New Calgary Police car?

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by calgarygeologist

They reduced the number of sites not the enforcement capacity. They will have the same amount of officers, vehicles and hours but will monitor fewer sites.

Yes, that’s what I said. If a particular playground wasn’t a photo radar site before, it isn’t now. This move is not at all concerned with increasing safety.

EDIT: If we’re going on the line that these were “cash cows” then we should also assume this will reduce enforcement capacity as well as revenue decreases.

[calgarygeologist]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

Yes, that’s what I said. If a particular playground wasn’t a photo radar site before, it isn’t now. This move is not at all concerned with increasing safety.

It is unfair to make that claim though because if they have actually reduced or eliminated sites which are purely fishing opportunities it will have minimal impact on safety there but if the remaining sites see a decrease in speed related incidents due to increased enforcement it would be a win.

[btimbit]

Originally Posted by Acey

It's there right now. Blue SUV.

Oh crazy. I just assumed they stopped that site, granted I'm always going by at different times than I used too

[getbak]

Is the change to the law also getting rid of the red light/speed on green cameras, or just the photo radar?

[calgarygeologist]

Originally Posted by getbak

Is the change to the law also getting rid of the red light/speed on green cameras, or just the photo radar?

I read that speed on green is gone but the red light cameras can stay.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by calgarygeologist

It is unfair to make that claim though because if they have actually reduced or eliminated sites which are purely fishing opportunities it will have minimal impact on safety there but if the remaining sites see a decrease in speed related incidents due to increased enforcement it would be a win.

It’s not unfair at all, it’s a fact. The changes are totally geared towards a reduction in sites with the purpose of reducing the amount of revenue (that funny thing that pays for enforcement capacity) generated by photo radar.

To add any sites, including in the approved areas, the city police will have to apply and have it approved by the UCP.

So if Acey, who apparently cares about one specific playground zone in the name of safety thinks it was hard getting photo radar there before, just wait until the same police force, with less resources, has to not only deem it important themselves, but then go and prove it’s importance to the provincial government. Of course, they could enforce the playground zone in other ways, but then there’s the whole reduced resources thing. Bit of a shame, really.

But hey, at least nobody has to worry about getting a ticket for speeding through the zone they know photo radar exists in. Score one for the idiots out there. Another win for them.

[getbak]

Originally Posted by Acey

School zones, playground zones, construction zones... and that's it.

Is there a requirement that there actually needs to be construction work taking place in order to set up there and not one of those situations where it's, "Work is being done Monday to Friday from 8 to 5, so we're setting up a photo radar at 9pm on a Saturday?"

[Acey]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

Sorry, it doesn’t accomplish anything meaningful.

In case you missed the same memo, they reduced the number of radar sites by 70%, they didn’t add any. So unfortunately you haven’t actually solved what was supposedly your main issue with it.

My issue is not specific to the playground zone near me, it's the lack of enforcement at playground/construction/school zones in lieu of the fishing holes. Given that they are now restricted to only those three areas, all new sites added will be in one of these three types of areas.

In the 30 minute CPS chief rant, he explains the length of time it takes for them to determine that a site is worthy of photo radar, so obviously a million playground zones aren't immediately going to be photo radar sites on April 1. This isn't as big a victory for those in favour of the idiot tax as you think it is.

Any site added after April 1 will have an impact on safety. Acey has won.

[TorqueDog]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

Yup. And I think safety is a better/more important goal and would support exchanging one for the other, but I have a hard time buying that as the primary motive for most people’s issue when it comes to the “cash grab” spots considering it was over 20 posts before it was brought up.

Literally eight posts in by my count...


To that point, if they aren’t using the intervening time between the announcement and April 1st to evaluate which school and playground zones are worthy of enforcement to hit the ground running on day one, that is a massive failure on the part of the City and CPS.

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

Sorry, it doesn’t accomplish anything meaningful.

In case you missed the same memo, they reduced the number of radar sites by 70%, they didn’t add any. So unfortunately you haven’t actually solved what was supposedly your main issue with it.

You have a massive blind spot on this issue, huh. The sites this change removed are the ones outside of playground, school, and construction zones. Municipalities don’t need permission to operate in those exempted areas as far as everything I’ve seen indicates, meaning literally every photo radar vehicle in the fleet can / should now be deployed to those zones. To say that isn’t something meaningful is to fail to understand what anyone not on your side of the argument has been saying up to this point.

[woob]

Put the photo radar in playground zones at 7:30pm all winter long. They’d make a killing.

[Calgary]

Police uniforms and fleet is too intimidating!

[WhiteTiger]

Originally Posted by getbak

Is there a requirement that there actually needs to be construction work taking place in order to set up there and not one of those situations where it's, "Work is being done Monday to Friday from 8 to 5, so we're setting up a photo radar at 9pm on a Saturday?"

