Edmonton council exploring new traffic enforcement options after photo radar reduction
Posted April 23, 2025 4:15 pm.
Last Updated April 23, 2025 10:45 pm.
With photo radar being restricted to only school, construction, and playground zones since April 1, Edmonton city councillors are looking into alternative traffic enforcement options to keep the city streets safe.
City councillors voted unanimously Tuesday to explore tools other than cameras to deter speeding.
One city councillor says the province needs to step up with money for more officers because Alberta has made the city’s speeding problem worse.
“It’s irresponsible to take something away without leaving an alternative. It’s like if they banned fire extinguishers without having an alternative, right?” said Michael Janz, Edmonton City Councillor for Ward Papastew.
A spokesperson for the province’s transportation minister says Alberta is already funding 50 new police officers in Edmonton and has created $13 million in funds to improve roadway engineering to reduce crashes.
Minister Devin Dreeshen has recently said that cameras were often used as a cash cow, and they did not always improve safety.
However, police and municipal leaders in both Edmonton and Calgary have disputed that.
“I think it has conditioned the society to slow down,” said Dan Jones, NorQuest College Justice Studies Chair.
RELATED:
Jones, who was a former police officer and now a criminologist, says when he wore a badge, photo radar freed him up to fight more serious crimes, but he doubts the current system will catch many speeders or generate more money.
“If you get caught in a school zone now, and that bright yellow truck is in front of you, you are not paying attention to anything else. People are going to slow down when they see the big yellow truck,” added Jones.
The province has also banned the “speed on green” function on intersection cameras, which used to issue about 300,000 tickets a year.
However, red light tickets are still being issued. About 50,000 are mailed to drivers by Edmonton each year.
The city’s decision to look for alternative enforcement options didn’t go down well with some Edmontonians.
One person said, “Just do nothing and let us drive,” while another said, “I would bring back the cameras and have a slightly stricter policy.” Another said, “If you don’t speed, you don’t have a problem with photo radar at all.”
However, Janz is concerned that more people will be injured, and fatalities will increase due to less enforcement. He says there is no obvious solution to the speeding problem and believes the province has made it worse. Janz says officers are expensive and can’t be at an intersection all the time, like cameras.
“Right now, the province is taking money away from the police or is asking us to take the police away from gang members to put them on the corners where the cameras used to be. This is not smart politics, neither is it smart on safety,” Janz said.
City administrators will explore other options and the costs to report back to councillors in the fall.
