Come April 1, 2025, Alberta is ending photo radar ticketing on all numbered provincial highways.
The province also plans over the coming months to review “cash cows” – photo radar spots that appear to prioritize money-making over safety — with the goal of shutting down 70 per cent of the current 2,200 sites.
Transportation Minister Devin said far too often photo radar penalizes drivers without improving road safety, adding the province doesn’t intend to offer extra cash to make municipalities whole from the lost photo radar revenue.
“The whole point of getting rid of these cash cow locations is to make sure that photo radar is used as a traffic safety tool and not as a revenue generator,” Dreeshen told a news conference Monday.
Photo radar will continue to be allowed in school zones, playground zones and construction sites, but beyond these areas, local governments will have to submit their case and show evidence of higher collision rates.
At intersections equipped with cameras, running a red light could still net a driver a ticket, but speeding on green will not – starting in the spring.
Kara Westerlund, president of the Rural Municipalities of Alberta, applauded the move.
“Our communities have called for change, and I’m proud to say that this government has listened,” she said at the government news conference.
Alberta Municipalities president Tyler Gandam said his organization supports local governments using automated traffic enforcement for safety reasons, since the data shows it reduces deaths, injuries and property damage.
“It’s improving safety in the communities, no question,” Gandam said in an interview, adding the government’s decision is about political points because getting tickets is unpopular.
“If you don’t like photo radar, just stop speeding.”
Gandam said forcing municipalities to go through another approval process represents more bureaucracy from a government that prides itself on cutting red tape.
He said photo radar revenue makes up a small portion of any municipality’s budget. For him, the issue is about safety, including that of the police officers who will need to enforce traffic safety.
Dreeshen said the province has seen a “mixed bag” of data measuring photo radar’s effect on collision numbers.
“There’s lots of folks that will say photo radar is needed to keep these streets safe, but we’ve also seen municipalities, when they remove photo radar, that we’ve actually seen safer streets,” he said.
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“We’re not banning speed limits,” he said.
Opposition NDP critic Lorne Dach told reporters Dreeshen’s move doesn’t appear to be supported by evidence.
“The decision-making here seems to be basically based on the minister’s decision about popularity rather than public safety data,” said Dach.
NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi said the government is adding red tape, and that municipalities, including Calgary, use photo radar funding to pay for policing.
“If this government wants municipalities to increase property taxes for their largest budget item, they should just say so,” he said.
The announcement comes after years of the previous NDP government and current the United Conservative government placing restrictions on how municipalities use photo radar sites.
In 2019, the then-NDP government introduced a freeze on new locations and banned photo radar in transition zones: spots where the speed limit changes on highways.
Photo radar was also banned on high-speed, multi-lane highways unless there was documented proof of safety concerns.
The freeze was then extended when in 2022, the UCP said no photo radar was allowed on residential roads with speed limits below 50 km/h. Keep in mind, many Edmonton streets are now 40 km/h.
Double dipping — issuing multiple tickets within five minutes — was also banned. Photo radar vehicles now also have to be highly visible.
Cities couldn’t run photo radar in construction zones except when construction workers were present and it was only allowed in school zones when classes were in session.
Municipalities were also obligated to provide data on collisions and safety to justify why they are running photo radar at certain locations.
A year ago, Dreeshen said photo radar is being used as a cash cow in some places across Alberta.
At that time, the province banned the use of the enforcement tool on Calgary and Edmonton’s ring roads (Stoney Trail and Anthony Henday Drive) and said it would spend the following year removing spots where there is no clear safety reason for photo radar and it’s only being done to collect money.
Before the ban, Calgary’s ring road had eight photo radar sites and Edmonton’s ring road had 22.
Red light intersection cameras were left out of the review process because they have been proven to prevent T-bones and similar collisions that lead to serious injuries or death.
Edmonton and Calgary were given the option to redeploy the photo radar units previously used on ring roads to areas in the cities where they have a safety impact — in school, playground and construction zones.
A cap on any new photo radar equipment, programs or new photo radar locations was extended to Dec. 1, 2024 while the province consulted with municipalities.
Dreeshen said on Monday the ring road ban has shown good results, in part because drivers aren’t taken off guard by having to suddenly slow down and disrupt traffic.
In 2019, the UCP increased the province’s share of photo radar revenue to 40 per cent from 27. That fiscal year, the revenue generated was $203 million across the province.
By last year, total revenue was down to $145 million, Dreeshen said Monday.
“At the end of the day, this is going to be a hit to the province (financially) as well.”
Among the top five revenue-generating sites listed by the government in 2023, four are in Edmonton and area, each collecting between $2.1 million and almost $6 million per year.
Alberta’s first photo radar units were introduced in 1987 and as of last fall, there were about 2,387 photo radar sites across the province.
— With files from Karen Bartko, Global News