"The City has a contract with ATS which gives us the flexibility to add additional red light safety cameras to address intersection safety. We have received feedback from law enforcement officials and residents regarding dangerous intersections. We asked ATS to test those intersections for potential violations and the results indicated a dangerous level of red light running. It was dangerous enough that we felt it was appropriate to add cameras to those intersections in an effort to change driver behavior."Under the terms of its initial contract with ATS, the city keeps $68.67 of each $100 citation collected from violators. To date that has meant some $17 million in revenue for the city since the cameras went up roughly five years ago. ATS gets to keep the difference ($31.33 per citation) in return for installing and operating the cameras at no cost to the city.
Surprisingly, perhaps, the mayor's office tells Daily RFT that it's seen no decline in payments since Neill's ruling in February. And while the city says it could issue warrants for those who ignore the tickets or fail to appear in court, it chooses not to do so. Instead, it sends unpaid tickets to a Texas-based collections agency, which last we checked, could not impact someone's credit rating should they choose to ignore the collection agency as well.
A list of intersections scheduled to get cameras this year follows:
