Albany Democrat-Herald

In the first six months of Albany’s first red light cameras being in operation, about 600 tickets were issued and the city collected more than $25,000.

Pat Hurley, a crime analyst at the Albany Police Department, is preparing to speak this fall at a city council meeting and present an update on the cameras operations and talk about future plans for more cameras in the city.

So far, the only cameras are at Geary Street and Queen Avenue S.E.

The cameras, operated by Redflex Traffic Systems, capture videos and photographs of vehicles running red lights. The images are reviewed by Albany police to determine whether a violation actually occurred and whether a ticket should be sent in the mail.

The fine for a red light violation is $302.

Between Dec. 20, 2007, when the cameras began operating, and June 30, some 601 tickets were mailed to drivers.

Of those, 150 tickets have been paid in full, and 116 have been dismissed either in Albany Municipal Court or because the ticket recipient returned “certificate of innocence,” claiming not to be the driver at the time the picture was taken.

That leaves 335 tickets that are either pending in court or not yet paid in full.

In previous years, when red light tickets were written by officers and not cameras, the total number of red light tickets written at the intersection averaged 10.4 a year from 2003 to 2007.

The total money collected from the red light camera tickets issued before June 30 is $44,030. Of that, the city has paid Redflex $9,000, and $9,238 has gone to county and state fees.

The amount left for the city is $25,792.

There has been talk of installing more red light cameras at other intersections in Albany, including Pacific Boulevard and Geary Street, and Ninth Avenue and Lyon Street.

However, the next location city officials are looking to install cameras is Geary Street and Ninth Avenue S.E., an intersection where cameras will have to be approved by the Oregon Department of Transportation.

There is no timeline for when cameras might go up there, Hurley said.