A first-in-the-state program designed to make drivers slow down is finally coming up to speed.
The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency announced Wednesday that the city’s 33 automated speed enforcement cameras, which have been operating on a warning-only basis so far, will begin issuing citations on Tuesday.
Even with only those $0 warning citations, the cameras have already been effective in reducing speeding, SFMTA Director of Streets Viktoriya Wise said Wednesday.
“Over 70% of vehicles that received a warning did not speed past our cameras again,” Wise said.
There are other early promising signs, Wise said.
After seven weeks with all cameras activated across the entire system, incidents of speeding declined by 31%. At Fulton Street between Arguello Boulevard and Second Avenue, which Wise said recorded a particularly high volume of speeding incidents, SFMTA observed a 63% reduction in speeding after 13 weeks of a camera operating there.
An SFMTA spokesperson told KQED that from March 20 to July 20, the cameras issued over 300,000 warnings total to speeding drivers. Most speeding in the city occurs between 6:00 a.m. and 8:00 a.m., Wise said.
The speed cameras are a major part of the city’s efforts to reduce traffic collisions and make streets safer, given that speeding is the leading cause of severe injuries and deaths on San Francisco streets.
The same day that SFMTA officials announced the cameras’ full rollout, city Supervisor Myrna Melgar introduced legislation to recommit the city to its failed Vision Zero goal of eliminating traffic deaths. When the 10-year campaign officially ended in 2024, San Francisco saw 42 traffic deaths — the deadliest year in a decade.
“Speed safety cameras are just one component of making sure that our streets are safe,” Wise said. “For example, treatments to slow down left turns are just part of the overall approach that this agency has to reducing the number of severe injuries and fatalities in the city and making everybody feel comfortable on our streets.”
The cameras are all on San Francisco’s High Injury Network, the 12% of streets across the city that account for more than 68% of traffic-related severe injuries or fatalities.
Here’s what a driver caught speeding by a camera can expect to pay:
Verra Mobility, a smart transportation company based in Mesa, Arizona, will be responsible for maintaining the cameras, as well as processing the tickets.
SFMTA officials don’t have an estimate yet on how much revenue the program will generate, but it will go toward covering administrative costs, and any leftover funds will go to other traffic calming projects or the state’s Active Transportation Fund.
The program is a five-year pilot made possible by Assembly Bill 645, which Gov. Gavin Newsom signed in 2023 to authorize Los Angeles, San José, Oakland, Glendale, Long Beach and San Francisco to test the effectiveness of speed cameras on road safety.
San Francisco is the first city of the six selected for the pilot to make its cameras operational, and cities in the Bay Area generally appear to be further along in the process than those in Southern California.
Oakland plans to install cameras in fall or winter of this year, and San José said it expects its program to begin in 2025 but has not posted an update to its website since September 2024, noting that it is “a new program that is being built from the ground up.”
In Southern California, Glendale is in the process of collecting community feedback, Long Beach had no information posted on its website about the project, and Los Angeles expects its system to become operational in mid-2026.
Speed cameras have been effective in other cities. Officials in Philadelphia said speed cameras installed on a dangerous corridor reduced speeding by 95%.
SFMTA plans to issue an 18-month evaluation on the program in September 2026. The five-year pilot is set to end March 2030.
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