BILL ANALYSIS
SENATE TRANSPORTATION & HOUSING COMMITTEE BILL NO: ab 2729
SENATOR ALAN LOWENTHAL, CHAIRMAN AUTHOR: ammiano
VERSION: 4/26/10
Analysis by: Jennifer Gress FISCAL: no
Hearing date: June 22, 2010
SUBJECT:
Automated traffic enforcement system: City and County of San
Francisco
DESCRIPTION:
This bill authorizes, until January 1, 2014, the City and County
of San Francisco to use an automated traffic enforcement system
(i.e., red light cameras) to enforce a prohibition against
turning at a specified intersection.
ANALYSIS:
Existing law authorizes the use of automated traffic enforcement
systems at railroad crossings and intersections to record
violations of unlawful grade crossings and red light running.
Only a governmental agency, in cooperation with a law
enforcement agency, may operate an automated enforcement system.
"Operating" a system means that a governmental agency does the
following:
Develops uniform guidelines for screening and issuing
violations, processing and storing confidential information,
and selecting locations where automated enforcements systems
will be utilized.
Establishes procedures to ensure compliance with those
guidelines.
Certifies that the equipment is properly installed and
calibrated and is operating properly.
Ensures that the equipment is regularly inspected.
AB 2729 (AMMIANO) Page 2
Inspects and maintains signs that warn drivers that an
automated enforcement system is in use. These signs must be
visible to traffic approaching an intersection where an
automated enforcement system operates and clearly identify the
presence of the camera system at that intersection.
Oversees the establishment or change of signal phases and
timing. The yellow light change interval must be established
in accordance with the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control
Devices, which is maintained by the California Department of
Transportation.
Maintains controls necessary to assure that only those
citations that law enforcement personnel have reviewed and
approved are delivered to violators.
A governmental agency may contract out its duties to certify
that the equipment is installed and operating properly and to
ensure that the equipment is regularly inspected, provided the
agency maintains overall control and supervision of the system.
Prior to entering into a contract with a vendor to implement an
automated enforcement system, the legislative body of the local
government (e.g., city council or county board of supervisors)
must conduct a public hearing on the proposed use of the system.
A contract between a governmental agency and a vendor of
automated enforcement equipment may not include a provision for
payment to the vendor based on the number of citations issued or
the amount of revenue generated, unless the contract was entered
into prior to January 1, 2004.
Prior to issuing citations, an agency utilizing an automated
traffic enforcement system must make a public announcement of
the system and issue only warning notices for 30 days. A peace
officer or "qualified employee" of a law enforcement agency
reviews the photographs and issues citations, as appropriate. A
citation involves a "notice to appear," which must use a form
approved by the Judicial Council and contain particular
information, including the name and address of the registered
owner of the vehicle identified in the photograph, the license
plate number of the vehicle, the violation charged, and the time
and place when the person may appear in court. A notice to
appear must be mailed within 15 days of the alleged violation to
the current address of the registered owner of the vehicle.
AB 2729 (AMMIANO) Page 3
This bill :
Authorizes, until January 1, 2014, the City and County of San
Francisco to use an automated traffic enforcement system to
enforce a prohibition against turning from Market Street onto
the Central Freeway located at Octavia Boulevard, provided the
system meets all of the requirements established in existing
law for red light cameras.
Requires San Francisco to provide a report to the Senate
Committee on Transportation and Housing and the Assembly
Committee on Transportation on the safety and traffic flow
impacts that have resulted from the use of an automated
traffic enforcement system by January 1, 2014.
COMMENTS:
1.Purpose . The Market-Octavia-Central Freeway intersection in
San Francisco is located at the juncture of three
neighborhoods with large bicycling and walking populations -
the Mission, Castro, and Hayes Valley. While right turns are
prohibited from Market Street onto the on-ramp for the Central
Freeway due to the high volume of pedestrian and bicycle
traffic on Market Street, the Market-Octavia-Central Freeway
intersection experiences a high rate of collisions due to
vehicles making unlawful right turns at the intersection and
hitting cyclists and pedestrians traveling on Market Street
toward downtown.
From 2002 to 2006, the intersection was listed among the top
five locations with the highest incidence of
automobile-bicycle collisions in the city. These collisions
have continued through 2007 sometimes with tragic results.
Market Street is considered to be San Francisco's main street,
serving as a primary walking, cycling, driving, and public
transit corridor.
In December 2007, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation
Authority (SFMTA) installed a concrete barrier island and
reflective signage to deter the illegal turns. The
intersection nevertheless experienced the highest total number
of injury collisions of any intersection in San Francisco in
2008 with nine reported collisions. Since the barrier was
installed, the author believes that drivers violating the law
and turning illegally are doing so willfully and that
automated enforcement is the best way to improve cyclist and
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pedestrian safety at this busy intersection.
