Work zone speed cameras aren’t nabbing enough Maryland drivers to pay for the $1 million operating costs of the program, and taxpayers will help close the gap.
The Maryland State Highway Administration has generated about $515,000 in revenue from 20,000 speed-camera tickets issued in the last five months, according to spokesman David Buck. He attributed the budget imbalance to the snowy winter and startup overhead costs, and said highway officials are looking for contractors to operate a “handful” of new cameras in the next few months.
Taxpayers will dish out $5 million to help the fledgling program expand, underthe fiscal 2011 budget. Gov. Martin O’Malley originally allocated $7 million.
“There’s no price tag on the safety of the roads and saving lives,” Buck said, adding that there are about 550 fatalities annually in Maryland.
The highway agency rotates two mobile cameras — mounted in white marked vans — among three work sites: The Intercounty Connector’s interchange with Interstate 95 near Beltsville, the Express Toll Lane project on I-95 and Interstate 895 northeast of Baltimore, and theI-695interchange at Charles Street in Baltimore.
Buck said the highway agency uses federal money appropriated for those construction sites to fill the budget gap.
The camera at the ICC work site has netted only 800 speeders — or 4 percent of total tickets issued — since the start of the program in November. Buck said it’s tough to catch speeders there because the speed limit is 65 miles per hour compared with 55 and 50 at the other two sites.
The Maryland Department of Legislative Services issued a report in March recommending lawmakers ban contracted speed-monitoring programs because they are too costly. The report said the state’s highway agency already has budgeted 10 new positions to operate the speed camera program when the current contract expires to avoid contractor costs. However, the agency has continued to purse vendors.
“It is apparent … that these two contradictory alternatives should not be pursued at the same time,” the report said.
Buck wouldn’t say how many cameras are planned, but Legislative Services officials speculated they will add about five mobile cameras. Highway officials are still discussing potential locations.
