by Julie Hayden
Investigative couple, Denver City Councilman Kevin Flynn and his wife, uncovered evidence that put the brakes on Denver’s plans to install more controversial red-light cameras at city intersections. “We’re such a fun couple,” he quips about their recent “investigative date night.”
Last month, the Denver City Council was poised to spend $1.2 million on a plan to expand its red-light camera program. It first launched in 2008 and the city sends tickets to drivers who go through a red light or stop in the crosswalk at those intersections. Currently there are red-light cameras at four Denver intersections: West 8th Avenue and Speer Blvd, Quebec Street and East 36th Avenue, 6th Avenue and Kalamath and East 6th Avenue and Lincoln Street. The new proposal would have moved the 6th and Lincoln camera to Alameda Avenue and Santa Fe and added two new red-light cameras at 13th Avenue and Lincoln and 18th Avenue and Lincoln.
Flynn is an award-winning former reporter with the Rocky Mountain News and was the transportation reporter when Denver first installed the red-light cameras more than a decade ago.
He and his wife armed with a stopwatch app and phone camera discovered that the timing of the yellow lights at two of the intersections in question is so short it’s virtually impossible to get through them before the light switches to red. He says. “The laws of traffic cannot trump the laws of physics. It takes a certain amount of time to stop a moving vehicle, so you always have to take into account the real-world situation.” Flynn found the yellow light at 13th and Lincoln is just three seconds long, the minimum allowed by federal law and the 18th and Lincoln yellow light is 3.5 seconds long. Flynn points out, “That’s just trapping people.”
With the support of Denver Police and City traffic engineers, Flynn wrote a memo to other Councilmembers proposing they postpone the contract adding red-light cameras and try lengthening the timing of the yellow lights.
While some argue red-light cameras improve safety, many feel red-light cameras are just cash cows for cities like Denver. The City raked in more than a million dollars in 2017 from the thousands of tickets generated by the red-light cameras. The money goes into the City’s General Fund. In November 2018, Aurora residents overwhelmingly voted to get rid of red-light cameras at 10 intersections in that city. Data from Aurora showed that accidents had actually increased at the red-light camera intersections. A 2011 audit by then Denver City Auditor Dennis Gallagher concluded Denver’s photo radar system did little to show it had any other purpose other than bringing in revenues.
Councilman Flynn says lengthening the yellow light times should address the safety issues without unfairly ticketing drivers. “We don’t need the 75 bucks per driver that badly that you have to induce violations that don’t have to occur, “Flynn says noting the Denver City budget is in fine shape. “The point is, you have to specifically engineer the traffic at each intersection on its own. There can’t be a blanket rule.”
Flynn points out that lengthening yellow light times has worked elsewhere. In Loma Linda, California, Flynn says an intersection with a red-light camera was averaging 249 tickets a month. They added 7-tenths of a second to the red-light camera and now hand out only one ticket every five days. “That’s the kind of safety I want to bring to Denver, “Flynn says.
City Council members voted unanimously to put off adding red-light cameras while City staff tries out longer yellow lights. That process could take up to nine months.
One other problem with the proposed new red-light camera contract, it listed the wrong intersections, so Flynn says they were going to have to postpone it anyway.