2.Will automated enforcement help ? Based on data provided by
the author's office, after the opening of Octavia Boulevard on
September 9, 2005, SFMTA observed that while the majority of
drivers complied with the prohibition on turning right onto
the Central Freeway, a sizable minority began to violate it.
Traffic counts conducted during the morning commute hours in
September 2005, January 2006, and October 2006 found an
average of 29.5 illegal right turns per hour. Based on those
observations, SFMTA took several engineering measures to
reduce right turns, including erecting extensive signage,
painting a white "island" on the roadway, and installing
safe-hit posts separating the bicycle lane and the right-most
vehicle lane as the lanes approach the intersection.
Traffic counts conducted between February 2007 and May 2007
immediately following these measures revealed an average of
only two illegal right turns during the morning commute hours,
a 93 percent reduction.
Despite the reduction in the number of motorists turning right
illegally, the number of collisions between bicycles and
illegally right-turning vehicles actually increased during
that same time period. Between September 2005 and January
2007, that intersection saw five collisions occurring between
bicyclists and right-turning vehicles, a rate of 0.3 per
month. After the installation of those measures, six such
collisions occurred between February 2007 and December 2007,
an increase in the collision rate to 0.6 per month.
In December 2007, SFMTA replaced the painted traffic island
with a raised concrete island, installed object markers on the
island, installed new safe-hits and striping approaching the
intersection, and adjusted the lane extension markings through
the intersection. Between December 2007 and July 31, 2008,
SFMTA continued to observe very few right-turn violations
(traffic count data collected on January 15 and 16, 2008
revealed a total of one and zero illegal turns, respectively),
but collisions continued to occur at a rate of 0.6 per month.
In summary, SFMTA has implemented a number of engineering
measures to the intersection that have proven successful in
reducing the number of right-turn violations. While the
violations have decreased, the collision rate has increased,
suggesting that the correlation between violations and
AB 2729 (AMMIANO) Page 5
collisions is not as strong as previously thought or that the
engineering measures may be inadvertently increasing the
likelihood of a collision when a violation does occur.
It is unclear how increased enforcement will address this
issue. While the effectiveness of using automated traffic
enforcement to deter drivers from making specific turns has
not been evaluated, red light cameras have been shown to
reduce, but not eliminate, red light running violations and
collisions associated with those violations. Automated
enforcement may be successful in reducing violations at this
intersection in San Francisco, but it is unlikely to eliminate
them and the underlying problem appears to be the risk of
collision when a violation does occur.
Finally, it is unclear how much the city has increased the
presence of law enforcement at this intersection or whether
the presence of an enforcement officer might have the same
deterrent effect as the automated system. While automated
systems have the capacity to capture more violators than a
police officer could on site, having an actual law enforcement
officer issuing citations may provide greater opportunity to
educate the violator of the dangers of turning right at that
intersection.
3.Expanding authority . This bill expands the authority to use
an automated traffic enforcement system, which is currently
limited to capturing red light running and illegal grade
crossings, to include the enforcement of unlawful turns.
Furthermore, the bill limits the use of the system to a single
intersection, rather than authorizing its use for this purpose
statewide. What standard does this particular intersection
meet to warrant expanding the use of red light cameras to
enforce other traffic laws? The committee may wish to
consider whether it wishes to establish a precedent of
expanding the use of automated traffic enforcement and doing
so for a single situation without defining a clear standard or
threshold to justify its use in that situation.
4.Earlier sunset date . Under this bill, the authority to use an
automated enforcement system expires after three years. SFMTA
should, however, be able to determine whether the system has
resulted in a reduction of collisions after one year. If the
bill moves forward, the committee may wish to consider an
amendment to limit the length of time that the City and County
of San Francisco may use the system from three years to one
AB 2729 (AMMIANO) Page 6
year to further narrow the scope of the bill.
5.Recent legislation . AB 23 (Ma), 2008, contained nearly
identical provisions as this bill does, but did not include a
sunset date or a reporting requirement. Failed passage in the
Senate Transportation and Housing Committee.
Assembly Votes:
Floor: 49-24
Trans: 10-2
POSITIONS: (Communicated to the Committee before noon on
Wednesday,
June 16, 2010)
SUPPORT: City and County of San Francisco (co-sponsor)
San Francisco Bicycle Coalition (co-sponsor)
Hayes Valley Neighborhood Association
North Mission Neighborhood Alliance
Walk San Francisco
1 individual
OPPOSED: California Conference Board of the Amalgamated
Transit Union
California Teamsters Public Affairs Council