radar revenue in 2020, an amount that plummeted from an initial budget estimate of $15.8 million because of a drop in driving during the pandemic. City budgets don’t specify how much of the revenue is raised through school-zone enforcement.

A total of 10 mobile units are assigned to conduct speed enforcement in zones around schools, playgrounds and construction, according to the WPS website.

The number of school-zone tickets handed out has been inconsistent in recent years: 53,263 in 2016, 50,125 in 2017, 41,784 in 2018 and 41,793 in 2019.

The lack of a clear downward trend shows ticketing hasn’t triggered a lasting improvement in driver behaviour, said Christian Sweryda, a law student and former WiseUp Winnipeg member who has long criticized the photo-enforcement program.

“Personally, I see that tickets would drop as people get used to knowing where the vans are. And then, every year or two (police) have to change something to get the tickets back up,” said Sweryda.

In an emailed statement, WPS spokesperson Const. Rob Carver declined to discuss what impact the budget change could have on the police service.

“We will not speculate on the potential impact of budget proposals,” wrote Carver.

*Allard’s motion is slated for a vote at the April 6 meeting of the Riel community committee.*

Joyanne.pursaga@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @joyanne_pursaga