Photo radar ready to roll in Ottawa

The City of Ottawa says it's ready to roll out photo radar as soon as it gets the green light from the province, expected laterthis fall.

"We'll beready to go once the regulations are in place," said Phil Landry, Ottawa's manager of traffic services.

The formerLiberal governmentpassed legislationback in 2017 to allowcities to place the cameras in school zones and community safety zones, but municipalities including Ottawa have been waitingfor provincial regulationsbeforetheycanstart handing out fines.

The province is now askingfor public input by Oct. 3on those regulations, which are expected to cover everything from the technology itself to how imagescan be used as evidence.

The Ministry of Transportation has indicated it willgive municipalities the go-ahead bythe end of the year.

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Ottawa has been working with the City of Toronto and other municipalitiesto procurethe technology and share a ticket processing centre, much the way it does with its red light cameras, Landry said.

Ottawa took part in Toronto's tendering process that awarded Redflex Traffic Systems Canada the contract earlier this summer to install and operate that city'sphoto radar technology.

As for the Ottawa pilot project, which already has council's approval,Landry said it will look at the benefits of mobile versus fixed photo radar, as well as the cost andpotential financial benefits of the cameras.

Staff haven't settled on precise locations for thefirst speed cameras, Landry said. They will use theinformation gathered from the pilot project to determine how to best curb speeding near schools, hesaid.