Alex Reid

Los Angeles’ City Council approved a Bicycle Bill of Rights.

Since July 2008 the City of Winnipeg has been conducting the Diamond Lane Photo Enforcement Research Project at the southbound street of Osborne Street and Mostyn.

Diamond Lanes are reserved lanes for buses and bicycles though most of them are only intended during the two-hour rush hour traffic window (3:30pm to 5:30pm). Even though they were introduced in 1995 and there is over 15 kilometres of reserved lanes (up from 7 km five months ago), very few drivers know about it.

While the project is not finished this is the second time during the experiment that Winnipeg Transit has dropped mention of the wonders of photo enforcement. A mere two weeks into the project the city was reporting that a 33% drop in violations and today they are citing a 66% drop. Before the project started, Winnipeg Transit noted that there was an average of 300 violations daily between 3:30pm and 5:30pm (though this PDF fact sheet claims 500 violations).

While I assume that releasing information from an ongoing study is intended to skew the numbers so that even a greater amount of people are aware of the cameras and stop driving in diamond lanes (making the project even more effective) I still applaud the city for making this step and specifically Transit drivers who were constantly annoyed by the infractions that slowed them down. Winnipeg Police can’t enforce the law physically because there is no place before or after the crowded bridge way to pull a driver over so using photo technology makes sense.

The $50,000 project was funded via a Federal Initiative (C-48) that gave the Province of Manitoba $32 million over three years to improve “public transit infrastructure both as a means to reduce traffic congestion and to reduce carbon dioxide and other emissions in order to contribute to Canada’s climate change and environmental goals”.

For those who call this a cash grab, it should be noted that the City of Winnipeg has not been fining violators the normal $190 fine using the cameras – they’ve only been sending out reminders of the law and that they were caught.

I estimate that by the time this project concludes in January 2009 there will be a 75% drop in violations and I think when then $190 fine does apply to those caught on camera the number of violations will decrease even more, much to the glee of transit drivers and those on board.