> Collisions with fatalities or serious injuries declined 11% on the Boulevard in the period studied, while at the same time such crashes were increasing by 16% in the city as a whole.

Brb gonna go flip the lights on and off in the bathroom while saying "mandatory 4k"

[deleted]

Now can we add cameras to Lincoln Drive and Kelly Drive...

Pedestrian bridges are bad and further prioritize cars over people

[deleted]

I'd rather the cops do their job and arrest offenders, the DA prosecute and incarcerate, the mayor and city council give a shit about public safety and the electorate vote better leaders into office...

... than turn Philadelphia into a police state.

(Mandatory 4K? No thanks.)

All this article says to me is that current pedestrian bridges are poorly designed.

My psychotic take is that Lincoln, Kelly and MLK should be tolled and the proceeds should go directly to Parks & Rec

That might be the case but the data shows that crashes are down so the phenomenon you are seeing either isn’t happening that often or isn’t causing crashes.

That’s a sane take

Call your city council member and tell them that

I don’t disagree but the speed cameras are reducing crashes on a road that has killed people. It is a solution that is actually working. Getting the DA and police to change… good luck!

Driving 25 on Kelly Drive is one of my favorite past times. People absolutely lose their minds over it.

The thing you’re advocating for is much much more police state-y than the thing you’re against.

Basic city functions are now characteristic of a police state? Asking core city officials to do their job is advocating for a police state?

Seems we can't even agree on the basic of what constitutes a society anymore.

No surprise Philly's is in such bad shape these days.

Good way to get rear ended.

The speed limit is 25. Why should I speed?

Guy…a camera is impartial and it only documents what it is set to document. Cops are overwhelmingly racists who profile and use speed stops as excuses to violate people’s 4th amendment rights and further invade their lives.

It’s not like having a traffic cop sitting on the corner makes getting caught speeding just bad luck or something. Cops can make up any reason they want to push you around, and can then use any reason they make up off the top of their head (imagined smells, an interpretation of your demeanor, a ‘suspicion’) as a cover to harass, and it’s clear who they like to harass most.

Cameras don’t harass. Cameras just sit there and document who sped. Emotionlessly. Without bias. People are far safer with cameras on them than cops running around lugging all the baggage that shoved them into a miserable life as a traffic cop.

From my experience, the cameras have just caused more people to speed between cameras. Also alot of people using tinted plate covers.

Dude was never arguing in good faith the moment he equated getting pulled over for a broken tail light and getting your car searched with "public safety."

I never equated getting your car searched due to a broken tail light as "public safety". That's ugly and just ridiculous.

And to imply that I'm simultaneously not in favor of police reform because I have serious concerns about how the recordings of daily life in the city could destroy the privacy of citizens is in and of itself the definition of a bad faith argument.

[removed]

Just because you claim to be something doesn't mean anything.

Same "as a centrist" bullshit people have been pushing for years.

Nobody is stupid enough to buy that anymore.

You shouldn't. However, if an aggressive driver is behind you, safer to speed up a bit / move out of the way. Many drivers out there without valid registration / plates, no insurance (or extremely underinsured; state minimums are ridiculous low), and often impaired. Add to that the possibility of being armed.

More to the point, when getting rear-ended, insurance isn't likely going to cover much. Better to avoid conflict, but each to their own.

I have seen that too but there are a lot less crashes so I think we have to assume the speed cameras are working and that the experience of a few people is not representative of what is happening on a larger scale.

People put the pedal all the way down just to go from one red light to the next, even in the crowded parts of CC.

That can't be helped without enforcement, which ain't happening ever, unfortunately.

The cameras are the best we can get for the time being.

Pedestrian bridges are an accessibility nightmare though, and you can't fix it with design.

Consider this: The ADA guidelines for a wheelchair accessible ramp (and your pedestrian bridge damn well better be wheelchair accessible) specify a rise over run of 1:12. In other words, for every inch of height on the ramp, there must be 12 inches, or one foot, of run. This means a 10 foot high pedestrian bridge needs 120 feet worth of ramp. That's a lot of ramp. Where do you put it? Stack it? Sure, but that adds even more distance to travel to get to the top of it. And you need it on both sides.

