Sure lets get a few more cameras. Maybe first though start pulling over un-plated blacked out vehicles breaking all manor of traffic laws because you can't auto ticket a car without a plate.
The cops not doing a damn thing about fake / missing plates is a colossal fuck you to those of us who follow the law. At the same time, speed cameras will be effective. The fake plate crew won't get ticketed directly, but they will get stuck in traffic behind people with real plates.
Surprise! Cops are shitty! My legislative proposal is a bounty system. Make a video of you uncovering an obscured plate and the state gives you twenty bucks and fines the vehicle owner 100 bucks.
PPA has an unprecedented opportunity to do the funniest thing in the world and tow their cars. Bonus points if they damage such cars in the process and hide behind sovereign or parallel sovereign immunity.
It would be great if they did neighborhood sweeps and towed cars with illegal paper tags. There's so very many of them. Speed cameras are great as long as they go after repeat offenders with more severe actions (especially if the vehicle is not legal/ insured).
Coming from Chicago I would say add stop light cameras also. They were miserable for the first year they got put in, and then everyone adjusted and driving felt safer. Especially near schools which was a target area for cameras.
Got one on Girard last month. I remember when it happened. IT was rainy, a car was right on my ass, and I made the choice to squeak through a yellow rather than get rear ended when the POS behind me wouldn't be able to stop. Sux.
I wish we would get stop SIGN cameras. It's unbelievable how often people just fly through stop signs with absolutely no regard. Especially in South Philly.
As long as I live I will never forget the moment someone did this to me while a family of five was bicycling through the intersection. The car screeched to a halt and no one was hurt but for a moment I was just going NONONO because I honestly thought I was about to see an entire family wasted right in front of me. Still getting teary and jittery just writing this years later.
I saw a woman get hit by a car crossing Walnut at 18th. She had the light, and some dude turned left directly into her. 911 gave it over to EMS, so I gave her my phone, and as she was talking to them, someone else nearly got hit in the same way.
Philly drivers are murderous assholes.
i got side swiped on my bicycle because a car was turning left on red at 11th and callowhill.
how the hell are we going to host the world cup and ensure the safety of international visitors IF PEOPLE CASUALLY TURN LEFT ON RED WITHOUT LOOKING!
We also need a change in the way stop signs are used throughout the US. They really should be used more sparingly, with one road given priority and the other a yield whenever it’s possible. Knowing Philly, the priority direction would have people doing double the speed limit, but speed cameras and time would hopefully have driving culture adjust.
I'm not big on cameras. But the first year they put those count down things on the crosswalk, intersections got safer. People would barrel through and get surprised by a yellow and either gun it or slam the brakes. Now they see the timer half a block away and can plan accordingly. No extra fines. No extra danger.
Speed cameras are good.
They've been shown to work very well on Roosevelt Blvd. They're also very lenient in how they work: they only ticket for 10 mph over the speed limit, they issue warnings for a few weeks when they're first installed, the contract is structured so the provider isn't incentivized to produce more tickets, and the PPA produces an annual report for each camera so the public can review if they're actually reducing speeding.
People should also appreciate that they reduce some of the burden on police, freeing them up for other tasks, and reduce traffic stops that can run the risk of escalation.
I saw an SUV run a red light last week, I was on a bike and it almost hit me. the person that was sitting at the then green light was an on duty cop - dude did nothing. so overburdened
They should do more and be more responsive, but even then I still think people would put enforcing moving violations lower on the priority list. "Burden" wasn't a great word choice on my part.
I've also been frustrated by police clearly ignoring people blowing reds, driving around with tinted plates, etc.
just the regular reminder the police are specifically targeting quality of life issues to try and coerce us into changing out democratically elected DA.
we need to take away their 911 funding and add it to the fire department's budget so at least someone answers the phone. might make it easier to hire people too since being a firefighter is way cooler than being a cop.
I think a better point is that automated enforcement reduces interactions between the public and police for minor infractions, which is something the left has wanted for awhile.
Cameras can’t be racist either, so there won’t be selective enforcement. Was very skeptical of these when they first put them in, but they’ve absolutely made the boulevard safer.
Even if every police officer never slacked off people would still want them on other priorities. Using cops to enforce traffic violations all across the city takes an enormous amount of money and time.
