Red-light violators, get ready for your close-up

How many drivers run red lights in a day in Lynnwood? How about in two weeks?

Lynnwood police are reviewing and processing more than 2,000 incidents at just three intersections since their red-light cameras went live June 8.

For now, the registered owners of those vehicles will receive warnings by mail, along with individual codes to view photos and video of their vehicles' infractions over the Internet. Starting July 1, those envelopes also will contain $112 citations.

Lynnwood is the first city in Snohomish County to use cameras for red-light enforcement, but the city has long been on the cutting edge of video-traffic control, using more than 400 cameras throughout the city to trigger, time and monitor its traffic-light system.

Now the city has installed its first cameras for traffic enforcement through a contract with Arizona-based American Transportation Systems (ATS), which monitors the footage and refers potential violations — including a right turn at a red light without a complete stop — to the Lynnwood Police Department for review.

Because officers have access only to an offending vehicle's license-plate information, the registered owner is responsible for the ticket and fine. A violation will not go on a person's driving record.

Cameras at a fourth intersection will be operational within a few weeks, and there may be cameras at a fifth intersection within a few months, according to Cmdr. Chuck Steichen.

In a one-year trial contract, ATS has agreed to install its equipment and monitor the daily footage in return for $3,750 per month for each intersection it watches. All additional revenue from citations will go to the city of Lynnwood.

Officer Sean Whitcomb of the Seattle Police Department, which has had a similar pilot program with ATS since last June, said Seattle has easily covered the costs of its contract every month.

Steichen said it might be some time before Lynnwood sees revenue, though, because while the city has "literally not paid a cent" for the installation of the camera equipment, there will be an increase in court costs — "There will be a lot of cases associated with this" — and in pay for the officers reviewing footage of violations.

If the system in Washington, D.C., is any indication, Lynnwood stands to make a considerable amount. An independent analysis by The Washington Post found that the District of Columbia made more than $32 million on more than 500,000 red-light camera citations.

While the results of Lynnwood's red-light cameras remain to be seen, seven years of using cameras to fight congestion have amassed mountains of data for the city.

Beginning with the expansion and improvement of Highway 9 seven years ago, $8 million in federal, state and local dollars have gone into the city's intelligent-transportation system, which uses more than 400 digital-detection cameras and 38 remotely controlled pan-tilt-zoom color cameras to coordinate its traffic signals, monitor congestion and study the efficiency of its traffic patterns.

Sitting before a bank of six screens and two computer monitors, Assistant Traffic Engineer Paul Coffelt explained that he cannot use the cameras for law enforcement or traffic citations, but he can immediately assess intersections in the event of a traffic accident, faulty signal or funeral procession, and adjust the pattern of traffic signals as necessary.

The "almost overwhelming" amount of data that passes through the system also is available for civil-engineering graduate students at the University of Washington and may be available to the public online through real-time traffic maps as soon as early 2008.

Coffelt says there is so much raw information at his fingertips that the Lynnwood system has "stressed out the server." The Belgium-based company Traficon, which recently updated the city's hardware and software, told him that no other client in the world is running so many intersections and data channels through a single system.

And Coffelt is hungry for more. He hopes to see information from the Police Department's new red-light cameras — run with an entirely independent system — so he can better understand what makes people run red lights.

"I'm kind of jonesing to see that data," he said. "I want to blame myself. Why does a driver do it? Did they have to sit through too many red lights? I want to know what I can do."

If the first offender caught on camera is any indication, he can't do much. The video, available at www.ci.lynnwood.wa.us/police/LPDContent/News/P-20070611.asp, shows a car cruising through a red light without a single flash of its brake lights, almost colliding with an oncoming vehicle that turns left at a green arrow.

"When I lie awake at night and think about that one, I have to think it's an impaired driver," said Coffelt. "And what can you do there?"

Brad Haynes: 425-745-7812 or bhaynes@seattletimes.com