The District’s two newest speed cameras accounted for nearly 30 percent of fines issued in December, when the program collected a record $2.98 million.
Stationary cameras in the 600 block of New York Avenue Northeast and in the 3400 block of Benning Road Northeast generated 28,786 of the 99,457 reported violations in the District in December, statistics compiled by the Metropolitan Police Department show.
The two zones generated $863,580 worth of fines for the District’s traffic-enforcement program, which has collected more than $129 million since 1999. The minimum fine under the photo-radar program is $30.
The speed cameras have generated nearly $95 million in fines since their inception in 2001, including a record $28.9 million last year, statistics show.
The city’s 49 red-light cameras have generated more than $34 million since 1999, including $5.2 million last year, statistics show.
Metropolitan Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey said the results justified deployment at the two newest locations, where photo-radar enforcement began in October. He said numbers will decrease as motorists become more aware of the cameras’ presence.
“The two locations have high numbers of speeders, which is why we put [the cameras] there,” Chief Ramsey said. “The numbers should drop after people realize it’s an automated enforcement zone.”
The New York Avenue zone generated at least $538,110 worth of fines. The location produced 17,937 citations, or 18 percent of reported violations in the District.
The northbound Third Street Tunnel in Northwest produced the second highest number of citations, with 14,955.
The Benning Road location was the third highest, generating 10,849 citations, or about 11 percent of the program’s total. The zone generated at least $325,470 in fines.
The cameras at the New York Avenue and Benning Road locations have not been upgraded to track the total number of vehicles monitored, said Kevin Morison, a spokesman for Chief Ramsey.
The department has maintained that safety, not revenue, drives the decisions concerning the program and that city officials have minimal influence in determining enforcement zones.
The 49 traffic fatalities in the District last year marked an increase from 45 the previous year, police said.
Police do not have any statistics showing a correlation between the automated enforcement program and a reduction in traffic deaths or crashes.
Some motorists said they have sped through monitored zones without being cited.
Lt. Byron Hope of the police department’s traffic safety division said no record is kept on camera failures but that the devices generally catch all violations.
“The only way a vehicle should be able to pass through without being photographed is if it wasn’t speeding or if multiple vehicles passed through the zone at the time,” Lt. Hope said.
Mayor Anthony A. Williams has called revenue from the cameras “ancillary” to safety, but has said the city relies on the revenue generated from the fines to help close budget deficits.
Revenue from the automated-enforcement system is deposited into the city’s general fund. The D.C. government announced last week that the city ended fiscal 2005 with a surplus of $370 million in its general fund.
The contract between the city and Affiliated Computer Services Inc. (ACS), the Dallas-based company that operates the cameras, was long scrutinized before it was modified.
Under a no-bid deal approved in 2004, the company received a flat monthly fee of about $650,000 but stood to earn more money if the District issued more than 53,750 citations in any given month.
The new agreement pays ACS $7.2 million for the automated enforcement program.
The contract, which went into effect Jan. 6 and runs through September, pays ACS a flat fee of about $850,000 per month. The provision for a tiered payment structure for additional citations was omitted.
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