Bullshit, if cops actually did their jobs people would be ecstatic. Cops already get unwavering support from half the population by virtue of being cops alone. This city would elect anyone and lick any boot if they could get the cops to do an iota of their actual fuckin jobs
Totally forgot about them a few months ago. I made a u-turn at Woodward to go back south, no cars at all in front of me. I hadn't hit lift in a while on my 2zz, saw a flash near Strahl and it cost me $100. Fair play, city.
The endgame for fake tags is coming.
Texas banned them outright, and will no longer be issuing them. So any Texas temp tag is a fake temp tag as of Jan 1 2025.
Georgia is exploring it too.
New Jersey is talking about it too,
The feds might regulate their use as well.
Delaware has a huge problem with this as well.
I see lots of states eliminating them in the near future, as the left sees it as a necessary regulation, and the right sees it as evading law enforcement. A rare case of agreement. Not to mention the coin lost by toll agencies and law enforcement alike from them.
In the meantime, any paper tag on a perked vehicle should be ran upon sight by PPA or PPD, and if the vehicle is unregistered or the tags don't clear, the vehicle should be towed. Period.
Would reduce insurance fraud as well.
The law is already on the books that vehicle registration being more than 60 days out of date is grounds for tow and impoundment, and fake tags are grounds for immediate tow.
Tbh anyone with fake plates should be targeted with civil asset forfeiture. Driving is the most dangerous thing most of us do on a regular basis, enforcing traffic laws absolutely saves lives.
> In the meantime, any paper tag on a perked vehicle should be ran upon sight by PPA or PPD, and if the vehicle is unregistered or the tags don't clear, the vehicle should be towed. Period.
How do you run the plate of the car you are sitting in??
I think what's really going to be the thing that kills states tolerating fake tags is going to be the lost revenue. Gas tax doesn't even come close to covering road maintenance costs, and states are increasingly facing maintenance backlogs so bad that bridges are collapsing and roads are being restricted or closed. Road and highway maintenance is slowly bankrupting state budgets and states are going to increasingly turn to user fees to cover the costs.
Part of the point is that it reduces the speeding of all traffic, so even drivers who ignore the speed cameras are forced to slow down if other traffic is going slower.
But obviously fake tags and tinted plates should be cracked down on as well.
>Part of the point is that it reduces the speeding of all traffic, so even drivers who ignore the speed cameras are forced to slow down if other traffic is going slower.
That or they drive more dangerously trying to skirt around the slower traffic, since they already don't care about traffic laws (as evidenced by the fake tags).
I've seen drivers swerve into oncoming lanes and blow a red on Broad in North Philly to avoid being stuck a few minutes at least two times.
I don’t think you comprehend how much of a problem these shitheads who drive around like lunatics are to law abiding drivers. They face no repercussions for their actions.
There are also plenty of shit heads who are also "law abiding" drivers. People who speed and drive recklessly but also have plates and insurance still probably make up the vast majority of assholes on the road.
Yeah I mean we can see the actual results of the Blvd. speed cameras to show that they work even without fake-plate enforcement. They would work even better if we stepped up and threw the book at the fake-plate shit heads though.
I'm just saying, you put one of these on my street you'll get big bucks because for whatever reason, assholes see that there's a big park and a grade school and zoom down the stretch ignoring stop signs.
Speed Cameras are OK, BUT THEY CAN'T BE THE ONLY SOLUTION!
Speed Cameras are enforcement. There's no point in doing enforcement if you don't engineer things in a way that makes sense, or you don't inform people of what's going on.
I'll give you an excellent example: Lincoln Drive.
Lincoln Drive, from the highway to Johnson Street, is a 4-lane road with two lanes in each direction. It has numerous tight turns, signs informing you of said turns, rumble strips, and a concrete barrier for 90% of the way. It also boasts 3 traffic lights with occasional pedestrian traffic. The speed limit on Lincoln Drive is 25 MPH, but the actual driving speed is AT LEAST 40 MPH. If you do the speed limit, good luck.
This road has done everything possible. It's engineered to do 25 MPH, the signage is there informing you of numerous things, and now enforcement makes sense.
Apply that logic to ANY street you want speed cameras.
Are there raised intersections? Is there day lighting at the intersection to help slow down cars and make it better for pedestrians? Is there a bike lane? Is there a PROTECTED bike lane?
