Vancouver council calls for more study, instead of more intersection cameras

Vancouver city council passed a heavily amended motion Wednesday that calls for more study instead of the installation of speed and red light cameras at some of the city's most dangerous intersections.

OneCity Coun. Christine Boyle tabled theoriginal motionlast week to install over 100 additional cameras at Vancouver intersections identified by ICBC data as high risk for crashes. Currently there are 44 intersections in Vancouver with the cameras.

Boyle told council there are already plenty of studies pointing to the effectiveness of intersection cameras in reducing crashes by up to 20 per cent.

"I am disappointed that we continue to delay rather than taking action," said Boyle. "I think we need to act with a lot more urgency than that, and quite frankly, this council has been studying a lot of issues instead of acting on them."

ABC Coun. Brian Montague, a former Vancouver Police Department crash investigator, said Boyle's motion "oversimplified" the cause of intersection crashes.

"There's a variety of reasons collisions occur road conditions, weather, lighting, driver inexperience, impairment distraction, fatigue, engineering issues, visibility, human error, medical emergencies and ... suicide. It also means there's very different ways to mitigate these crashes, not just one idea," he said.

The amendment calls for the city to work with stakeholders to find the "right solutions" to identify high risk locations and safety solutions.

"It basically suggests we look at specific answers ... instead of this one size fits all approach so that any funds going toward traffic safety initiatives have the greatest impact," said Montague.

According to Boyle's motion, crashes are a major public safety issue with 18 Vancouver residents killed in 2021 and many more thousands injured.

Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim said the amended motion would ensure that investments made in road safety were being done thoughtfully.

Council asked staff to study the issue and report back by fall of 2024.