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Hamilton is adding 10 new red-light camera locations this year to an automated enforcement system that has ticketed 59,000 drivers since 2020.
Hamilton will have 52 cameras capable of catching red-light runners in the act once the technology is installed at 10 new intersections this year, including three in the lower city, four on the Mountain and one each in Dundas, Ancaster and Stoney Creek.
Two lower city cameras will also be relocated during the conversion of Wilson Street to two-way traffic.
While the enforcement eyes in the sky are spread throughout the city, about one third of all red-light runners were caught at three lower city intersections on fast-moving one-way arteries since 2020.
That included 6,000-plus violations at each of Main Street at Dundurn Street, Main at Queen Street and Cannon Street at Hess Street.
Each of those violations results in a $350 ticket mailed to the vehicle owner - a sometimes controversial enforcement strategy the city says reduces serious crashes.
The staggering" number of downtown violations prompted Coun. Cameron Kroetsch to ask how the city can address the disproportionate impacts" of dangerous driving in the ward.
Ward 3 Coun. Nrinder Nann echoed that concern, asking if more red-light cameras might be appropriate along stretches of Main and King where drivers are blowing through" red lights and spurring complaints about drag racing.
Transportation director Mike Field said the 23-year-old red-light camera program was originally developed in response to a high number of T-bone collisions at intersections. Locations for cameras are driven primarily by trends related to those right-angle" collisions, which tend to result in serious injuries or death.
But Field also said there is no regulatory barrier" to exploring the use of cameras at intersections for other safety reasons and pledged to talk to councillors about their ideas.
Pending construction programs are also expected to change the safety profile and number of red-light tickets on some of Hamilton's most collision-prone streets.
That includes eventual light rail transit construction on King Street as well as the two-way traffic conversion on Main.
Expected new red-light camera locations this year:- Dundas Street at Main Street (eastbound)
- Cannon Street at Gage Avenue (eastbound)
- Cannon Street at Wentworth Street (westbound)
- Burlington Street at Ottawa Street (eastbound)
- Rymal Road at Upper Gage Avenue (southbound)
- Green Road at King Street East (eastbound)
- Garth Street at Rymal Road West (southbound)
- Golf Links Road at Meadowlands Boulevard (southbound)
- Stone Church Road East at Upper Wellington Street (southbound)
- Parkdale Avenue North at Roxborough Avenue (southbound)
- Cochrane Road at Lawrence Road (southbound)
Main at Dundurn: 6,437 tickets
Main at Queen: 6,396 tickets
Cannon at Hess: 6,274 tickets
York at Hess: 4,229 tickets
King at Macklin: 4,071 tickets
Barton at Ottawa: 3,998 tickets
King Street at Catharine: 3,181 tickets
King at Dundurn: 2,886 tickets
Matthew Van Dongen is a transportation and environment reporter at The Spectator. mvandongen@thespec.com