City won't join state in traffic camera program
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By Mike Leidemann
Transportation Writer
Although the state of Hawai'i is continuing to use cameras to catch speeders, the city of Honolulu is pulling out of the controversial program before it even gets started on city streets.
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"We're concerned about the public reaction to the program," said city spokeswoman Carol Costa. "The use of the cameras is actually creating problems and contributing to unsafe driving."
City spokeswoman Carol Costa said the decision on cameras is not political.
Mayor Jeremy Harris and Transportation Services Director Cheryl Soon were worried that the camera enforcement program was causing drivers to go too slowly on some roads, bunch up in traffic, remove their front license plates and pay more attention to the vans than the road, Costa said.
Since it began in December, the program has been limited to state highways, but officials had planned to expand it to city roads and residential neighborhoods in the coming weeks.
For now, the cameras will be limited to state roads on O'ahu.
Costa said the withdrawal from the unpopular program, which has faced widespread criticism since it began, was done for safety, not political, reasons.
"When it first came up, it was presented to us as a camera program, and we always supported that type of enforcement," Costa said. "The vans are a different story altogether. There are concerns about visibility, road conditions and sightlines that have to be dealt with."
However, the city will allow the cameras to be used at Honolulu intersections to catch red-light runners, Costa said.
Those cameras, which have not yet gone into operation, are pole-mounted and completely automated, creating fewer safety problems, she said.
