Baltimore’s Department of Transportation announced on Friday it will be installing several traffic cameras to catch truckers using residential roads as a shortcut.
The cameras are designed to punish truck drivers travelling on unauthorized roads with escalating fines starting with a warning, then $125 fine up to a $250 fine. The camera system uses the truck’s height to determine whether it is allowed on a particular roadway.
The following automated Commercial Vehicle Height Monitoring System locations, which capture footage in multiple directions, will be added at the following locations on March 19, 2018:
- 1400 – 1700 Broening Highway
- 2300 – 2500 Chesapeake Avenue
- 3000 – 3200 Boston Street
- 800 – 1000 Fleet Street
- 3800 – 4000 Pulaski Highway
- 1600 – 1800 E. Fayette Street
Dozens of new cameras will be watching Baltimore streets
The Baltimore DOT states that it will be installing 44 new cameras around Baltimore, adding to the 56 already in operation. The cameras will be used 24/7 for school zone enforcement, red light enforcement, and speeding enforcement.
The new devices will be rolled out over three months starting March 19, DOT spokeswoman Kathy Dominick wrote in an email. Additionally the DOT keeps an interactive map of those devices, which has been updated for this month’s additions.
Outsourcing Traffic Cameras
The city shut down its old traffic cam program five years ago, after it became too big to control with upwards of 160 cameras and not enough staff to manage them, officials said. The problem became apparent when the devices began issuing erroneous tickets to drivers who hadn’t actually done anything wrong. The operator, Xerox, was receiving a share of the revenue at the time.
Mayor Catherine Pugh announced the return of traffic cameras last spring, and had the program up and running by June. Her initial plans specified there would be 36 cameras in all.
In Pugh’s revived program, the city has paid Arizona-based American Traffic Solutions (DOT Director Michelle Pourciau’s former employer) $5.4 million over five years to operate the speed and commercial-truck enforcement cams. Conduent, Inc., a New Jersey-based former subsidiary of Xerox that separated from the company in early 2017, is getting $4.2 million to run the red light cameras.