BUFFALO (WBEN) - Five school speed zone camera locations where schools are physically in session are going live Tuesday morning.
The locations include Canisius High School along Delaware, Nichols at Amherst and Colvin, St. Joseph's University Parish School on Main Street, Buffalo Promise Neighborhood on Bailey, and Notre Dame Grammar School on Abbott.
"This will be important in areas of the city where we have high traffic, where we have children going to school, where we have families taking the children to school, to make sure that those areas are safer for our youth and families in the City of Buffalo," said Brown.
According to Kevin Helfer, who serves as the commissioner of parking as well as the executive director of the Buffalo Traffic Violations Agency, beacons have been flashing for the past couple weeks in the speed zones to get residents acclimated But starting Tuesday, those in violation of the speed zones will be sent a $50 ticket.
"The speed limit in the school zones is 15 miles per hour, but for the purposes of the legislation that enabled us to use school zone safety cameras, people are allowed to go up to 25 miles per hour without getting a violation," said Helfer. "Once they go 11 miles per hour more, 26 or more, a violation will be issued."
Before the program originally rolled out in the spring prior to the pandemic, Brown wanted to make sure flashing beacons were put up in the zones to provide warning for residents, and Helfer said that helped a lot in terms of compliance.
"We gauged our compliance while we were in the warning (period), and our compliance pre-beacon was probably around 70%," Helfer continued. "Once we started putting the beacons up, the compliance, and by that I mean people going 25 miles per hour or less, went up into the 90th percentile.
"I think if people put it into perspective to slow down for 15 seconds or 30 seconds of your day to potentially save a life."