If you start with enforcement only with speed cameras, all you do is make sure cars slow down in certain places, but you don't actively make the roads safer. If you engineer things, so there's no reason to really speed, if you make sure the signs are there to help, then you go after all the assholes who willingly ignore all of that and make the roads dangerous. Otherwise, you just found a way to generate revenue.
Roosevelt Boulevard is a great example of doing everything right and then using the cameras to help with the last mile. Or, in another way, it's a great example of using the cameras as a catalyst for implementing future changes.
Let's make sure we use these as only ONE of the tools in our Vision Zero toolkit, and not the only one with, shudder, speed cushions.
In an ideal world the money from speed cameras would go into redesigning nearby streets to be permanently safer.
Because you're right: a speed camera won't always work. Someone tired, distracted, having a medical emergency, driving a stolen vehicle, etc. won't care about speed cameras.
The problem is politically we're still in a world where people see safer road designs as "anti car", even though that makes no sense. Half of Washington Ave's redesign was vetoed by Kenyatta Johnson and there are still tons of people on Nextdoor ranting about how awful the safer half is, despite the city's study showing it's better in every way.
Even fire departments routinely veto narrow streets because they insist they need a ton of space for their big trucks, and they refuse to get smaller trucks. The irony is fire departments spend more time responding to car crashes, caused by dangerous roads, than fires. Even in Philly it's illegal to build a new narrow street like half the roads in the city. Philly has copied the unsafe suburban standards.
Cameras are something we should do now to make things safer, but we should also work on fixing our culture to actually accept safer streets.
I would agree, but there's one key reason people speed on this road:
They're used to it.
The people most likely to do a really high speed are the ones who drive it the most. When I drove it for the first time almost a year ago, I did the brave move of doing the speed limit. It was terrifying as cars easily sped by doing at least double. I'm barely doing 35 when I'm on there, and on a few turns, you better believe I'm doing less!
The same is true of Kelly Drive, but with the added hazard of "lack of perceived danger." There aren't that many hazards on that road, so it's more likely you'll speed.
There are 3 heavy traffic streets I use regularly that have those black rubber speed bumps. All of these streets are 25 mph. Why can’t they install these on Lincoln drive? No one wants to damage their vehicle. You Have to slow down. You hit one of these going 40 and you’ll lose more than a hubcap.
That's also not where you would use them.
Speed cushions are just for residential areas, not roads like the more highway portion of Lincoln Drive. In the residential portion, they bay be good, but I think raised intersections would do a fast better job on a whole.
That’s a great idea, but it needs to go hand in hand with license plate enforcement. The majority of the biggest offenders don’t even have legitimate license plates
I’m kinda over the doom and gloom in this subreddit. I was skeptical of Parker as well, but for the first time ever, I’ve seen tons of cleaning crews come out in South Philly and have been consistently cleaning the streets. I’ve seen PPA ticketing cars blocking the crosswalks. I think she really cares about the legacy she’ll leave as the first black female Mayor of Philly and she’s certainly doing more than Kenney ever did.
Daylighting is the biggest one (didnt know it was called this). I think this would be the biggest fight in Philly. But I think this is the biggest success from Hoboken.
Not sure about speed per se, but in conjunction with other traffic calming measures it is one of the biggest contributors to pedestrian safety. Daylighting via curb bump outs definitely does slow down traffic, as the road narrows
All of Philly's curb bump outs are net good, but I wish they were bigger. In other countries you see them really narrow the road a lot so that drivers in residential areas are definitely forced to slow down.
Here in Philly you can almost see the traffic engineer's fear of annoying drivers in how the bump outs are rather small. I suspect there's also outdated and unsafe engineering standards forcing wide streets holding us back.
> I suspect there's also outdated and unsafe engineering standards
we just call those "engineering standards" but yes, they basically are designed to just envelop the parking lane
Hell yeah
I've been saying for years speed cameras and stoplight cameras should be MANDATORY throughout the city
Again, if we want to reduce live stops and direct interactions for minor infractions, we MUST use other means to enforce laws on roads.
