Councilwoman Bass pushes for Lincoln Drive red-light cameras

After Thursday’s City Council meeting, at which she said she introduced an ordinance calling for a red-light camera to be installed at a busy West Oak Lane intersection, Eighth District Councilwoman Cindy Bass told NewsWorks of another pair of items on her traffic-control wish list.

Bass said that her office was in the early stages of determining whether red-light cameras will be installed at two places along Lincoln Drive.

One would be on the edge of Germantown; the other in the heart of West Mount Airy.

“Lincoln Drive is not an expressway,” she said, “and people should stop treating as if it is.”

Speeding survey

The numbers from a NewsWorks investigation backed that stance up.

When NewsWorks spent a week in Sept. 2012 with a radar gun recording vehicle speeds along Henry Avenue and Kelly and Lincoln Drives, the latter topped the speeding list.

In that survey, a black Honda Accord was clocked at 71.6 mph in the 25 mph zone near Gypsy Lane and less than a mile away, a Dodge Ram 1500 pickup reached 68.1 mph, also in a 25 mph zone.

What now?

Bass did not want to release the possible locations publicly at this point. She said her office was “in the early stages” of working with the Philadelphia Parking Authority — the agency which oversees the cameras — to survey Lincoln Drive and determine whether installation was feasible.

If that survey finds a need, the Streets and Police Department are brought into the conversation, a PPA spokeswoman explained Thursday.

Bass said she would then introduce it in council, at which point it would need committee, and then full council, approval before becoming reality.

The measure asking for red-light cameras at Stenton and Ogontz avenues in West Oak Lane (PDF), which has already gone through PPA’s survey, was referred to council’s Streets and Services Committee for consideration. Bass is among seven council members on that committee; she said the ordinance was introduced at the administration’s request.