To Fix Oakland’s Speeding Problem, Automated Cameras Can’t Do It Alone

For Oaklander Lucé Lu, the news this week that the city would soon be installing automated speed cameras at 18 locations couldn’t have come soon enough.

“ Honestly, it’s long overdue,” Lu said.

Standing next to a coffee shop on Broadway near downtown Oakland, Lu acknowledged that she had some concerns about the added surveillance the cameras would bring. Still, she said those worries were outweighed by her feeling that Oakland needs to address its speeding problem.

“ I see people that run through red [lights] constantly — all the time. It’s normalized, it’s like the culture here,” Lu said.

A nearby stretch of Broadway between 26th and 27th streets is one of the sites the city has selected for its automated speed camera pilot. According to city data, 9.2% of drivers — over 1,000 per day — travel more than 10 mph over the speed limit on that block.

Another future location of a speed camera on Hegenberger Road sees more than 10,000 vehicles — 43% of all drivers — exceeding the speed limit by more than 10 mph daily.

Oakland is now on track to become the second California city, after San Francisco, to install automated speed cameras, realizing a hard-fought goal of many transportation and street safety advocates. The devices have a demonstrated track record of helping to reduce speeding in locations where they are placed.

But even as the city prepares to roll out the new program, local transit leaders acknowledge that the cameras are just a part of the work Oakland needs to do to make streets safer.

“ I don’t want to sit here and tell you I think this is going to solve everything,” said Josh Rowan, director of the Oakland Department of Transportation.

Rowan said that while the city is excited about the cameras, there are other factors besides speeding that contribute to dangerous driving in Oakland, like the design of some of the city’s streets.

“ They’re very long, they’re very straight, they don’t have many stop-controlled intersections and they just run like raceways. They’re very fast,” Rowan said, referring specifically to streets like East 12th, East 14th and East 21st.

About half of all of Oakland’s collisions are in intersections, when vehicles make left turns, Rowan said.

“We still can’t get away from things like the simple speed bump, or should we be rebuilding intersections as roundabouts?” Rowan said.

Standing at the intersection of 26th and Broadway, Justin Hu-Nguyen, co-executive director of mobility justice at Bike East Bay, has seen issues with the street that the incoming speed camera there can’t fix — like how wide the street is, which can encourage drivers to speed.

“Even here on Broadway, [the street] is six lanes across. A camera doesn’t make this intersection safe,” Hu-Nguyen said.

Hu-Nguyen said Bike East Bay has mixed feelings about the cameras. On one hand, they are excited about Oakland implementing technology that will help encourage drivers to slow down, but they’re also concerned the project will take away precious city resources that could be spent on immediate, localized solutions.

“ People want cars to slow down, and for us, the way to do it is to build infrastructure to make [streets slower], whether it’s a raised crosswalk, a speed table or speed humps,” Hu-Nguyen said.

This year, 23 people have been killed in collisions in Oakland — the lowest recorded number of fatalities since 2019. City residents voted to fund street safety improvements with Measure KK in 2016 and Measure U in 2022, but Rowan said those were more “paving-centric type capital programs.”

“We’re looking as we go forward, should we be shifting the focus away from paving? Should we be looking at a more robust capital program focused on safety, where we actually get in and address some of these intersection issues?” Rowan said.

All of the 18 camera locations are situated on the city’s High Injury Network, the minority of streets where the majority of severe and fatal crashes happen.

The city expects installation of the cameras to be completed by mid-January. According to state law, the cameras must issue warnings for the first two months before they give out tickets.

Fines start at $50 for drivers traveling 11 mph or more over the posted speed limit, and top out at $500 for drivers driving more than 100 mph over the speed limit.

Speed cameras began issuing fines to drivers in San Francisco in August, and in October, the city reported that two-thirds of vehicles that received a first violation did not receive a second.

Los Angeles, San José, Glendale and Long Beach are also planning to add the cameras in the coming years, as part of a statewide pilot program authorized by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2023.

Rowan stressed that the speed cameras are a 5-year pilot program and that the city will be monitoring the effectiveness of camera placement.

“ Through this pilot, we have to demonstrate that the camera is reducing speed, and if it doesn’t, then we have to find another location,” Rowan said.