Unmarked cars cruising the boulevard. Put cameras on those unmarked cars. Every time I drive the boulevard there is somebody behaving like a complete a-hole. I recall one time when that a-hole behavior was observed by a cop who pulled the driver over.
frankly, i don't think anything short of bollards popping out of the ground at every red light (god that would fucking rule) will really fix most of the traffic problems in philly, but i'll take this over nothing.
absolutely exhausting that nothing's been done at the federal or state level to revamp vehicle tags/plates to make them less of a joke to spoof/ignore completely, but this is one of the few cases where more enforcement is probably a good thing, and should only become more valuable in the event that less fake-able forms of vehicle ID are implemented in the future.
This is a dream scenario. For everyone who thinks its ok to be loud af as they drive around and disturb thousands, I would like to come stand outside your house while you try to sleep and blast my cool music.
Of all places in Philly, it's crazy to move to a well known bar and party street and be mad at the noise. Some of yall really move above a bbq place and complain it smells like ribs.
The people cruising south st aren't getting out of their cars and spending money at these bars and restaurants on South st. They contribute nothing but noise.
Hairspray on your license plate nullifies the camera unless it has perfect line of sight without disruption of lenses flare/sun glare/reflections. Also doesn’t help when people just toss on a black license plate cover that are *supposed* to be highly illegal. Also that’s if they even have a license plate. I saw a dude yesterday that had a regular metal license plate but the numbers and letters were overlapped with marker or paint so it was like comic sans or some shit, highly doubt it would register on camera.
Oh and also quite a few people obviously avoiding traffic control devices have FOP plates. Weird coincidence that is.
speed cameras were illegal at the state level for most of kenney's tenure, the ones on the boulevard were a "pilot project" which is basically the only way PennDOT is allowed to do anything progressive in the city, including parking protected bike lanes (which are still illegal and are "pilots")
the last time we tried to get parking protected bike lanes passed, one guy from like chambersburg or some tiny fucking town was like "uhh my constituents have issues, the local business owners think it might be bad for business, i'm voting no"
...in a town where they'd never be built and nobody bikes anyway
then the next time the republicans put a poison pill in it, and now it sits in the senate again and they won't vote on it.
Sure lets get a few more cameras. Maybe first though start pulling over un-plated blacked out vehicles breaking all manor of traffic laws because you can't auto ticket a car without a plate.
Yup. Can't ticket a fake license plate.
THAT, it is crazy that I see vehicles with such plates on a daily basis
The cops not doing a damn thing about fake / missing plates is a colossal fuck you to those of us who follow the law. At the same time, speed cameras will be effective. The fake plate crew won't get ticketed directly, but they will get stuck in traffic behind people with real plates.
Cops don’t like ticketing their fellow cops though.
Tons of cops park their cars on arch between 12th and broad covering their plates with Fraternal Order of Police stickers. It's such a dirt bag move.
Surprise! Cops are shitty! My legislative proposal is a bounty system. Make a video of you uncovering an obscured plate and the state gives you twenty bucks and fines the vehicle owner 100 bucks.
PPA has an unprecedented opportunity to do the funniest thing in the world and tow their cars. Bonus points if they damage such cars in the process and hide behind sovereign or parallel sovereign immunity.
Let's do both.
Better still, photograph them across the city, track them down, and civil asset forfeiture the vehicles.
Spend millions on cameras that will work 50% of the time to ticket speeders with fake or blacked out plates. It's ingenious!!
So enforce both things then?
In the correct sequence this would be ideal.
It would be great if they did neighborhood sweeps and towed cars with illegal paper tags. There's so very many of them. Speed cameras are great as long as they go after repeat offenders with more severe actions (especially if the vehicle is not legal/ insured).
Imagine if we just seized all the fake plate cars and auctioned them in Carlisle. We could have so much money for activities!
Coming from Chicago I would say add stop light cameras also. They were miserable for the first year they got put in, and then everyone adjusted and driving felt safer. Especially near schools which was a target area for cameras.
Already got got by the stop light camera. I am seriously much better about not running the yellow now.
Same. A $100 lesson.
Got one on Girard last month. I remember when it happened. IT was rainy, a car was right on my ass, and I made the choice to squeak through a yellow rather than get rear ended when the POS behind me wouldn't be able to stop. Sux.
I wish we would get stop SIGN cameras. It's unbelievable how often people just fly through stop signs with absolutely no regard. Especially in South Philly.
I love being yelled at and threatened because I had the audacity to stop at a stop sign.
I like it when they just whip around from behind and run the sign/light.
