(Image: City of Seattle)
The camera enforcement of 24th Ave E speeders near Montlake Elementary doled out 9,295 tickets in 2021. In 2022, it will get some help.
New School Zone Traffic Safety Cameras have been installed a few miles away near Garfield High School and were awaiting activation.
The Seattle Department of Transportation tells CHS the plan to turn the cameras on in January was delayed due pending work by Seattle City Light to provide power to the new systems.
But the cameras are in place and waiting for you. UPDATE: Well, the city tells CHS, there’s a bit more to the story. CHS has learned the Seattle Department of Transportation project is one thousands of projects around the region on hold due to an ongoing cement workers strike. A city spokesperson reached out to CHS after this story was posted to clarify the situation. “This is a challenge and SDOT supports a fair resolution among the parties,” the city spokesperson said.
Once juiced, they’ll patrol 23rd Ave and E Cherry near the busy high school on school days. The cameras are typically scheduled to be active twice a day when students are using crosswalks in the area to get to campus. The Garfield cameras on E Cherry at 23rd and 26th are slated to be active from 8:05 to 9:05 AM and again from 3:25 to 4:15 PM and on 23rd Ave at Cherry and at E Spruce from 8:05 to 8:55 AM and in the afternoon from 3:25 to 4:05. The afternoon schedule varies on Wednesday with 2:10 PM afternoon activation due to the district’s midweek early release schedule.
The cameras are part of a growing system of automated traffic enforcement in Seattle. CHS reported on a new pilot for cameras to bust transit lane violators and drivers who “block the box” downtown. Seattle Police, meanwhile, are no longer making stops for “low-risk” traffic violations like expired tabs, or biking without a helmet as part of an effort to address concerns about biased policing as officials also look for ways to stretch SPD’s thinning resources.
(Source: City of Seattle)
Similar school camera zones to the Garfield installations can be found across the city including around Capitol Hill in Montlake and near Bailey Gatzert Elementary.
They are marked with signs and an amber beacon will flash when the zones are active during the school year. Still, the cameras nail speeders by the thousands. The prolific Montlake installation is the most active in the city — second only to the Boren camera near Bailey Gatzert.
Red light and red arrow cameras in the city and around Capitol Hill can also net their fair share of violations. The red light camera on E Olive Way below Broadway, for example, fired off for a violator more than six times a day in 2021.
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The montlake ones are handily no where near the school and seem to be more about collecting $$
Same for the ones at Garfield. It’s too bad the camera images are prohibited in solving crimes. There have been more shootings, robberies and assaults of Garfield students in just the last month than there have been accidents involving students walking to the school in over a century.
You are correct sir or madam. I got ticketed there on 24th. I had to go searching for Montlake school, it’s 5 or 6 blocks away from the camera.
Wrong. Montlake Elementary is exactly one block uphill from 24th Ave E. I know because I attended Montlake many moons ago.
If the city collects traffic money money as a consequence of deterring people from driving recklessly and running over me (or my family), that sounds like an outstanding outcome to me!
Does driving 26mph in a temporary 20mph zone (school zone) where the speed limit otherwise is 25mph qualify as reckless driving? No it does not. Yet that qualifies the driver for a huge monetary penalty. Disproportionate, and an obvious money making venture. And if you must have these devices, locate them at elementary schools, where children are most vulnerable to speeding vehicles, not high schools, where many of the kids are legally adults and much more aware of traffic, etc.
In your defense, I agree that there should probably be a greater threshold for triggering the camera (as there is in NYC, where people who drive recklessly also complain endlessly about automated enforcement).
However, I am not familiar with SDOT’s decision-making process.
Perhaps students need to cross the street to get to school
Elementary schools are one thing. But high schools? High school students are perfectly capable of handling themselves around traffic. The most likely persons to create hazardous situations with vehicles in that area are probably the students themselves. Ironic.
Yup. Because teenagers, as we know, are never distracted or think impulsively.
If teenagers drive recklessly and get ticketed along with adults (and learn not to), how specifically is that ironic?
High school students are just as capable of being killed by speeding cars as younger kids. Everyone has the right to not be killed by people driving their car faster than the posted speed limit.
This is an overzealous safety and city revenue program. A violation here was my first speeding citation in Seattle in my nearly 60 years. The experience further negatively affected how I weigh the costs of living in Seattle. Flashing lights are indeed helpful in indicating child pedestrians, particularly for midday pupils such as kindergartners or hybrid remote learners. The program’s safety effectiveness could be much improved by being closer to Montlake Elementary, considering vegetation that obscures view of the flashing notice, or placing the flashing notification in advance of the reduced speed zone camera. 50+ tickets per school day is grossly out of proportion to the situation, and means many are unfairly penalized.
You get a $50+ speeding every school day?? Wow, that must be expensive. Pro tip to avoid this unnecessary expense: stop speeding.
Um, Dave, who got a $50 speeding ticket every day? My one lifetime Seattle speeding ticket was at the Montlake school zone camera, and was for $237-. The violation was at 10:19am and no children were present. View of the flashing light indicator was obscured by a leafed out tree, and in same place as camera. Thanks much for your cogent advice on addressing this unnecessary expense.
SeattleNative, that’s what I thought you meant by “50+ tickets per school day“…
What times are the cameras turned on at Mountlake? I think I am busted
Stop speeding in my neighborhood.
I can’t believe people here are complaining about the cost of being caught speeding (especially in an area where kids are trying to cross the street safely), as if there’s nothing you can do to avoid it. Easy solution to this “problem” — don’t speed!