A long-awaited independent report on the effectiveness of Winnipeg’s photo enforcement program has been delayed again.
And it’s not expected to be completed until late 2010, well after the October civic election.
The city and police have been promising since 2005 to commission an in-depth analysis on whether photo radar and red-light cameras — introduced in 2003 — are meeting their long-term goals of reducing collisions and injuries.
The city hired the Traffic Injury Research Foundation to perform the study. After numerous delays, the study was supposed to be complete by 2009. But a year later, there’s still no report and police officials now say it won’t be finished until late 2010 at the earliest.
“Setbacks related to the ongoing development and testing of monitoring equipment resulted in delays with the expected completion date now being late 2010,” police say in their 2009 photo enforcement annual report.
Under a conditions of authority agreement between the city and the province, police are supposed to produce annual statistics on how photo enforcement is reducing collisions and injuries, including the severity of injuries.
However, the annual reports from police have been grossly incomplete with no collision and injury data whatsoever related to photo radar and limited crash and injury numbers for intersection cameras.
Despite that, the province has refused to enforce the terms of the agreement, allowing the annual reports to be submitted late and without the required data and analysis.
It’s something the city auditor’s department pointed out as far back as 2006 in its own review of the city’s photo enforcement program.
The auditor concluded that until controlled studies and analysis were carried out for photo enforcement, police would be unable to conclude whether the program is achieving its long-term goals.
“Without this key performance information in the future, the WPS will not be able to demonstrate that the photo enforcement program has achieved its stated outcomes,” the audit report stated.
Four years later, there’s still no report.
Meanwhile, the city has expanded photo enforcement in the absence of that performance information. Police doubled the number of mobile photo radar vehicles to 10 from five in 2006. And they’ve increased the number of intersection cameras to 33 from 30 which rotate through 50 locations, up from 48 in 2006.
Why would the city expand a traffic enforcement program without the demonstrated evidence it’s reducing collisions and injuries?
It certainly lends credence to the argument the program is more about the money than about safety. The city knows with certainty that by expanding photo radar and red-light cameras they will increase revenues. What they don’t know is whether the expansion will reduce collisions and injuries.
Does planting a photo radar vehicle on Portage Avenue, Pembina Highway or McPhillips Street in a “school zone” on Sundays in July really reduce collisions and injuries?
If it does, there is no data to support it.
Police have massively expanded photo radar in construction zones, even when no workers are present.
It has made money for them. But the city has no statistics at all to demonstrate how that has reduced collisions and injuries to construction workers.
The city has a responsibility to ensure that data is gathered and made public.
And the province has an obligation to enforce its conditions of authority agreement with the city.
After all, photo radar exists under provincial legislation.
And so far, there is no evidence this program is working.
For more, visit Brodbeck’s blog Raise a Little Hell.
Reach Tom by e-mail at tom.brodbeck@sunmedia.ca
