Appeal state order on traffic cameras, Cedar Rapids mayor says

CEDAR RAPIDS - Mayor Ron Corbett said Friday he will back a police recommendation to appeal last month's state order to move two city traffic enforcement cameras and remove two others on Interstate 380.

The City Council is scheduled to vote Tuesday on the Police Department's recommendation to appeal before a 30-day deadline expires April 17.

'I support local control and the right of every city to try to enforce the traffic laws for their community,” Corbett said. 'We've had the cameras for five years, the Iowa Supreme Court has ruled them to be constitutional and we didn't have any problems with the former DOT director.

'It's just the new director who has problems with the cameras. But shouldn't this be about public safety and not a particular person who is opposed?”

If the City Council agrees, Cedar Rapids would be among five of the six Iowa cities that plan to appeal after the DOT ordered changes to their camera networks.

City Council member Justin Shields, chairman of the Public Safety and Youth Services Committee, said that he, too, supports an appeal and believes others on the council will as well.

'The cameras were negotiated with the DOT originally for safety reasons, and the DOT approved everything that we did, and for them to step in how many years later and say, ‘You're doing something wrong' ... For me, it just doesn't seem like something the DOT ought to be doing,” Shields said.

The city estimates that it will net about $3 million this year from its network of 29 cameras at four spots on I-380 and at three city intersections.

However, the DOT has told the city to remove cameras from two of four of the interstate locations, including the cameras in northbound lanes at J Avenue NE that motorists encounter after they have already left the crash-prone S-curve through downtown. That spot generates about 40 percent of the tickets.

The DOT also told the city to remove cameras at the southbound lanes at First Avenue W and to take northbound and southbound cameras that now are located at the start of the S-curve and move them into the S-curve itself. The move likely would reduce the number of tickets because some motorists are apt to slow once in the curve anyway.

The DOT also wants the city to use the camera in westbound lanes at First Avenue E and 10th Street only for red-light enforcement and not speed enforcement also because it's too close to a speed zone change.

In allowing the city to keep cameras at two interstate spots, the DOT has said they will be the only cameras on an interstate in Iowa and perhaps in the nation.

Corbett said the Police Department has given the City Council an eight-point argument to support the city's appeal.

In the argument, the department states that the DOT authorized the network of cameras in 2010 and helped the city pick the locations. The interstate cameras have reduced crashes and eliminated fatal crashes, and the order to change the camera arrangement will have a negative impact, police said.

'It's a 2- to 3-mile stretch of interstate that runs through the heart of our community,” Corbett said. 'It's heavily congested with a higher percentage of truck traffic and with multiple exits and entrances. We're just asking people to obey the speed limit.”

Corbett said taking advantage of the appeal process makes sense.

Asked if there could be downside to an appeal, the mayor said he supposes that an appeal raises the prospect of the DOT 'digging in their heels” so the disagreement 'escalates.”