Last Monday, Mayor Mitch Landrieu proposed his budget for the 2017 Fiscal year for the city of New Orleans. In his budget was the addition of 55 new red light cameras. The city of New Orleans currently has 66 operating cameras.
The new cameras would cost about $3 million to install and would potentially generate $8 million, according to Mayor Landrieu’s proposal.
The proposal of red light cameras has been met with resistance. This past Wednesday, City Council held its initial hearing of the 2017 budget.
Several members of city council disagreed with adding new red light cameras.
“If you had a system that worked, fewer people would speed and the number of speeders would be reduced and the revenue would be reduced," Gray said, according to The Advocate.
Commenters on The Advocate were not pleased of the planned increase of cameras, either.
“They say it isn`t about revenue...He wants to install more cameras. So you mean to tell me the camera`s will stop people from breaking the driving laws of nola..NOT,” wrote a commenter on The Advocate.
However, the Mayor can call for installation of traffic cameras without approval from the council.
“You don't need a study to see that in New Orleans. You could go on any intersection in the city of New Orleans right now and see somebody saying 'Wahoo, I have a yellow light and I'll try to go as fast as I possibly can to not get caught.' ... Those behavior patterns create a lot of unsafety on the streets of New Orleans,” Landrieu told Nola.com.
Carinsurancecomparison.com, a website that aggregates driving statistics across the United States, ranked Louisiana No. 5 in “Ten States with the Worst Drivers.”
“Louisiana is the worst state when it comes to obeying traffic signals, seat belt laws, and maintaining a valid driver’s license,” Carinsurancecomparison.com stated.
Keep in mind, though, New Orleans only makes up about 7.3 percent of the state population.
- Mayor Mitch Landrieu's budget for 2017: $8 million more for NOPD, $480 million in street repairs, more traffic cameras [The Advocate]
- New Orleans council members question mayor's plan to double traffic cameras [The Advocate]
- Mitch Landrieu pushes back against camera enforcement critics [Nola.com]
- Worst Drivers By State [Carinsurancecomparison.com]
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