Numbers prove traffic cameras working in Cedar Rapids, Graham maintains

Greg Graham has left town, but not before the city's just-departed police chief left some numbers behind at City Hall.

In a letter dated Jan. 13, his last day on the Cedar Rapids city payroll, Graham applauded the City Council and City Manager Jeff Pomeranz for having the “courage” to support the city's traffic-enforcement cameras in the face of “considerable criticism.” Eight “impressive” numbers, he said, show the cameras are paying off. They are:

• Traffic crashes throughout Cedar Rapids are down 22 percent.
• Injury crashes citywide are down 19 percent.
• Traffic crashes at monitored intersections are down 12 percent.
• Traffic crashes on Interstate 380 in the city are down 76 percent.
• Injury crashes on Interstate 380 in the city are down 75 percent.
• Traffic crashes in the downtown curves on Interstate 380 are down 82 percent.
• Injury crashes in the curves are down 87 percent.
• Fatal crashes in the city are down 80 percent.

In addition, Graham said that the city had averaged two fatalities per year at the curves on Interstate 380 in downtown before the installation of speed-enforcement cameras there two years ago. There have been no fatalities since, he said.

Graham, who was sworn in on Tuesday as the new police chief at the Ocala, Fla., Police Department, said the Cedar Rapids enforcement cameras saved 542 officer hours in 2011 as a result of officers responding to fewer crashes.

Those officers have been redeployed in the city's neighborhoods where the city has seen a reduction in crime, Graham said. Violent crime is down 2 percent and property crime down 4 percent, he said.

“Thanks again for taking a bold step in improving public safety in Cedar Rapids,” Graham said in a parting letter to City Hall.

Most of the revenue from the network of cameras at high-crash intersections and at spots on Interstate 380 comes from speed-enforcement cameras on Interstate 380.