Automated cameras will start snapping images of speeders near four additional Baltimore schools as of Monday, according to the Baltimore City Department of Transportation.
A new camera is going up near the 2200 block of Mount Royal Terrace in Reservoir Hill, close to Dorothy I. Height Elementary School and the Mount Royal School.
Another camera will be positioned around the 2100 block of West Franklin Street, near the West Baltimore MARC station. Officials hope it will reduce speeding near Mary Ann Winterling Elementary School and Franklin Square Elementary School. They will operate along multiple directions of the corresponding roads, the transportation department said in a news release.
The approximate locations of the cameras are several blocks from their corresponding schools, but they are along heavily trafficked roads where students may be walking before and after school.
Automated cameras go online on a rolling basis, an agency spokesperson said in an emailed response to a question about beginning enforcement as schools let out for summer vacation. The department wants motorists to get used to the camera being there as a way to “practice increased awareness in these specialized zones and slow down for the students, staff, crossing guards and families in the area,” the spokesperson said.
A report from this year claims neighbors get used to having cameras around. An analysis of citations issued over a six-month period by most of Baltimore’s automated cameras found that most went to drivers with a registered address at least five miles away from the camera that cited them. The analysis was conducted, in part, as an attempt to disprove the claim that automated cameras overburden residents of communities with fines instead of making them safer.
A map showing the locations of Baltimore’s speed and red-light cameras is available here. Citations of $40 are sent to the registered address of vehicle owners when cameras observe them traveling at least 12 mph over the posted speed limit.
