Ignizio: NYC Should Tell Drivers Where It’s OK to Run Reds

You’ve got to hand it to City Council Member Vincent Ignizio: If nothing else, the man is consistent.

Ignizio has a long history of opposing measures to make streets safer and improve transit. The Staten Island rep’s greatest hits include a proposal to subject NYC bike lanes to environmental review, killing the bike lane on Father Capodanno Boulevard, watering down Select Bus Service on Hylan Boulevard in order to preserve parking, and degrading SBS service citywide by cowing the MTA into shutting off the flashing blue lights on all SBS buses.

For his next trick, Ignizio wants to take the teeth out of NYC’s automated traffic enforcement program. The Daily News reports:

New York City Councilman Vincent Ignizio (R-S.I.) will introduce a bill Wednesday to require the city to post signs alerting drivers at intersections where there are red-light cameras.

The city’s current policy is not to reveal the cameras’ locations in order to maximize the deterrent effect.

“We owe it to the motorists to let them know this is a camera-enforced intersection,” said Ignizio. “It’s not about revenue-generating, it’s about slowing people down and getting them to stop.”

This bill probably won’t go anywhere, in part because, as the News points out, it would make the city’s small number of enforcement cameras far less effective. After all, signs telling drivers where cameras are would also tell them where cameras aren’t.

Ignizio is right, of course, that the traffic camera program is all about getting people to drive safely — and as a council member, he must be aware that speeding is the city’s leading cause of traffic deaths. But how will NYC get people to obey traffic laws on 6,000 miles of streets if motorists know exactly where they’ll never get caught?