Tucson voters appeared to be opting to ban the controversial red light cameras operating in eight intersections.
If early voting margins hold up, City Attorney Mike Rankin said he expects the red light cameras wouldn’t be turned off until Nov. 19, after the City Council certifies the election results.
If approved, the measure will also mothball the white boxy vans the city uses as its mobile photo radar units.
With 131,000 early mail-in ballots counted, out of 306,000 that were mailed, 65 percent of voters backed Proposition 201 to ban the cameras. Only some of the votes cast at ballot boxes on Tuesday had been counted Tuesday night.
The referendum on the cameras has no impact on people who have a ticket or get one in the mail in the coming weeks or months. There is a several-week delay from when the photo is taken and when the ticket arrives in the offender’s mailbox.
The city has been operating on a month-to-month contract with Tempe-based American Traffic Solutions.
In 2014, the red light cameras and photo radar generated 26,476 tickets and produced $2.39 million for the city in the last fiscal year.
The citizen-led initiative to put Proposition 201 on the ballot was the brainchild of former state legislator John Kromko.
Kromko’s group, Tucson Traffic Justice, helped to turn in more than 40,000 petition signatures to get the issue on the ballot.
Kromko rejected pleas that the removal of the cameras would lead to increased car accidents, calling it a “myth.”
“People should not worry that there will be more accidents or fatalities,” Kromko said in prepared statement.
“When cameras are removed, typically nothing at all happens, except that people have more money in the pockets. This is what happened when Pima County removed their cameras a year and a half ago,” he said.
Tucson Mayor Jonathan Rothschild had asked voters to vote against the measure, stating “red light cameras save lives.”
In his argument, he cited the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, which states the cameras reduced the fatality rate from the running of red lights by 24 percent.
Two years ago, Kromko attempted to put a similar referendum on the ballot but failed to gather enough signatures.
Pima County voluntarily severed ties with American Traffic Solutions in January 2014 to take down photo radar cameras on roads in unincorporated county areas.
County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry told the Pima County Board of Supervisors that the number of county tickets issued peaked in 2010 as drivers learned to slow down where the cameras were installed.
