The City of Brampton is fighting to keep their automated speed cameras (ASE) and is willing to compromise with the province on when and where the cameras are being used. Brampton City Council has voted unanimously to oppose the premier’s plan to scrap automated speed enforcement in the 40 municipalities that operate the program. The move was introduced after dozens of speed cameras have been damaged on Toronto streets over the last six months, including one on Parkside Drive that has been cut down at least six times. Councillor Rowena Santos is leading the charge in Brampton, saying speed cameras save lives. She took CityNews to Main Street South, one of the areas with a speed camera, just steps away from churches, a high school, city hall and big downtown park. “You can’t put speed bumps here so one of the only options we have in this area near a school is a speed camera,” said Santos. Santos says thanks to the automated enforcement, drivers along this stretch have a 96 per cent compliance rate of the 50 km/hr. speed limit. “They’ve received the warning here … they see there is a camera here and this is the street with the highest compliance in terms of people following the speed limit because we implemented it and gave people notice,” she explained. To prove her point she came armed with a radar gun to track speeds of vehicles driving down the stretch, with many staying within the speed limit. When Santos moved to the north side of Main Street, which has the same speed limit, but no automated speed camera, it was not the same outcome. “We were looking at some cars travelling up to 75 km/hr., up to 85 km/hr. yesterday and this is a 50 km/hr. zone,” she shared. Councillor Rowena Santos uses a speed gun on Main Street in Brampton. CITYNEWS/Shauna HuntBrampton first launched its ASE program in 2020 with 50 ground-mounted cameras that were rotated around 200 designated community safety zones across the city. Since last year, however, the city has installed 185 new pole-mounted cameras and opened a multi-million-dollar ticket processing centre. Santos tells CityNews that the motion she introduced, that was unanimously supported, came with compromises she hopes the province will consider. The compromises include limiting cameras to school locations, targeting the most dangerous speeding behaviours by maintaining existing speed thresholds during peak hours and applying higher thresholds during non-peak hours to capture excessive speeding, and implement a cap on the number of tickets that can be issued to a single licence plate within a set period except for incidents of excessive speed. The motion also added that should the province follow through on the ban, it must reimburse municipalities for the investments used to implement the provincially-shaped program and “and additional funding must be provided to implement alternate, although not necessarily as effective, traffic calming measures.” The Minister of Transportation’s office said Premier Doug Ford and Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria’s comments stand as response to what the government’s plan on speed cameras is. Ford has called the speed cameras a “cash grab,” despite multiple municipalities and the Ontario Chiefs of Police Association saying the cameras have helped slow drivers down and save lives. Sarkaria has reinforced Ford’s position, suggesting this is an “all or nothing deal” and that every municipality is expected to comply.