Lots Of Ideas For Speed Camera Money: City

No surprise, since we have such a professionally-run City staff, but Our Fair City has been thinking hard about what to do with the >potentially large annual income generated by the smattering of speed cameras throughout town. As we have mentioned before, in the first year it appears these cameras have generated upwards of $3 million in revenue (this will of course decline as people get used to the speed traps.

Rockville Central friend Christina Ginsberg had sent along a few good ideas for ways the City might direct the money.

Council member Piotr Gajewski was kind enough to share with me the City’s detailed response to Christina and at first glance it looks like the planning has been very thorough.

Here is the key section of the response:

The Departments have provided the following information in response to your comments. We hope that you find it to be helpful.

The City has already taken steps to carefully review traffic safety and associated needs as part of the process of budgeting and planning for the expenditure of speed camera revenue. The City budgets the speed camera funding based on the highest priority needs across the City. The use of this revenue is heavily reflected in the Fiscal Year (FY) 2009 budget. FY2009 begins on July 1, 2008 and will end on June 30, 2008.

In addition to the existing 3.5 full time equivalent positions (FTE’s) and the direct operating costs related to the Speed Camera program, the Fiscal Year (FY) 2009 budget will fund three Capital Improvement Projects (CIP), 2.5 new FTEs, and a consultant study as described below.

The three CIP projects are as follows:

• Pedestrian Bikeway System Improvements – $1,010,000 (page 52 of the Proposed CIP)
• Pedestrian Safety – $320,000 (page 75 of the Proposed CIP)
• Street Lighting Improvements – $100,000 (page 77 of the Proposed CIP)

The new 2.5 FTE’s are as follows:

• 0.5 FTE Civil Engineer II to assist with sidewalk design and other pedestrian safety measures
• 2.0 FTE Police Officers assigned to traffic enforcement
• These additional positions are summarized in the Full Time Equivalent Positions section on pages 1-9 through 1-11 of the Proposed Operating budget book

In addition to the three CIP projects and the new FTEs, the City budgeted $50,000 of Speed Camera funding to assess the City of Rockville’s inventory and condition of sidewalks, crosswalks, and curbcuts.

All of this information is presented in the FY 2009 Proposed Budget and will be included in the FY 2009 Adopted Budget. The FY 2009 Adopted Budget will not be available until late July. Please click on the attached link to view the information in the FY 2009 Proposed Budget.

The Traffic and Transportation Division in the Public Works Department has the Twinbrook Station developer working on a traffic calming project on Twinbrook Parkway (traffic circle at Linthicum Street) and this project is currently under design. The Division has also applied for a grant (Safe-Route-to-School, year 3) to add another traffic circle at Twinbrook Parkway at Pinneberg Avenue.

In recent years, the Traffic and Transportation Division added several crosswalks and fluorescent pedestrian crossing signs to improve pedestrian safety along Twinbrook Parkway. The Division will look at the intersection of Marshall Avenue/Twinbrook Parkway as suggested by Mr. Roberts. As for Baltimore Road, this street will be reviewed and studied in the next few months through the Baltimore Road Capital Improvements Project. The Traffic and Transportation Division expects to select a consultant by the end of July and to begin the public outreach in September.

The funds from speed cameras allocated in FY09 Capital Improvements Program for streetlight upgrades will specifically target the east side of Rockville (Twinbrook and ERCA). The Traffic and Transportation Division is currently working on this list of upgrades in response to the requests they received and in conjunction with the analysis they performed during the last few months. The list will be sent to Pepco for a cost estimate in July.

Now that’s a response.

But, we should not be surprised: it came from Linda Moran, who is one of six Rockville employees who recently won an award for their excellence in innovation.

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