Photo radar cameras to be in most school zones across Waterloo Region by 2028

Waterloo Region will have automated speed enforcement (ASE) cameras located in nearly all school zones across the region by the year 2028.

There are currently 16 photo radar cameras in the area, with that number climbing to 32 cameras in school zones across the region by the end of 2023.

Waterloo Regional Council approved a plan on Wednesday night which would see between 25 and 30 cameras posted per year near schools throughout the area, with around 175 school zones to be covered.

“It was implemented in the region in 2021. It has shown very clear results with significant reductions of average speeds, up to nine kilometres on average, 63 per cent more compliance with the speed limit,” traffic services commissioner Mathieu Goetzke told council at its planning and works committee meeting on June 9.

A staff report says that the operating costs for the cameras should be covered by fines levied, although that depends on whether people begin to comply with the cameras.

But if people did comply, Goetzke noted that the program would have caused a “behavioural change and people complying with speed limits in the long run, which is why we think this program will have will have a significant effect on how people drive across the region.”

A more fruitful estimation of the costs is not expected to be available until August as staff work out the details of a business case for the processing centre.

Goetzke suggested that implementing the plan would create 80 new hires with staff needed to manage the cameras and process footage as well as to administer and collect fines.

The region is not the only municipality to have ASE cameras as Toronto also has them but that city, which has five times the population of Waterloo Region, currently rotates 75 cameras among all schools in the area.

The move to add these cameras will stall the option to implement any cameras in community safety zones, according to the report for the June 6 hearing.

It noted that no cameras would likely be placed in those areas until then, though staff are still going to work on guidelines for where and when ASRs are put into those areas.