Photo radar on target to be operational in Burlington by 2024

Burlington’s plan to implement photo radar on city streets is on target and should be up and running by next year.

The City recently updated its vision of the program highlighting its benefits to the community.

Officially called Automated Speed Enforcement (ASE), the program will see the box-type equipment stationed along targeted enforcement areas but their portability will allow them to be moved to different areas as needed, mostly on a three-month rotational basis.

The initial plan calls for two of the ASE devices in Burlington, but that number is expected to grow over the next several years.

The City says the devices have several benefits and are fundamental in creating community safety zones, the foremost being they can slow down speeders on neighbourhood streets.

“These are local streets where you really can’t have a police presence 24/7. It’s where we have tried other measures like stop signs or traffic calming measures like speed bumps,” Mayor Marianne Meed Ward told inhalton.com earlier this year. “We’re hoping to review streets, we will do that this year and start to install speed cameras in 2024.”

Photo radar — or ASE — is considered by law enforcement agencies to be an effective tool to control speeding and to increase public awareness about safety.

Fines and penalties can vary but seem to offer enough of a deterrent to slow drivers down.

The program is already used in several other Ontario municipalities and has shown to be a deterrent against aggressive drivers, according to policing data.

As explained in Burlington’s budget book; “an ASE system uses a combination of cameras and speed-measuring equipment to record vehicle speed and takes a photograph of the vehicle’s license plates. The data is then retrieved from the ASE system and reviewed by Provincial Offenses Officers to confirm a speeding offense has occurred and if so, provide notice of the offense for processing through either the local Provincial Offences court system or a municipality’s Administrative Penalties system.”

The City says it is launching the program in response to the number of citizen requests for speed enforcement in their neighbourhoods.