So now, instead of crossing 120-150 feet of road, you've got someone going up 120 or more feet of ramp, 120-150 feet of bridge, and another 120 or so feet of ramp down to cross the street. How is this better than just having cars stop at lights to let pedestrians cross?

Think you'd be fine in the right lane. Probably would just assume it was an old person.

Wow. Proving that we need to be watched like little children. Way to go, Philadelphia!

[deleted]

Stop light cameras and speed cameras should be MANDATORY, citywide.

Like, no shit, enforcing the rules changes behavior. Did we really need a fuckin study?

And fuck Harrisburg for not letting Philadelphia install cameras as they wish.

MANDATORY SPEED CAMERAS

MANDATORY STOP LIGHT CAMERAS

MANDATORY 4 FUCKIN K

🙄

Objective enforcement is a good way forward that greatly reduces contact with police officers but also enforces laws on the road.

MANDATORY 4K

MANDATORY PARKS AND REC FUNDING

MLK should be de-vehicle-ized. Was awesome in Covid

The weekends are great, until the dusk transition when confused random cars end up alongside the runners and bikers

This sub usually: fuck cars

This sub when talking about admittedly neat looking pedestrian walkways that are fundamentally bad that no amount of design can fix: fuck pedestrians

People are speeding between cameras but the majority of drivers aren't hip to either camera locations or they aren't hip to the 10mph over the speed limit buffer allowed through those zones.

Much of the real speeding happens more north, usually when the center lanes go under the circles

If I had my way and 10 billion , there would be elevated pedestrian/bikeways everywhere in the city , and lots of long on ramps!

[deleted]

Camera's on Kelly please, that road is a death trap.

Well that's fantastic

Now if we could tackle the carjacking

Those things are a problem and I would like a whole lot more enforcement but this is literally an article about how these things work.

[removed]

Ive just stopped using blvd because it very easy to go past 50 and can’t keep paying $100 tickets.

I want to turn Kelly drive, mlk, and parts of the parkway into a Indy car or Formula 1 Grand Prix track.

Bang on some pots and pans too.

Fucking lol what a dumb take. Speed cameras are doing literally everything you want the city to do other than elect better leaders. They avoid the problems with a police state that comes from having the police arbitrarily enforcing laws rather than objectively. To get the same effect the cameras have with actual police the city would have to hire thousands of new cops and put them at every corner of the road.

Enforcing traffic laws with cameras isn't 1984, and if you think that they are you have no idea what a real police state looks like.

Then the police only have all the stop sign intersections left to ignore.

You have zero right to privacy in the public realm, a legal precedent that's been well established. You don't have a right to drive a car, nor a right to break speed and other traffic laws.

Your equating of automated traffic enforcement as being equal to a police state is just absurd.

Yet more evidence that automated traffic enforcement works and should be more widely deployed throughout the city.

The posted speed limit is 35 mph which leads me to believe you’re not paying attention to signs while you drive.

I do the same all over the city. Other favorite game is to actually stop at stop signs - people go nuts!!! Its incredible!

Funny, I already thought it was.

Now if we could just get some enforcement of the tinted plate covers and temp tags, so that everyone is subject to those same rules, we'd really be getting somewhere.

Id pay money to close it down like need for speed.

Big brother is watching. The CCP also initially installed cameras to “help police traffic incidents.” If the city really gave a shit about protecting bikers and pedestrians, it would increase funding to public transit and restructure traffic to include more and better bike lanes. Philly is addicted to cars because SEPTA isn’t given proper funding to adequately support cross city transit the way it should be

The use of speed cameras in public has been banned in multiple jurisdictions across America. Let's not act like this is some obvious slam dunk. "Fucking lol".

>Maine, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Jersey, South Carolina, Texas, West Virginia and Wisconsin prohibit speed cameras via state law.

Doesn't sound like you speak for everyone. Shit, it sounds like entire states would care to disagree with you.

Really? It's well established? Because it doesn't seem like it.

A five second Google search shows major opposition across the country to anything from a basic speed camera to something as advanced as facial recognition.

