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800K speeding tickets on Broad Street in 7 months
Nearly 800,000 speeding violations and warnings were recorded on Broad Street in seven months, per a new Philadelphia Parking Authority report.
PHILADELPHIA - Philadelphia's speed camera program on Broad Street recorded close to 800,000 speeding violations and warnings in the first seven months of its operation, according to a new annual report from the Philadelphia Parking Authority. The Authority says violations are down 67 percent since cameras were installed along one of the city's busiest roads.
What we know:
Thirty-one cameras at 15 sites along Broad Street caught nearly 800,000 enforceable speeding events since last September, the new report says.
About 464,000 were warnings and 335,000 were actual violations.
Most violations involved drivers going 11 to 19 miles an hour over the posted speed limit.
The number of violations peaked at more than 213,000 in October before dropping to about 70,000 in March—a decrease of 67 percent, according to the Parking Authority.
"This is a program to really encourage behavioral change, and what we want to see is violations go down. We want to see fewer people speeding because we know when that happens people's lives are saved and the streets are safer," said Gabe Roberts, interim executive director of the Philadelphia Parking Authority.
Speed camera enforcement is expanding to the Route 13 corridor from West to Northeast Philadelphia, with a warning period underway before tickets start going out. The Parking Authority says its speed camera program on Roosevelt Boulevard, begun in 2020, has seen violations drop 95 percent.
Mixed reactions from drivers and update on reversed violations
What they're saying:
Some drivers are unhappy with the speed cameras on Broad Street. "I got five tickets in one day. Five. It don't make sense," one driver said. Another said, "Moneygrab is for sure. I got at least 8 tickets in the same month."
Others point to the difficulty of maintaining the speed limit. "It's hard to go 25 miles an hour. You look at the thing, it's going faster than you think," one driver said. "All of a sudden, you get a ticket. A hundred bucks."
What's next:
More than 23,000 violations at a North Philadelphia camera are being reversed after the Parking Authority operated the camera for months without a sign identifying its presence. Refunds are being issued for those tickets.
The Source: Information from the Philadelphia Parking Authority's annual speed camera report.