'We have to move faster': Waterloo regional councillors want more automated speed enforcement sites

Waterloo regional council are looking to accelerate the creation of automated speed enforcement sites across the region.

At Tuesday’s meeting, regional staff presented a plan to double the number of automated speed enforcement sites in the region to 32 this year, but councillors wanted to see even more cameras added at a faster pace.

“This is moving too slow,” Coun. Rob Deutschmann told the meeting. “I hear the suggestion we’re going to 32 sites, but that’s not 32 cameras. The conversation seems to get conflated between sites and cameras. Thirty-two sites means we’re moving two cameras around to 32 sites. That’s not sufficient. That’s not safe for our community. We have to move faster on this.”

Staff said a new system to process the number of tickets that would be issued as a result of those cameras is needed to expand the program.

“The order of magnitude of getting to 32, basically a factor of two or three compared to today, is really capped by our capacity to process the number of offences,” commissioner for transportation services Mathieu Goetzke said. “I think what’s on the critical path first is that administrative processing system.”

Staff asked for the green light to explore a new case management system for penalties.

Currently, there are 16 sites at schools across the region.

Staff also want to look at potentially adding automated speed enforcement at all of the region’s schools, about 175 sites in total. That led to a discussion about how enforcement programs shouldn’t be limited to schools.

Some township councillors raised concerns about speeding in rural areas and specifically at entrances into towns.

Waterloo Mayor Dorothy McCabe suggested the region should “be really aggressive” about tackling the issue.

“We need to move faster,” she said. “I could use more than 32 in Waterloo.”

Kitchener Mayor Berry Vrbanovic also asked if staff could look more closely at all options for processing penalties, saying automated speed enforcement can essentially be self-funding.

Goetzke noted the end goal is that speeding and therefore revenue from automated enforcement decreases.

“The ultimate hope is that we’re not going to get a lot of offences from it, so it will not be a self-sustaining program,” Goetzke said.

Council agreed to have staff bring back a “roadmap for a rapid implementation plan” of automated speed enforcement by the second quarter of 2023.