Construction zones are in place for more reasons than just worker safety, you do realize?

[Acey]

I dunno why it didn't occur to me to actually check the list, but it's certainly in favour of my argument. The 70% of sites being eliminated must be province-wide, because 72% of Calgary's listed sites are already playgrounds.

The city has 420 sites listed on their website. Of those, 305 are playground zones. They just don't staff them, because they prefer to staff the ~40 fishing holes on Deerfoot/Stoney/Glenmore/Airport Tr.

Needless to say, this argument that there is no possible increase in safety because there's nowhere for them to go holds zero water. They have a massive number of identified sites that they simply choose not to staff because nailing rental cars in a road with zero pedestrians is more lucrative.

https://www.calgary.ca/content/dam/w...e_20200715.pdf

For what it's worth, the playground zone outside my door is not identified, but a nearby school zone is. In 2 years I have not once seen them setup in that school zone, despite being listed. Not once ever. I'd estimate they're on Airport Trail about 160 days a year. Tell me more about how this isn't a cash grab.

[indes]

Originally Posted by calgarygeologist

Let's not forget the Alberta NDP were the ones that started these police funding cutbacks by restricting the usage of photo radar.

Whew! Glad you're here to let us know that the UCP has had 6 years to reverse course on this awful policy, but has yet again been too busy making sure everything in our lives costs more.

Is your point that every tax is a stupid tax when the money goes to the UCP?

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by woob

Put the photo radar in playground zones at 7:30pm all winter long. They’d make a killing.

Perfect. See, then it’s “safety” so it’s exactly what TorqueDog and Acey can pretend they wanted. “Every site added or photo radar set up after April 1 will increase safety!”

Genius, really.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Acey

Tell me more about how this isn't a cash grab.

Instead of inventing strawmen because your safety argument fell apart why give it another go and explain how restricting photo radar only to areas that are already speed-reduced and removing a large portion of the budget (you know, the thing that pays for all that enforcement) makes us “safer.”

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by TorqueDog

Municipalities don’t need permission to operate in those exempted areas as far as everything I’ve seen indicates, meaning literally every photo radar vehicle in the fleet can / should now be deployed to those zones. To say that isn’t something meaningful is to fail to understand what anyone not on your side of the argument has been saying up to this point.

Going for the triple post score here but…. they effectively reduced the police budget by anywhere from 10-20% with this move (based on the budget, revenue from photo radar, sites reduced, etc.). Tell me again how I’m the one who fails to understand while you’re the one who thinks they’ll magically maintain the exact same service level with tens of millions of dollars shaved off their operating budget?

“They can just move em all over!”

Come on man lol

[calgarygeologist]

Originally Posted by indes

Whew! Glad you're here to let us know that the UCP has had 6 years to reverse course on this awful policy, but has yet again been too busy making sure everything in our lives costs more.

Is your point that every tax is a stupid tax when the money goes to the UCP?

I wanted to give the NDP some kudos for actually doing something right and kicking off the restrictions on photo radar usage.

[Acey]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

Instead of inventing strawmen because your safety argument fell apart why give it another go and explain how restricting photo radar only to areas that are already speed-reduced and removing a large portion of the budget (you know, the thing that pays for all that enforcement) makes us “safer.”

Ah yes, playground zones are speed-reduced therefore they require no enforcement because people abide by the limit. My point is obviously that people are not abiding by the speed limits in those areas. If you don't believe that slowing down traffic in a playground zone has a bigger impact on safety than slowing down traffic in the middle of nowhere on Airport Trail then I don't know what else to tell you; I already conceded the point that there will be a massive decrease in revenue.

The only reason we ever got to this point was a highly irresponsisble deployment of photo radar by muncipalities like Calgary who pretended it was about safety by identifying playground and school zones, but deploying them only at fishing holes.

If, instead of sitting on Airport Trail 180 days a year, they occasionally would hit a playground zone or two... then maybe Albertans would not have developed such hatred for the program and feverishly complained to the extent that your beloved idiot tax is now gone.

The very thing you love so much about photo radar is what killed it.

[calgarygeologist]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

Going for the triple post score here but…. they effectively reduced the police budget by anywhere from 10-20% with this move (based on the budget, revenue from photo radar, sites reduced, etc.). Tell me again how I’m the one who fails to understand while you’re the one who thinks they’ll magically maintain the exact same service level with tens of millions of dollars shaved off their operating budget?

“They can just move em all over!”

Come on man lol

They did not reduce the budget by 10 to 20 percent. The 2023 annual statement for CPS indicates that revenue from all fines and penalties was under 6% of total revenue. Fines and penalties were budgeted at around 8% for 2024.