City and county to expand speed camera program in Albuquerque

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City and county to expand speed camera program

The new speed camera program is just a few months old, but county project managers say the cameras are doing their jobs. 

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – The new speed camera program is just a few months old, but county project managers say the cameras are doing their jobs. 

“It was a long process, you know, we started this process I think about a year ago,” said Antonio Jaramillo, Bernalillo County’s director of Operations and Maintenance.

Bernalillo County rolled out its automated speed enforcement camera program last summer. Jaramillo says the six speed cameras average 10,000 citations a month. He admits there’s been minor bumps in the road.

“Sometimes we’re seeing, you know, time of day, depending on where the sun is and the reflection of that, you know, the images aren’t as high quality, and those ones are actually rejected only because we can’t verify either the license plate or the make and model of the vehicle,” said Jaramillo. 

Citations are $100 each. Jaramillo says 60% of the tickets have been paid.

It’s not the same for the City of Albuquerque. There are 20 cameras and Dan Mayfield, a spokesperson for Albuquerque’s speed enforcement program, says only 50% of drivers are paying up.

Right now, it’s too soon to tell how effective the county speed cameras are, but the city cameras seem to be working.

“At those locations we’re seeing massive reductions in speed, on average, 7 to 10 mph. In some cases, like 86% of all traffic is not speeding anymore,” said Mayfield.  

The county and the city are planning to expand their programs.

“We’re in the process right now of onboarding a new vendor, and when that happens, we’ll have access to more poles and more locations,” said Mayfield. 

“We’re looking at doing some in the East Mountains and other locations where, again, there’s documented issues with crashes or speeding,” said Jaramillo. 

The county plans to add cameras along areas on Coors and Alameda. There’s also a mobile unit that’s stationed out by the Metropolitan Detention Center right now. 

As for the city, it’s still unclear how many cameras will be added in this next round.