> a legal precedent that's been well established.

Heh, hopefully you're nobody's lawyer. And maybe this issue isn't as black and white as you want it to be.

*reported collisions

Correlation =/= Causation

Do you have another suggestion as to the cause?

Are crashes down similarly on non camera roads?

Believe it or not, DC has stop sign cameras

No, I don't. Neither is it up to me to provide one. When someone makes a claim of causation, it's up to that person(s) to prove it. I did read the state's "study" however. It's very biased . Also, I'm not saying that simple correlation isn't a
good argument for keeping the cameras. It could be, but to imply causation when all you have is correlation is disingenuous and biased.

It’s true that throughout Kelly and Lincoln drive the limit fluctuates between 25 and 35 depending on where you are. Most people seem to treat it like they can go 55. That’s all I’m pointing out here. People drive wild up there.

The people making the claim have a detailed report and it isn't just a simple correlation as you claim.

Do you have a critique of the report or are you only critiquing the headline?

Be careful, there are some places that if you beget there you would get arrested.

Don't tempt me with a good time.

I know. I read the whole report. Very biased.

So there are the same amount or more collisions than before but people aren’t reporting them?

Hey, there are data that provides evidence that it works and people on this thread still think it doesn’t because of antidotes or mental models.

These are pretty common in other cities too. Not unique to Philly. Most people aren’t driving recklessly but for those that do automating enforcement through cameras has shown to be effective deterrence.

Don't forget on Belmont and Ave of the Republic. My first time in the city when I moved here I was driving there late at night and ended up stuck behind street racers.

I’m not saying this is it, but overall traffic could be down on the road, with COVID. I think traffic volume is the number you would have to compare against.

No, let me speed.

Less ppl taking a road with speed cameras.

Actually traffic collisions are up in the city . There are less cars on speed camera road perhaps

Why? Let me speed.

Could just be less ppl on that road

Yes but let’s not waste time with traffic violations(besides dui and those guys on atvs) and out a focus on theft.

the threat to bikers and pedestrians is literally cars, investing in transit doesn't change that. Enforcing traffic laws against people driving like maniacs is the starting point for "giving a shit"

>What I notice now is people speeding between the cameras and doing stupid weaving in and out of traffic

Are you under the impression this wasn’t happening before the cameras?

In the report they show “traffic volume” and it appears that it hasn’t really changed l, if anything there might be a increase. So the same amount of traffic (or more!) and less accidents.

At least in NYC where cameras are more prevelant the listen plate obstruction is incredibly common by police who often live in outer boroughs or outside the city and can avoid tolls.

Here is one solution:

https://youtu.be/WcliB8uBs5w

Is this subject to the whims of council and the tyranny of councilmanic prerogative? My understanding was that it was not.

Amén. Does Rhynhart have a position on this?

Yeah, police corruption will always be an issue. But I'd rather there be some camera enforcement and then we have to rein in the cops to get them to follow the law the same as I expect from others than for us to just to not even try.

Even if it was less people, fewer people on the boulevard is its own reward.

Oh, i 100% agree. The other benefit of cameras is that it lessens the number of police stops which can often be deadly for POC.

100%. But no one ever really talks about how city streets are also quite dangerous when you have someone pulled over (both for passing motorists, pedestrians and the officer doing the stopping). So avoiding that danger is a positive as well. Sucks for people who accustomed to endangering those around them and would like to keep doing that, though.

It would push them to side streets. Increasing traffic for local trips.

The streets without the high accident and fatality rates, with all the local traffic so that drivers have to slow down? Sounds good to me.

[deleted]

[deleted]

I know. I’m just deprecating the city I love and it’s inhabitants

You gotta flip the lights on and off on the Comcast center, and make sure to say it 3x or else the mandatory 4k will just appear inside your house

Grammar question. Why is there a comma in that sentence?

Red light cameras get abused, and have been found to increase accident rates - but speed cameras I can get behind.

I mean yeah, it sucks the first time I was shooting down an eight lane road in DC at 65mph, only to find out a week or two later that the signs said 45, but you can bet I never sped in Washington DC ever again.