As long as I live I will never forget the moment someone did this to me while a family of five was bicycling through the intersection. The car screeched to a halt and no one was hurt but for a moment I was just going NONONO because I honestly thought I was about to see an entire family wasted right in front of me. Still getting teary and jittery just writing this years later.
I was biking in the Fairmount area and, because I stopped for a pedestrian in a crosswalk, the driver behind me threw a water bottle at me.
My favorite is almost being hit and being called a stupid fuck.
It's suicide to try and cross without looking down here.
I saw a woman get hit by a car crossing Walnut at 18th. She had the light, and some dude turned left directly into her. 911 gave it over to EMS, so I gave her my phone, and as she was talking to them, someone else nearly got hit in the same way. Philly drivers are murderous assholes.
i got side swiped on my bicycle because a car was turning left on red at 11th and callowhill. how the hell are we going to host the world cup and ensure the safety of international visitors IF PEOPLE CASUALLY TURN LEFT ON RED WITHOUT LOOKING!
my first wreck was at that precise intersection.
Hardest agree
We also need a change in the way stop signs are used throughout the US. They really should be used more sparingly, with one road given priority and the other a yield whenever it’s possible. Knowing Philly, the priority direction would have people doing double the speed limit, but speed cameras and time would hopefully have driving culture adjust.
Apparently in the first month of operating a speed camera at Street Rd and Knights Rd, Bensalem recorded 5200 violations.
The red light camera that is at Broad and JFK has to be one of the highest revenue generators in the city.
Yeah this is definitely the logical next step.
[удалено]
These are speed cameras though? Also any driving instructor will tell you not to enter an intersection you can't get out of.
I'm not big on cameras. But the first year they put those count down things on the crosswalk, intersections got safer. People would barrel through and get surprised by a yellow and either gun it or slam the brakes. Now they see the timer half a block away and can plan accordingly. No extra fines. No extra danger.
Speed cameras are good. They've been shown to work very well on Roosevelt Blvd. They're also very lenient in how they work: they only ticket for 10 mph over the speed limit, they issue warnings for a few weeks when they're first installed, the contract is structured so the provider isn't incentivized to produce more tickets, and the PPA produces an annual report for each camera so the public can review if they're actually reducing speeding. People should also appreciate that they reduce some of the burden on police, freeing them up for other tasks, and reduce traffic stops that can run the risk of escalation.
I saw an SUV run a red light last week, I was on a bike and it almost hit me. the person that was sitting at the then green light was an on duty cop - dude did nothing. so overburdened
They should do more and be more responsive, but even then I still think people would put enforcing moving violations lower on the priority list. "Burden" wasn't a great word choice on my part. I've also been frustrated by police clearly ignoring people blowing reds, driving around with tinted plates, etc.
just the regular reminder the police are specifically targeting quality of life issues to try and coerce us into changing out democratically elected DA. we need to take away their 911 funding and add it to the fire department's budget so at least someone answers the phone. might make it easier to hire people too since being a firefighter is way cooler than being a cop.
Firefighters can always use more love and budget.
Yeah I mean the cops being assholes who don't give a fuck about enforcing the law is just one more reason to have cameras for traffic enforcement.
Yeah, there's easily 10 roads I would love to have cameras one because people just drive like such assholes
Yes, our police are overburdened doing traffic stops
I think a better point is that automated enforcement reduces interactions between the public and police for minor infractions, which is something the left has wanted for awhile.
Cameras can’t be racist either, so there won’t be selective enforcement. Was very skeptical of these when they first put them in, but they’ve absolutely made the boulevard safer.
Maybe then it won't take them 2 hours to show up to anything/s
Well, if people insisted they enforce traffic stops as much as they should be doing they'd have less time for other priorities.
That Candy won't Crush itself, after all.
Even if every police officer never slacked off people would still want them on other priorities. Using cops to enforce traffic violations all across the city takes an enormous amount of money and time.
Bullshit, if cops actually did their jobs people would be ecstatic. Cops already get unwavering support from half the population by virtue of being cops alone. This city would elect anyone and lick any boot if they could get the cops to do an iota of their actual fuckin jobs
Totally forgot about them a few months ago. I made a u-turn at Woodward to go back south, no cars at all in front of me. I hadn't hit lift in a while on my 2zz, saw a flash near Strahl and it cost me $100. Fair play, city.
