Newmarket Mayor John Taylor writes an occasional column for NewmarketToday about issues and events of interest to our community.
In recent weeks, many residents have asked why we’re implementing speed cameras in Newmarket. In short, from all the evidence I’ve seen, they’re the best tool to lower speeds on our streets.
For as long as I’ve been on Newmarket council, the concern I hear most from residents is about speeding in their neighbourhoods. They worry about the safety of their children and neighbours when cars are speeding past their homes. The town has taken a variety of steps to address these concerns over the years, including, bollards, bike lanes, flashing speed sign boards and pedestrian islands.
While these all have varying impacts, speeds remain too high in some areas, so this summer we will implement community safety cameras with automated speed enforcement.
Police speed enforcement is certainly effective, but dedicating enough officers for enough time to see the sustained reduction in speeds that residents are looking for would be impractically expensive and would take the police away from addressing serious crime. Community safety cameras, however, offer a solution that our research shows reduces speeds and pays for itself, freeing up police resources for other priorities, making our community even safer. Automated speed enforcement also reduces the backlog in our courts, which address serious crimes like auto theft.
York Region piloted these cameras several years ago and found them to be effective. For example, the location on Mulock Drive in front of Newmarket High School resulted in an average 12 km/h reduction in speed – that’s 20 per cent slower for this stretch of road. I’ve yet to see a speed mitigation tool this effective.
To put that into perspective, the fatality rate for a pedestrian being struck by a vehicle travelling 50 km/h is 40 per cent. At 60 km/h, the fatality rate jumps to 80 per cent. Installing these cameras in front of schools to reduce the risks to kids is a no-brainer.
While getting a fine will be an incentive to drive below the limit, we don’t want to start with fines. We want the potential for fine to be incentive enough. To that end, we’re promoting the cameras in a variety of ways. Their pending arrival has been covered several times by local media outlets, the town is sharing information about them through social media and on its website, a letter outlining the process for automated speed enforcement will be delivered to every home in Newmarket and there is signage already in place at the locations where the cameras will be installed.
We’re also taking a phased approach to implementing this safety tool. We’ll issue warnings for the first weeks after the program goes live and focus on the worst offenders while we ramp up our capacity to process infractions.
Speed enforcement conducted by the police doesn’t have warning signs well in advance, and they don't publicize the locations where the enforcement will take place. Drivers have never had as much warning that continuing to speed will result in fines as they do today in Newmarket. I hope this alone will result in slower speeds around our schools.
I’m confident in the coming months we will see speeds decrease in the areas around the cameras and we’ll enjoy safer streets in Newmarket. As this program rolls out it is really up to you to make sure you do not get a ticket – now is the time to respect the speed limit and make our schools and kids safer.