Speed cameras now operational throughout Oakland

The cameras were approved by the City Council as part of a five-year, $5 million pilot project, with $2 million coming from an Alameda County Transportation Commission grant.

The idea is not to create a new revenue stream for the city, but instead to encourage people to slow down and save lives, according to Mayor Barbara Lee.

“We want to change behavior and not just issue tickets,” Lee said.

The hope is that if the program is successful, the number of citations will decline over time, as will the number of traffic deaths, which is about 33 per year in Oakland on average.

The cameras were installed along busy corridors in Oakland’s “high-injury network,” which is composed of 8% of the city’s streets that account for 60% of its severe and fatal collisions, according to city officials.

Lee said racial equity considerations helped drive decisions about where the cameras would be placed, as many of the streets are in neighborhoods that have historically been left out of infrastructure investments, including traffic safety improvements, because of racist city policies.

“And let me be clear in terms of why equity matters here — traffic crashes disproportionately impact BIPOC communities, seniors, children and people with disabilities,” Lee said.