Ottawa’s speeding, red light cameras raked in $26.6 million last year

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Ottawa has a new king of speed cameras.

In just three months operation after its installation at the beginning of March, the new Automated Speeding Enforcement camera at King Edward Avenue and Bruyère Street dished out 28,742 speeding tickets to drivers exceeding the posted 40 km/h speed limit.

Clearly, if you come at the king, you best not speed.

King Edward topped the 22,914 speeders caught in all of 2023 by last year’s top ticketer, the ASE at St. Laurent Boulevard opposite Rideau High School.

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This year that’s not even good enough for second place. That honour belongs to another new camera installed in February on Walkley Road near Halifax Drive. It issued 16,501 tickets between February and June, compared to 11,423 by the St. Laurent camera between January and June.

And, while Mayor Mark Sutcliffe has complained that the federal government is shortchanging Ottawa for Payment in Lieu of Taxes, the city’s automated speed cameras and red-light enforcement cameras haven’t let him down. Together their unblinking eyes brought in more than $26 million in traffic fines in 2023.

Speed cameras accounted for $14.3 million of that total. First installed in 2020, the number of cameras has grown from eight that year to 40 today.

Red-light cameras have been around longer, beginning with six installed in 2000 and growing to 85 in use today. In 2023, red-light cameras resulted in 56,475 charges and generated nearly $12.3 million in revenue. A breakdown of the number of violators caught by each camera is not available on the Open Ottawa website.

Meanwhile, city data show the cameras seem to be effective at reducing speeds, at least while drivers are passing the cameras.

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Open Ottawa data show that, in June 2022, the average speed of cars at the St. Laurent camera was 50 km/h, with 60 per cent of drivers complying with the speed limit and only 2.9 per cent identified as “high-end speeders,” defined as exceeding the limit by 15 km/h or more. A year later, in June 2023, the average speed was 47 km/h with 75 per cent compliance and just 1.4 per cent high-end speeders. The numbers have fallen again this year, with an average speed of 45 km/h, 85 per cent compliance and 0.4 per cent high-end speeders in June 2024.

The King Edward Avenue camera recorded an average speed of 36 km/h in March 2024, the first month of data available, with 68 per cent compliance and 2.9 per cent high-end speeders. By June, the average speed past the camera was 33 km/h, compliance was 81 per cent and just one per cent of drivers were high-end speeders.

Rideau-Vanier Coun. Stéphanie Plante says she’s not surprised that the King Edward ASE is nabbing so many speeders, but says cameras are only a small part of making roads safer.

“It’s only part of a larger discussion we have to have about King Edward. Like, why do we have a truck route through a low-income area?” she said. “As long as we think of King Edward as a truck route, we’re not going to solve this problem.”

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An ASE ticket is delivered by mail and includes a photo of the car and licence plate along with the date and time of the infraction. Each photo is reviewed by a bylaw officer, who must sign off on the ticket before it’s mailed. The cameras are also regularly checked to make sure they record speeds accurately.

The fine, along with a victim surcharge, is on a sliding scale depending on the speed. The ticket carries no demerit points since the cameras cannot identify who is driving the vehicle. Likewise, an ASE or red-light ticket does not affect insurance rates.

The money generated by the cameras is used to help pay for the city’s road safety action plan, which funds everything from intersection improvements to motorcycle safety courses to giving out lights and reflective gear to cyclists and pedestrians.

But ASE cameras are not without their critics, many of whom have received a ticket or two in the mail. Doug Crosse was mad enough to make a plea to the city’s transportation committee. Yes, the cameras do seem to slow speeders, Crosse says, but poor signage and roads where the speed limit varies by time of day — 30, 40 or 50 km/h — trip up many unwary drivers.

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“The signage for what the speed is set so far away from the camera zone, and the fact that so many of these cameras are set up in variable-speed zones depending on the time of day, it just leaves a lot of room for confusion,” Crosse said.

“There’s a little too much guessing go on. People want to comply, but they also don’t want to get caught out by not knowing what the speed is.”

Like it or not, automated speed enforcement is not only here to stay, it’s also expanding. In February, Ottawa city council voted to spend another $2.4 million to increase the program from the present 40 cameras to 60. Eight of those will be part of a pilot project in rural villages, where there are currently no cameras.

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