COMMENTARY
Bruce Andriatch: Intersection camera idea wise but futile
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Lancaster Mayor William Cansdale is the kind of driver who doesn’t automatically pull forward the second the traffic light at Broadway and Central Avenue turns green. Good thing. Otherwise, we might be talking about the kind of driver he was.
“A couple of times if I would have pulled out when the light changed, I would have been taken out by a tractor-trailer,” he said last week.
Motorists who are familiar with the intersection in the village can pause here to nod along. They probably have seen the truckers who think of that light more as a suggestion than as a demand.
Hoping to prevent a tragedy, Cansdale proposed what he thought was a reasonable idea that he knew was being done in other communities: a red-light camera. He read that Buffalo was getting the traffic-monitoring cameras to cut down on accidents, and he figured that it made perfect sense for Lancaster to get one.
Silly mayor. Didn’t he know that although the majority of the population in Erie County lives—and therefore drives— outside the City of Buffalo, the only place that is allowed to have these cameras is the City of Buffalo?
“I found that out,” he said.
The State Legislature passed a law saying that cities could install the cameras, which are used with differing levels of effectiveness across the country. The stated reason is to cut down on accidents, particularly the T-bone type of collisions that cause serious injuries or worse.
You don’t have to be a confirmed cynic to also know that cities are embracing this safety measure because it will allow them to cost-effectively catch red-light runners and require the vehicle’s registered owners to pay a fine.
In other words, it’s a revenue stream. If it were about safety, there might already be a camera in the Village of Lancaster. Tractor-trailer drivers avoiding the Thruway or more congested Walden Avenue often use Broadway as a cut-through. The village banned trucks on Central after spending millions of dollars improving its business district, but Broadway—state Route 20—is another matter.
Early in the morning and late at night, it is common to see the big rigs speeding through the village and some of them ignoring that traffic light. The police have conducted blitzes there, but the problem persists.
“It’s not like they’re going through as it changes from yellow to red; it’s been solid red for 10 seconds, and they’re going right through,” Cansdale said.
He said he was not looking for a new source of money when he suggested the camera; if he had, you might think he would have suggested putting a bunch of cameras in the village. When he proposed his idea for one camera, he was most concerned about who would monitor the device, unaware that the technology makes it possible for a ticket to be generated without any intervention or monitoring by a police agency.
He has since learned that the only way he will get a camera at Broadway and Central is if the law can be expanded to no longer exclude towns and villages.
He said the village will work toward that goal, but he didn’t sound hopeful.
“It’s New York State,” he said with a knowing sigh. “I find sometimes there’s something we talk about and it’s a relatively simple fix and just a matter of working out logistics. Then it involves state legislators or state laws, and it becomes rather complex.”
Of course, a camera does not guarantee safety at an intersection, any more than a reduced speed limit or a traffic light would.
But Cansdale would like to know that his village tried to do something before the inevitable horrific crash, not after.
bandriatch@buffnews.com
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