Ravenwood - 02/03/05 07:15 AM
A new year brings a new budget, and Charles Hill points out that the city of Cleveland has $6 Million or revenue penciled into their budget as coming from not yet installed red light cameras.
Mayor Jane Campbell hopes thousands of people running red lights will get Cleveland's budget out of the red.They hope to nearly double their annual revenue from fines and the cameras won't even be installed until the Spring. The word "safety" was never even mentioned.The mayor wants to install cameras at some of the city's busiest intersections to photograph license plates of cars that run red lights. Tickets would then be sent to the car owners' homes. [...]
Running a red light typically results in a $150 fine. If the cameras are installed by spring, as Campbell hopes, the city would have to issue about 150 tickets a day to meet the mayor's $6 million goal by the end of 2005.
Last year, Cleveland collected $8.6 million in fines for all moving violations, including speeding, running red lights and driving through stop signs.
At least they are finally being somewhat honest about their intentions, but although they constantly talk about getting more people to come downtown, they sure don't understand how incentives work.
Oddly enough, expensive parking, crime, lousy shops, panhandlers, and automated traffic tickets are not enough to get people to travel downtown for their entertainment and shopping needs. Go figure. Maybe they should add an new "entertainment tax" to downtown activities in order to generate some interest.
If it weren't for the fact that I'm pretty-much hooked on Indians baseball, I'd never set foot downtown.
Posted by: roger at February 3, 2005 9:31 AMI wonder if they will wait until it is obvious that they aren't getting thier 150 a day to shorten the yellow, or if they will just do it from the start.
Posted by: Phelps at February 3, 2005 11:19 AMOh, come on now! Traffic fine corruption in Ohio? Why, I never!
There is more, much more...
And, a happy ending too!
Posted by: Steve Scudder at February 3, 2005 7:15 PMShorten the yellow time? Bullshit! They'll just adjust the time the picture is taken into the yellow period. It's not like they'll put he camera up on the witness stand.
Posted by: Ralph Gizzip at February 6, 2005 11:40 AMRalph,
It's funny you should mention that, because Los Angeles got busted for that very thing.
I covered this years ago, but basically they were caught snapping the photo 1/2 second before the light actually turned red.
Posted by: Ravenwood at February 6, 2005 1:05 PM(c) Ravenwood and Associates, 1990 - 2014