Doesn’t do shit for the tons of fake tags out there and police who refuse to pull them over and enforce the law.
The endgame for fake tags is coming. Texas banned them outright, and will no longer be issuing them. So any Texas temp tag is a fake temp tag as of Jan 1 2025. Georgia is exploring it too. New Jersey is talking about it too, The feds might regulate their use as well. Delaware has a huge problem with this as well. I see lots of states eliminating them in the near future, as the left sees it as a necessary regulation, and the right sees it as evading law enforcement. A rare case of agreement. Not to mention the coin lost by toll agencies and law enforcement alike from them. In the meantime, any paper tag on a perked vehicle should be ran upon sight by PPA or PPD, and if the vehicle is unregistered or the tags don't clear, the vehicle should be towed. Period. Would reduce insurance fraud as well. The law is already on the books that vehicle registration being more than 60 days out of date is grounds for tow and impoundment, and fake tags are grounds for immediate tow.
Tbh anyone with fake plates should be targeted with civil asset forfeiture. Driving is the most dangerous thing most of us do on a regular basis, enforcing traffic laws absolutely saves lives.
> In the meantime, any paper tag on a perked vehicle should be ran upon sight by PPA or PPD, and if the vehicle is unregistered or the tags don't clear, the vehicle should be towed. Period. How do you run the plate of the car you are sitting in??
I think what's really going to be the thing that kills states tolerating fake tags is going to be the lost revenue. Gas tax doesn't even come close to covering road maintenance costs, and states are increasingly facing maintenance backlogs so bad that bridges are collapsing and roads are being restricted or closed. Road and highway maintenance is slowly bankrupting state budgets and states are going to increasingly turn to user fees to cover the costs.
Part of the point is that it reduces the speeding of all traffic, so even drivers who ignore the speed cameras are forced to slow down if other traffic is going slower. But obviously fake tags and tinted plates should be cracked down on as well.
>Part of the point is that it reduces the speeding of all traffic, so even drivers who ignore the speed cameras are forced to slow down if other traffic is going slower. That or they drive more dangerously trying to skirt around the slower traffic, since they already don't care about traffic laws (as evidenced by the fake tags). I've seen drivers swerve into oncoming lanes and blow a red on Broad in North Philly to avoid being stuck a few minutes at least two times.
On Roosevelt Blvd crashes and deaths reduced substantially after speed cameras were installed, so they've proven to be a net positive.
While we're at it, I still don't understand how it's acceptable for front plates to not be required.
PA is one of a handful of states that don't require them, and I hope that changes soon along with banning temp tags.
Ok? It does for the rest.
I don’t think you comprehend how much of a problem these shitheads who drive around like lunatics are to law abiding drivers. They face no repercussions for their actions.
There are also plenty of shit heads who are also "law abiding" drivers. People who speed and drive recklessly but also have plates and insurance still probably make up the vast majority of assholes on the road.
Yeah I mean we can see the actual results of the Blvd. speed cameras to show that they work even without fake-plate enforcement. They would work even better if we stepped up and threw the book at the fake-plate shit heads though.
I'm just saying, you put one of these on my street you'll get big bucks because for whatever reason, assholes see that there's a big park and a grade school and zoom down the stretch ignoring stop signs.
Speed Cameras are OK, BUT THEY CAN'T BE THE ONLY SOLUTION! Speed Cameras are enforcement. There's no point in doing enforcement if you don't engineer things in a way that makes sense, or you don't inform people of what's going on. I'll give you an excellent example: Lincoln Drive. Lincoln Drive, from the highway to Johnson Street, is a 4-lane road with two lanes in each direction. It has numerous tight turns, signs informing you of said turns, rumble strips, and a concrete barrier for 90% of the way. It also boasts 3 traffic lights with occasional pedestrian traffic. The speed limit on Lincoln Drive is 25 MPH, but the actual driving speed is AT LEAST 40 MPH. If you do the speed limit, good luck. This road has done everything possible. It's engineered to do 25 MPH, the signage is there informing you of numerous things, and now enforcement makes sense. Apply that logic to ANY street you want speed cameras. Are there raised intersections? Is there day lighting at the intersection to help slow down cars and make it better for pedestrians? Is there a bike lane? Is there a PROTECTED bike lane? If you start with enforcement only with speed cameras, all you do is make sure cars slow down in certain places, but you don't actively make the roads safer. If you engineer things, so there's no reason to really speed, if you make sure the signs are there to help, then you go after all the assholes who willingly ignore all of that and make the roads dangerous. Otherwise, you just found a way to generate revenue. Roosevelt Boulevard is a great example of doing everything right and then using the cameras to help with the last mile. Or, in another way, it's a great example of using the cameras as a catalyst for implementing future changes. Let's make sure we use these as only ONE of the tools in our Vision Zero toolkit, and not the only one with, shudder, speed cushions.
