Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - A local group is asking the Buffalo Common Council to re-evaluate BusPatrol's stop arm bus camera program.
Samuel Radford with Urban Think Tank says each violation for illegally passing a school bus is $250, which shows this isn't about protecting children. He feels it's about generating revenue in a city that's already struggling financially.
According to Radford, the city has issued over 2,250 school bus violations within 10 days, generating $562,500.
"60% of that money goes to a for-profit company. If you go do a simple Google search on BusPatrol, you will see that this is a for profit company that just got three major new investors," stated Radford in an interview with WBEN.
Radford says the fine disproportionately harms "Buffalo's economically disadvantaged."
"In a community where you're already paying double what you were paying for rent, you paying extra high gas prices, extra high grocery prices, you're already in third poorest city in the country. Now they get hit again with the $250 fine. That can be the difference between eating and not eating. A bill being paid and not being paid. If you don't pay that ticket, it can lead to your registration being suspended. It can lead to your license being suspended. If the car gets towed, it can lead to your car being impounded," stated Radford.
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Chief Growth Officer of BusPatrol America, Steve Randazzo, says their program does not target any group, and was created to be as fair as possible.
"Every single school bus across the city of Buffalo is equipped with a stop arm camera, so it's not picking and choosing certain routes or intersections. The whole point was to treat every kid's safety equitably and equally in the City of Buffalo," stated Randazzo in an interview with WBEN. There are other ways to do this program where you could just put the cameras on busses and target certain neighborhoods, and that was precisely the opposite of what the mayor's office and the city council and the city at large wanted."
Randazzo says while the company does take in 60% of the revenue generated from the fines, that money allows them to operate without having to charge residents for their service.
"The camera systems are very, very expensive, and then the installation and the maintenance of those systems are also very expensive. Then administering the program is very expensive. There's violation processing. We mail all of the citations out. We pay for the printing, postage, payment processing, all of the court support. It's really a turnkey end-to-end program that we administer on behalf of the city, and the city doesn't have to pay anything up front for it," stated Randazzo.
Buffalo's BusPatrol program went live on Oct. 1. Since then, more than 16,000 events were captured by their camera systems.