Three tickets in 5 months: New stop sign makes Staten Islanders question necessity of nearby speed camera

PS 23 speed camera - stop sign

A speed camera on Wilder Avenue, near PS 23, only issued three violations over a five-month span from July through November, city data shows. (Staten Island Advance/Erik Bascome)

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Staten Islanders’ disdain for speed cameras has been well-documented over the years, with many borough residents arguing that the cameras serve primarily as a source of revenue for the city as opposed to a public safety tool.

While most complaints center around the hundreds of thousands of violations issued throughout Staten Island each year, one resident reached out to the Staten Island Advance/SILive.com with concerns that the installation of a new stop sign has rendered an existing speed camera practically useless.

“The city spends a lot of money to install speed cameras. So what did they do? On the corner of Wilder Avenue and Natick Street where PS 23 is located the city put up four way stop signs which was great. The speed camera on Wilder Ave is only 50 feet away and I don’t believe is catching many speeders,” the resident wrote.

Last year, the Department of Transportation (DOT) installed new stop signs outside various Staten Island school buildings, including PS 23, in an effort to bolster safety for some of the borough’s most vulnerable pedestrians.

“We are focused on improving safety on our streets -- especially around schools -- using all the tools in our toolbox, from street redesigns to new stop sign installations. These stop signs will help calm traffic and enhance safety for school children and their families,” DOT spokesman Tomas Garita said in August.

With the new all-way stop signs at Wilder Avenue and Natick Street installed so close to the existing camera, it’s unlikely that motorists would speed through the intersection, unless they were planning on blowing the stop sign.

An analysis of speed camera violation records publicly available on the city’s Open Data page shows the speed camera at the location only issued three violations during a five-month span from July through November.

Meanwhile, the borough’s top-ticketing locations issue an average of over 10 times that amount of violations in a single day.

The highest-ticketing location on Staten Island, at Goethals Road North and Jules Drive, issued 239 violations on Aug. 6 alone -- nearly 80 times more than the amount issued by the Wilder Avenue camera over the five-month span.

A DOT representative told the Staten Island Advance/SILive.com that the department does not remove cameras based on complaints, but does re-evaluate whether to move cameras when other traffic calming measures are implemented at the location.

“DOT determines camera locations based on speeding incidence and serious crashes. DOT does not take requests for locations or remove cameras based on complaints. As conditions on the street change, we do consider relocating cameras to areas where data shows they would be most effective,” said DOT spokesman Vin Barone.

The city has repeatedly emphasized that the speed cameras are intended to serve as a critical public safety tool, as opposed to a source of revenue.

City data shows that, as of December 2020, speeding has dropped by an average of 72% at locations where the cameras have been installed, with injuries falling by 14%.

The cameras have also shown to deter repeated speeding offenses, with the majority of vehicles only receiving one or two violations since the program began in 2014.

Additionally, in 2021, more than half of the vehicles that received a speed camera violation did not receive a second one.

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