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Problem

Traffic accidents and congestion due to red light violators occurred at intersections in West Hollywood.

Background

Many locations in West Hollywood have a large amount of pedestrian traffic. Red light running has been the cause of numerous fatal accidents involving motorists, passengers, bicyclists, and pedestrians. In fact, red light running accidents often have a higher chance of being fatal due to the fact that the running vehicles are more likely to be traveling at high speeds to race through the intersection. The City of West Hollywood began to address this problem in 1999.

Solution

The goal of the City’s Photo Enforcement Program is to improve traffic safety and pedestrian safety in West Hollywood by increasing compliance with traffic regulations and by reducing traffic accidents and gridlock caused by red light violators. West Hollywood residents are very supportive of the public safety program and have requested specific locations for photo enforcement.

The City Council approved the photo enforcement concept in October 1998 and directed staff to prepare and issue a Request For Proposal (RFP). The Transportation and Public Safety Commissions both endorsed the concept of photo enforcement. The RFP was issued December 29, 1998 with a response deadline of January 20, 1999.

The City received a proposal from Lockheed Martin, IMS. Pursuant to California Vehicle Code 21455.5, the City Council held a public hearing and awarded the operation contract to Lockheed Martin, IMS on March 15, 1999 and approved a two-year agreement with Lockheed Martin, IMS. The City Council amended the agreement November 6, 2000 by adding cameras and intersections and extending the agreement period through June 30, 2004.

The intersections initially selected for photo enforcement included the following locations:

• Fountain Avenue at Crescent Heights Boulevard.
• Sunset Boulevard at La Cienega Boulevard.
• Fountain Avenue at Fairfax Avenue.
• Melrose Avenue at La Cienega Boulevard.
• Fountain Avenue at La Brea Avenue.
• Beverly Boulevard at Robertson Boulevard.

In November 2000, the City Council amended the agreement by adding cameras at some of the intersections and also added intersection locations. Cameras at the two following locations began operating in July 2001.

• Santa Monica Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue.
• Santa Monica Boulevard and La Brea Avenue.

Results

Intersection selection was determined by staff based on accident statistics, violation analysis and intersection infrastructure. Prior to the implementation of the program, baseline accident data was established as an average from the previous five years for the highest accident locations. Actual accident data through August 2000 for these same intersections shows that the accident ratio is lower for four of the locations, the same for one and higher for one. The following table shows the number of accidents recorded at each of the intersections that have had red light cameras installed. The data in Table 1 suggests that accident rates have been reduced since installation of the red light cameras at most of the intersection locations.

The West Hollywood program statistics show only about 4 percent of the citations are issued to West Hollywood residents, which indicates that the city has a large amount of through traffic. The city is small, roughly 5.7 km2 (2.2 mi2) and is surrounded by the cities of Los Angeles and Beverly Hills.

A successful photo enforcement program will see reductions in violations recorded over time. The number of actual citations issued is roughly 50 percent lower than the number of violations recorded due to technicalities, such as the driver not having a front license plate or the driver not being able to be correctly identified. Table 2 shows the percentage of violations that result in actual citations being issued. These results are comparable to other cities’ experiences with red light camera enforcement programs.

Table 3 shows the number of violations recorded during two time periods, October 1999-June 2000 and October 2000-June 2001. These time periods were chosen due to irregularities in camera deployment during the other months of those years. One intersection, Sunset at La Cienega Boulevards, had irregularities during the time periods evaluated. This intersection was left out of the comparative analysis. Two other intersections, Santa Monica at La Brea and Santa Monica at Fairfax, were also not included because cameras were installed there in July 2001, and no comparative data was available to evaluate these two intersections.

Table 3 shows that at all but one analyzed location, the number of violations decreased from the first year of camera operation to the next. Overall, of the locations analyzed, there was a 15.5 percent reduction in the number of violations recorded. It is important to note that part of the reduction in the number of violations recorded is due to construction activities along Santa Monica Boulevard during the winter of 2000 and spring of 2001. This construction had the effect of reducing traffic volumes on surrounding streets because three major intersections were closed to all traffic for various weeks. However, it is very likely that the red light cameras did discourage drivers from running red lights enough to create a downward trend in violations seen in the table above.

Contact

Joyce Rooney
City of West Hollywood
8300 Santa Monica Boulevard
West Hollywood, CA 90069
Phone: (323) 848-6400

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