Seattle City Council members Nick Licata, Tom Rasmussen and David Della have proposed adding 24 traffic-safety cameras to the City's Red-Light Camera Program at a cost of approximately $1 million dollars.

The council members' recommendation follows a draft evaluation report released in July that showed a great deal of promise for the City's Red-Light Camera Program.

This report found that violations decreased by one third and the severity of collisions decreased overall at the six intersections where the cameras are installed. Councilmember Licata, co-chair of the special committee on pedestrian safety, said, "These cameras are preventing accidents. The city needs more of them."

Councilmember Rasmussen said, "When we first proposed this program we knew it would get results, but the level of success is even greater than we hoped."

Councilmember Della, also a member of the special committee said that as Seattle "increases its density and we encourage people to get out of their cars, the city has a paramount duty to make sure pedestrians can cross the street safely."

In 2004, the Council prioritized establishment of a Red-Light Camera Program by including the passage of necessary enabling state legislation as a legislative priority for the city. Then, during the 2005 State Legislative session, the Council and the Office of Intergovernmental Relations worked successfully to change the standards and restrictions regarding use of traffic-safety cameras set by State Law.

Finally, in late 2005 the Council unanimously passed ordinance 121944, cosponsored by Councilmembers Licata and Rasmussen, authorizing use of these cameras and setting the monetary penalty for a stoplight infraction detected by the use of the cameras as well.

The revenue received from citations resulting from the cameras at the six intersections currently under use is more than 2.5 times the cost of those cameras.