Having visited a few places where speed in urban areas is enforced, it was jarring coming back and realizing what I'd acclimated to. I mean, I still deal with it, but it sure would be nice if fewer people would blast through Old City streets at highway speeds.

I think Mythbusters did a thing on that, and found that they were useless, the tinted plate covers anyway.

Sounds like bad design if people feel safe going that fast. If they want people to go slower, they should narrow the lanes.

Traffic calming such as narrower streets and speed tables are an option. The enforcement is immediate and much safer for pedestrians. Its a hard sell to people who just wanna go fast though.

If speed cameras are implemented, it probably means the road was overdesigned. It takes conscious effort to drive the speed limit when going faster feels safe.

Investing in transit reduces the number of cars on the road, so yes- it would absolutely help that.

If you let people drive dangerously and illegally then taking a handful of cars off the road won't make a difference

I mean ideally it would given that there wouldn’t be the congestion that would make it dangerous. I get your point but I think you underestimate how many cars you can take off the road by having an adequately funded transit authority

All that happens with speed tables in the city is that the people who live on a street with speed tables have to deal with the constant shaking and noise of cars blasting over them at speed. And the ones they install on 2nd Street don't last. The end up as piles of broken plastic and tire-mangling bolts sticking out of the asphalt.

I'm okay with traffic calming measures that jut into the street though. When we visited England last year, my wife did all the driving. "What the fuck is this?!" she exclaimed, slowing down because the street suddenly got narrow. The system works!

Still, neither of these are going to erode the culture of speeding quite like speed cameras. It may take longer, but when you keep getting dinged for speeding, over and over, you generally change your behavior. And at the very least, they can tell a story about how the proceeds from speeding cameras can go to something that benefits the community. No promises that it actually gets accounted for properly. Automated enforcement is notoriously abused once you get people in power that turn a blind eye to it.

What? Congestion has nothing to do with this, people speeding and driving recklessly are the issues, thats why the speed cameras are reducing crashes so drastically

They’re absolutely not useless and are used widely in toll evasion. Try looking at one from an angle, it’s the same as the privacy screens for laptops and phones.

How do cars get past the barricades?

There was a meeting with police in fairmount last night and a resident brought up this issue of speeding on Kelly Drive, and the police said exactly that: email and call Darrell Clark’s office about it and don’t stop until the cameras go up. I guess that’s how cameras were finally installed along Girard Ave in Brewerytown

(FWIW, I don’t really believe the police, but clearly the squeaky wheel gets the grease in Philly)

FWIW, at the Fairmount community meeting with police last night the PPD put this one on the DA (weird) and said they’re hoping Krasner’s task force will deter carjacking — whatever that means

I’ve never quite understood why Kelly and Lincoln Drives don’t at least have speed bumps. I’ve always assumed it’s a maintenance/snow removal thing

Yeah, my gut feeling is that this administration is running out the clock, and the police are coasting.

The one at the bottom of the first hill (going west on MLK) gets opened up at dusk. The one at the museum circle generally isn't opened that early, nor the one at the falls bridge end. But you end up with cars coming down the hill and getting stuck on MLK

[deleted]

[deleted]

[removed]

There are no speed cameras on Girard. The only speed cameras in the city are on the boulevard (other than possible mobile work zone speed cameras).

Speed cameras are illegal in Pennsylvania, so adding them requires a law to be passed by the state legislature.

The DA can't file charges if the police don't make an arrest, so that excuse is bullshit.

I mean, do you have a video or a source for me, or are we just doing the conjecture thing?

Sorry — I got this wrong (duh). I meant the white safety cameras 29th and 27th to keep an eye on those corners for public safety, not traffic

Ya honestly the whole thing was infuriating. Like I had to go take a walk around the block to cool down after I left. It was an hour and 15 minutes of PPD leadership saying “it’s not our fault your lives are like this. It’s too hard to police now bc you all take videos of us and Krasner. If you want to feel safer, write to your council person to demand more money for the PPD.” Fortunately, some guy called them out for voting for FOP leadership that created and allowed the sick leave scheme so it wasn’t all “us police are so helpless, woah is us”

MANDATORY 4K WORKS /s