Pennsylvania just released its annual ARLE (Automated Red Light Enforcement) fund report, and $6 million will be going back to the state for safety improvement projects.
The ARLE program has produced $45.4 million, funding 298 safety projects, since 2010, according to a press release from Governor Wolf’s office.
Red light cameras are located at 30 locations throughout Philadelphia, and half the money goes back to the city, with the rest of the money scattered throughout the state—a deal created when ARLE was first approved.
The red light camera program was set to expire in 2017. Last year, the Bicycle Coalition took trips to Harrisburg to advocate on behalf of extending the law for the sake of safer streets. We were there with Channabel Morris and her family, members of Neighborhood Bike Works, and others. (Read more about our push to extend the red light camera law here.)
While there, we met with Republican leadership of the Transportation Committee, and Democratic representatives and senators to help get the bill passed—and it did. State Rep. John Taylor (R-Phila) was instrumental in getting that done.
Now, municipalities all over Pennsylvania are able to build new safety improvement projects to make life safer for pedestrians and bicyclists.
Here’s a list of where they money went in the 5-county Southeast Pennsylvania Region:
Bucks County:
- Lower Makefield Township — $59,000 to retime and interconnect with fiber communication the traffic signals at the intersections of Yardley-Newtown Road at Mirror Lake Road and Creamery Road.
- Lower Makefield Township — $260,000 to upgrade the existing traffic signal at the intersection of Route 2024 (Big Oak Road) and Makefield Road by installing emergency pre-emption and upgrading pedestrian facilities between school zones.
- Lower Southampton Township — $149,388 to install an enhanced pedestrian crossing using a rectangular rapid flashing device – which alerts drivers and pedestrians that pedestrians may cross – with a physical median island and left-turn restriction at the intersection of Bustleton Pike and Bridle Path Lane.
Chester County:
- East Bradford Township — $78,700 to upgrade pedestrian facilities at the intersection of Hannum Avenue and Bradford Plaza Shopping Center.
- Easttown Township — $553,329 to upgrade and install adaptive traffic signal system along four intersections in the Lancaster Avenue Corridor. These include the intersections with Bridge Avenue/Old Lancaster Road, the Cassatt Avenue pedestrian bridge/Waterloo Avenue, Midland Avenue/Old Lancaster Road, and Waterloo Road.
- Penn Township — $48,862 to replace the LEDs along Old Baltimore Pike and Jennersville Road Corridors.
Philadelphia:
- $300,000 to improve sight distance between drivers and pedestrians and provide safer pedestrian connections to transit stops at the intersections of Roosevelt Boulevard with Cottman Avenue, Rhawn Street, Welsh Road, Grant Avenue and Red Lion Road.
- $200,000 to provide for the restoration of roughly 29 miles of the city’s historic streets inventory to improve vehicular flow including bicycles and crosswalks within the City of Philadelphia.
- $500,000 for the city to perform safety audits and evaluations at target locations where there are disproportionate numbers of crashes at intersections and corridors as well as installing an enhanced pedestrian crossing using rectangular rapid flashing beacons at these same locations throughout the City of Philadelphia.
- $1.2 million to design and construct intersection modifications to help slow traffic, improve sight distance between drivers and pedestrians and to reduce pedestrian crossing time at five or six intersections to be identified by the City of Philadelphia.
- $500,000 to install pedestrian countdown signals at 60 intersections throughout the City of Philadelphia.
- $300,000 to perform safety audits at 15 intersections around Eakins Oval and to implement low cost safety improvements such as identified bicycle zones, minor signal timing changes, street lighting upgrades and minor curb and sidewalk upgrades.