No New Towns in Red-Light Camera Program, DOT Says

Don’t expect to see any new red-light cameras in New Jersey any time soon—and maybe ever.

State Department of Transportation (DOT) officials on Thursday announced they’d nixed any expansion of the state’s 76 red-light camera intersections, citing insufficient time to get any useful data from any new cameras during the statewide pilot program, which could end in December 2014.

While towns like Cherry Hill and Gloucester Township will continue to operate their cameras as normal, none of the towns that have expressed interest in recent months will be added to the roster, DOT officials said.

“NJDOT safety engineers have determined that the current level of participation will provide the department with sufficient data to make an informed and responsible recommendation on the effectiveness of red light cameras in New Jersey,” DOT officials said in a release.

At least one other Camden County municipality was willing to jump into the pilot. Pennsauken officials had approved a resolution allowing the township to enter the pilot program back in October of last year, targeting intersections along Route 38, Route 130, Route 70 and North Park Drive.

But with only 20 months left in the study, DOT officials said it no longer makes sense to add towns to the program.

“In order for information gathered from cameras to be statistically significant, a minimum of two years of data is necessary,” they said in a statement.

Cherry Hill’s red-light cameras at Route 70 and Springdale Road have been up and running for nearly two years already. In the first year of their operation, Cherry Hill’s cameras issued more than 17,000 tickets at $85 a pop, netting the township nearly $1 million in revenue after a split with the state and Redflex Traffic Systems, which operates the cameras.

Those tickets—and the revenue they bring—haven’t come without controversy; Cherry Hill is facing a federal lawsuit filed by David Spector of Voorhees and Henry Anderson of Marlton, who claim the intersection’s red-light timing was too short.

The overall statewide pilot has also faced criticism, and more recently, legislation that would strip revenue from individual towns and dump it into a statewide fund.

State Sen. Michael Doherty (R-Hunterdon-Somerset-Warren), who has previously sponsored legislation aimed at banning the cameras outright, fired directly at town officials in drafting the new bill, introduced in February, claiming the revenue from tickets is the real purpose behind having red light cameras in place.

Instead of leaving the money in the towns’ hands, Doherty’s bill would divert all red-light camera revenue to the state Highway Safety Fund, to be disbursed as needed for safety measures around the state.

“This legislation allows towns to keep the cameras that local officials say make their intersections safer, but not the ticket revenues their cameras generate,” said Doherty in a statement. “Every mayor and local official who is on record saying cameras are about safety, not money, should support this bill. If they don’t, it will prove their previous support of cameras under the guise of safety was fraudulent.”

But township officials scoffed at that idea, saying the money’s better put to use in improving safety both at the Springdale-Route 70 intersection and elsewhere.

“What guarantee do we have that the state would ever use that red-light camera revenue to help our township?” Erin Gill, Cherry Hill’s deputy solicitor, said previously. “Those funds should not be invested into a state Highway Safety Fund that may or may not ever be used to benefit Cherry Hill’s residents or roadways.”

While both Doherty’s bill and the lawsuit are pending, the DOT program will continue as usual. The department has an annual report due to the state Legislature later this year—the second-year report was issued in November 2012.