MELISSA SANTOS; melissa.santos@thenewstribune.com

Last updated: June 22nd, 2008 06:35 AM (PDT)

The City of Puyallup issued 2,165 tickets to red-light runners in May, its first month enforcing punishments for violations caught on camera. Those citations, at $124 each, amounted to a total of $268,460 in fines sent out to drivers for the month. But Puyallup city officials say they don’t anticipate the cameras being a moneymaker over time. “Our research indicates this program will just break even and pay for itself,” Cheryl Carlson, acting city attorney, said last week. About $30,000 of the ticket fees will go toward paying American Traffic Solutions, the private contractor in Arizona that runs the automated cameras. The company charges fees of up to $5 per ticket for some additional services, such as mailing a second citation notice. The rest of the ticket revenues will go into the city’s general fund. Some people will fight their tickets in court, decreasing the city’s revenue stream from the program, Carlson said. City officials also expect to issue fewer tickets as drivers get used to having the cameras there, City Manager Gary

McLean said. “Usually, it levels off at about 60 percent of what it was initially,” he said. The city extended the warning period on the traffic cameras once to give drivers a chance to adjust. The cameras became operational at three intersections March 1, and police were set to start issuing tickets April 1. But city officials extended the warning period until the start of May.

McLean said the 2,328 warnings issued during the first month of the program showed that drivers weren’t getting the message. “We wanted to give as much time as possible for people to change their behavior,” he said. In April, police issued 1,541 warnings, a decrease of about 34 percent from March. But May saw the number of red-light runners rise again. And this time, they had to pay.

If the city had issued tickets in April as originally planned, officials could have billed drivers for $191,084. But McLean said that’s not what the cameras are for. “It was about public safety,” he said. “It’s not about the money.” Tim Eyman’s latest initiative, I-985, proposes taking revenue from cities’ red-light camera programs and funneling it into a special traffic relief fund. The initiative needs 225,000 signatures by July 3 to appear on the November ballot. In the South Sound, Auburn, Lakewood and Tacoma also use automated traffic cameras. Federal Way plans to begin using them at two intersections in August, starting with a one-month warning period.

Bonney Lake tried using cameras to monitor school zones in 2006, but it scrapped the program after a year because of issues with the company it contracted with. During the year the cameras were operational, the city collected more than $100,000 in profit from issuing 5,900 tickets, officials said.

The Puyallup intersections with cameras are 39th Avenue Southwest and Ninth Street Southwest; 31st Avenue Southeast and South Meridian; and River Road and North Meridian.

Each intersection is marked with a sign that reads “photo enforced.”

Melissa Santos: 253-552-7058

Originally published: June 22nd, 2008 01:22 AM (PDT)

http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/v-printerfriendly/story/394805.html 6/23/2008