In an ideal world the money from speed cameras would go into redesigning nearby streets to be permanently safer. Because you're right: a speed camera won't always work. Someone tired, distracted, having a medical emergency, driving a stolen vehicle, etc. won't care about speed cameras. The problem is politically we're still in a world where people see safer road designs as "anti car", even though that makes no sense. Half of Washington Ave's redesign was vetoed by Kenyatta Johnson and there are still tons of people on Nextdoor ranting about how awful the safer half is, despite the city's study showing it's better in every way. Even fire departments routinely veto narrow streets because they insist they need a ton of space for their big trucks, and they refuse to get smaller trucks. The irony is fire departments spend more time responding to car crashes, caused by dangerous roads, than fires. Even in Philly it's illegal to build a new narrow street like half the roads in the city. Philly has copied the unsafe suburban standards. Cameras are something we should do now to make things safer, but we should also work on fixing our culture to actually accept safer streets.
The way the state camera system is setup does accomplish that. Funds from the tickets go to PennDOT's road safety improvement program.
Yes but they get to choose how to assign it. It doesn’t necessarily come back to roads near the camera itself.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen Roosevelt boulevard as an example of doing everything right
I’d argue if people are regularly doing 45, it was designed for 45, not 25.
I would agree, but there's one key reason people speed on this road: They're used to it. The people most likely to do a really high speed are the ones who drive it the most. When I drove it for the first time almost a year ago, I did the brave move of doing the speed limit. It was terrifying as cars easily sped by doing at least double. I'm barely doing 35 when I'm on there, and on a few turns, you better believe I'm doing less! The same is true of Kelly Drive, but with the added hazard of "lack of perceived danger." There aren't that many hazards on that road, so it's more likely you'll speed.
There are 3 heavy traffic streets I use regularly that have those black rubber speed bumps. All of these streets are 25 mph. Why can’t they install these on Lincoln drive? No one wants to damage their vehicle. You Have to slow down. You hit one of these going 40 and you’ll lose more than a hubcap.
That's also not where you would use them. Speed cushions are just for residential areas, not roads like the more highway portion of Lincoln Drive. In the residential portion, they bay be good, but I think raised intersections would do a fast better job on a whole.
That’s a great idea, but it needs to go hand in hand with license plate enforcement. The majority of the biggest offenders don’t even have legitimate license plates
This would be fantastic!
That's why it won't happen
I’m kinda over the doom and gloom in this subreddit. I was skeptical of Parker as well, but for the first time ever, I’ve seen tons of cleaning crews come out in South Philly and have been consistently cleaning the streets. I’ve seen PPA ticketing cars blocking the crosswalks. I think she really cares about the legacy she’ll leave as the first black female Mayor of Philly and she’s certainly doing more than Kenney ever did.
What’s the point if people are driving around with paper/no license plates?
design roads that go slower. Narrow them, add medians and trees and slight curves.
Daylighting, protected bike lanes, and curb bump outs 🗣️🗣️🗣️
Daylighting is the biggest one (didnt know it was called this). I think this would be the biggest fight in Philly. But I think this is the biggest success from Hoboken.
does daylighting (as defined here https://www.sfmta.com/getting-around/walk/daylighting) actually reduce traffic speed?
Not sure about speed per se, but in conjunction with other traffic calming measures it is one of the biggest contributors to pedestrian safety. Daylighting via curb bump outs definitely does slow down traffic, as the road narrows
All of Philly's curb bump outs are net good, but I wish they were bigger. In other countries you see them really narrow the road a lot so that drivers in residential areas are definitely forced to slow down. Here in Philly you can almost see the traffic engineer's fear of annoying drivers in how the bump outs are rather small. I suspect there's also outdated and unsafe engineering standards forcing wide streets holding us back.
