Previous mayoral administrations in St. Louis were mistaken when they terminated the city's red-light ticketing policy, according to a former public safety director.
“They never should have ended it,” said Charles Bryson, Trailnet policy catalyst. “I'm worried about the pedestrian walking in the street who might get killed.”
Trailnet, a local pedestrian and bicyclist advocacy group, is among the organizations that support a call to reactivate red-light camera ticketing partly because traffic fatalities are on the rise.
“Not only fatalities but accidents that don't result in fatalities and just destructive driving, including speeding on some of our major arterial roads, is why we think it's time to bring that back,” Bryson told the St. Louis Record.
There were 78 traffic fatalities in 2022 compared to 71 in 2021, according to data from the Missouri Department of Transportation.
“We need a variety of automated enforcement to coincide with the police,” Bryson said in an interview. “Red light cameras, speed cameras, and license plate readers are all useful tools. There are some places downtown where red light cameras should be placed."
Bryson was public safety director when Francis Slay was mayor. At the time, the Missouri Supreme Court issued a ruling that caused all but one municipality to unplug their red light cameras, which are installed at the top of traffic signals in plain sight.
“Hannibal, Missouri changed their ordinance to coincide with the Supreme Court ruling,” Bryson said. “They've had red light cameras ever since but most municipalities in the state just dropped them.”
St. Louis was among the municipalities that stopped using them but Bryson argues that the cameras are needed now to fill the gap left by a dearth of police officers.
“It’s probably the type of work police officers have to do,” he said. “The city is becoming more violent but if you are in Kirkwood, Ladue, Clayton, or Brentwood or unincorporated in St. Louis County, they probably run into less violence and probably more pay. So why would you want to be a city police officer?”
Mayor Tishaura Jones is expected to weigh in on red-light ticket cameras this week after she signs a $74 million infrastructure bill. It is the largest investment in road and pedestrian safety in the city’s history, according to media reports.
"It has to be passed by the Board of Aldermen and signed into law by the mayor," Bryson added. "The cameras are already up. They're just turned off."