EDMONDS — New red light cameras will soon monitor south county commuters at two Edmonds intersections.
After more than an hour of discussion Tuesday, the City Council approved cameras at two intersections that saw more than a dozen crashes in total between 2020 and 2022.
“These things happen at a rate that is unacceptable for our community,” council member Susan Paine said.
One watchpoint will be at the intersection of 220th Street SW and Highway 99, where about 20,000 cars pass through it per day.
The second post will be 100th Avenue W and Edmonds Way, an intersection with about 13,000 cars per day.
The cameras will automatically take photos of license plates that run red lights. After a 30-day grace period, offenders will see a $130 fine for running a red light.
City spokesperson Kelsey Foster said it will “be awhile” until the cameras are installed. The city doesn’t yet know how many cameras will watch each intersection, Foster said.
Edmonds already operates five automated speed cameras, installed in January at intersections in four school zones.
In a 30-day grace period earlier this year, the city sent warnings to nearly 900 drivers without fines.
The council approved installing the red light cameras 5-2, with council members Jenna Nand and Michelle Dotsch opposed.
Nand said the public might think the cameras are a tool to generate revenue for city government, at a time when its budget is tight.
Traffic cameras along Highway 99 would “essentially create toll roads,” she said.
“The vast majority of the cameras are targeted toward low-income, multi-ethnic parts of our community along Highway 99,” Nand said.
Other council members denied this, saying the main reasoning is to improve pedestrian and traffic safety.
“If your behavior is legal and you’re following the law, you really have no reason to be concerned,” council member Chris Eck said.
Council member Dotsch noted the intersections are two of the main access points in and out of the city. She thought the choices were more about traffic volume than safety.
From 2020 to 2022, nearly 40 crashes took place at intersections along Highway 99 in Edmonds, according to an Edmonds Police Department report to the council in February.
Nand called it “problematic” that the city isn’t placing cameras in wealthier neighborhoods.
The council shot down an amendment from Nand that would have committed all the revenue to traffic safety improvements within a half-mile of the new cameras, as well as an amendment that would have ended the cameras’ use after five years.
The council had the option to install up to nine red light cameras across the city, six of which would’ve been along Highway 99.
Only adding two cameras might not change driver behavior too much, but nine could make a bigger impact, Eck said.
“If this saves one life, we will have gained quite a bit,” she said.
The council favored a smaller-scale pilot program to roll out the cameras.
At a town hall in 2021, Police Chief Michelle Bennett said she wanted to see all school zone crossings and traffic infractions monitored by cameras.
Near Horizon Elementary in Everett, speeding in school zones dropped 70% after speed cameras turned on in April, city officials said.
In Lynnwood, where red light cameras went live in 2011, crashes in monitored intersections have decreased more than 70%, according to a Lynnwood Police Department report.
The cameras will cost $4,750 each per month.
Correction: A previous version of this article misstated the number of cameras that will be installed. That number has not yet been determined.
Jenelle Baumbach: 360-352-8623; jenelle.baumbach@heraldnet.com; Twitter: @jenelleclar.
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