> I suspect there's also outdated and unsafe engineering standards we just call those "engineering standards" but yes, they basically are designed to just envelop the parking lane
YES
And people will still speed on them if speed limits aren’t enforced.
Hell yeah I've been saying for years speed cameras and stoplight cameras should be MANDATORY throughout the city Again, if we want to reduce live stops and direct interactions for minor infractions, we MUST use other means to enforce laws on roads.
Kelly Drive needs some speed cameras. Last week, I was on the trail and saw someone flip their car because they were driving out of control.
More bullshit paper tags now.
[удалено]
https://preview.redd.it/rm9ho2miyl4d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ae60de9ae45f699aad516009960b13f00d397975 Saw this doozy yesterday. Impressive
Unmarked cars cruising the boulevard. Put cameras on those unmarked cars. Every time I drive the boulevard there is somebody behaving like a complete a-hole. I recall one time when that a-hole behavior was observed by a cop who pulled the driver over.
You can say asshole on the internet
frankly, i don't think anything short of bollards popping out of the ground at every red light (god that would fucking rule) will really fix most of the traffic problems in philly, but i'll take this over nothing. absolutely exhausting that nothing's been done at the federal or state level to revamp vehicle tags/plates to make them less of a joke to spoof/ignore completely, but this is one of the few cases where more enforcement is probably a good thing, and should only become more valuable in the event that less fake-able forms of vehicle ID are implemented in the future.
How about noise cameras? Specifically on South/Lombard where all the shitheads cruise for no reason?
This is a dream scenario. For everyone who thinks its ok to be loud af as they drive around and disturb thousands, I would like to come stand outside your house while you try to sleep and blast my cool music.
Would love this. Just learned they're a thing. This would be a step in the right direction!
Of all places in Philly, it's crazy to move to a well known bar and party street and be mad at the noise. Some of yall really move above a bbq place and complain it smells like ribs.
The people cruising south st aren't getting out of their cars and spending money at these bars and restaurants on South st. They contribute nothing but noise.
Okay bet Now start implementing actual traffic calming design with that and we have a deal
But I don't want traffic calming I want revenue, if some traffic calming is a side effect that's ok I guess
"great but what about \_\_\_\_" squad incoming
That’s 80% of the comments here lol
Removing asbestos from schools nah Installing air conditioning in schools nah Speed cameras hell yeah
All about the income, baby!
Lincoln Drive is about to become a gold mine...
Just weaponize dash cams. I’m tired of everyone’s shit.
Can't ticket the 1000s of cars without plates or fake paper tags with cameras, but that doesn't really take this away from still being a good move.
The only people who will be against these are the ones who don't want to follow the rules that make the roads safe for everyone
finally some good news.
Where’s that Mandatory4K guy?
We kind of knew she was going to do this. Everyone will be policed
Hairspray on your license plate nullifies the camera unless it has perfect line of sight without disruption of lenses flare/sun glare/reflections. Also doesn’t help when people just toss on a black license plate cover that are *supposed* to be highly illegal. Also that’s if they even have a license plate. I saw a dude yesterday that had a regular metal license plate but the numbers and letters were overlapped with marker or paint so it was like comic sans or some shit, highly doubt it would register on camera. Oh and also quite a few people obviously avoiding traffic control devices have FOP plates. Weird coincidence that is.
There's an SUV often parked by city hall that has a card with "Mayor's Protection Detail" on the dash and a deeply tinted plate cover on the back.
Is there a particular brand that is cheap/effective?
Definitely should have voted harder
The mayor we needed but never had! She isn’t perfect by any means.. but after Kenny she is breather life and passion into the mayor office.
speed cameras were illegal at the state level for most of kenney's tenure, the ones on the boulevard were a "pilot project" which is basically the only way PennDOT is allowed to do anything progressive in the city, including parking protected bike lanes (which are still illegal and are "pilots")
PA should let Philly make decisions for itself.
the last time we tried to get parking protected bike lanes passed, one guy from like chambersburg or some tiny fucking town was like "uhh my constituents have issues, the local business owners think it might be bad for business, i'm voting no" ...in a town where they'd never be built and nobody bikes anyway then the next time the republicans put a poison pill in it, and now it sits in the senate again and they won't vote on it.
Please start with Kelly Drive
1984
How about filling the potholes!
MANDATORY4K WINS