Amends the contract with Xerox State and Local Solutions to add $81,000, for a new total of $1,104,272, and extend it for 6 months, through 6-30-15, to continue the Automated Photo Red Light Program during the request for proposal process (CE-01061-06). (SAFETY & WELL-BEING) Amends the contract with Xerox State and Local Solutions to add $81,000, for a new total of $1,104,272, and extend it for 6 months, through 6-30-15, to continue the Automated Photo Red Light Program during the request for proposal process (CE-01061-06). The last regularly scheduled Council meeting within the 30-day review period is on 12-22-14.  The Committee approved filing this bill at its meeting on 11-25-14.
10 hours, two nays, one abstention. 1017 has been ordered published. Madam Secretary, you want to have the next one, which I believe was 950. Councilwoman Fox called that one out. Wait for technology to catch up, but also ask, what would you like for us to do with this? Put it on for four votes. Certainly. Councilman Brown, could you please have 950 ordered published? Thank you, Mr. President. A move the council bill 950 the ordered. Publish it has been making it has been moved in seconded comments from members of council, the council and Fox. Thank you, Mr. President. There are two ordinances on the agenda tonight dealing with photo traffic enforcement. One is an ordinance extending photo radar. Speeding is a big issue in my district and to my constituents, and I have not called out that ordinance. However, over 50% of the survey respondents in my district for my annual survey wanted the state to ban the use of photo red light. I started out being a fan because it was sold to me as a way to ticket people who blow through stoplights who could oppose that traffic light. You blow through, you get a ticket. Well, that isn't exactly how it turned out. And even before I go to what it turned out, I do want to mention we also, at the same time lengthened the yellow light, which really did help. There were ways to deal with this problem other than setting a photo red light ticket. However, in reality, this program targets people whose wheels stop over the white line. If the photo shows someone in the frame and people actually review these photos so they have discretion, whether they take it or not. If somebody is actually in the frame, either in the crosswalk or preparing to enter the crosswalk, I could be persuaded that this may be a safety issue. But a journalist gave me a stack of photos to review and nearly a hundred of them from the Quebec intersection. And I went through those photos. Those people had gotten photo red life tickets. And I don't recall seeing a single person, a single bicyclist, a single disabled individual, anybody in the frame. But these people were still ticketed. The rails were over the white line. I am not willing to collect revenue off a non hazardous situation and if there is nobody there and it's a matter of the wheels stopping a little bit too far forward, that to me is not a traffic hazard. My standard is whether an officer who could be standing at that intersection would ticket under the same circumstances. But I'm not willing to support a program where that officer definitely would not. Thank you, Councilman. Thoughts, Councilman Lopez. Thank you, Mr. President. I respectfully disagree. I think the photo relay program is very helpful, and I do so because for me, it's a safety issue. I've seen folks blow through red lights doing this. Not even paying attention to what's ahead of them, but instead liking something on Facebook and for that instant. Imagine what can happen. On Sixth and Callum, all you got to do is sit there and you watch his cars go right through. Coming to a point. I was one of those folks that blew through that red light one time. I had a big fine waiting for me at home. And guess what? I. I slowed down, like, 30 feet before that. I don't want that. I don't want that. Fine. And I honestly don't want to be responsible for somebody losing their mother, their father, or their son and daughter. On the count of me running a red light. In other states, you fined up to 400 or $500. For one of these violations. And I absolutely disagree with the notion that just because you're you're crossing the line, your front end of the cars in the passing, that line in the intersection is not hazardous. We've been told time and time again by our own People with Disabilities Commission on how they like the idea of the photo radar. And you should be able to be a fine if you're in the cross out because unlike me, thank God. And I'm blessed to have the use of both of my legs unable to cross that sidewalk or cross that crosswalk and good speed to hustle on over. There are folks in this city who cannot. They are on a wheelchair. They're in a cane or crutches. They're blind with a walking stick. And they depend on any mechanism they can to help them cross safely. And if there's too much of an inconvenience for us to get us, what is it, 70 something dollars, $40, $40 to cross 40 bucks. That's the inconvenience that I have to pay. That's bigger inconvenience and somebody who's trying to get across the street in a wheelchair. I'm sorry, but. The Battle of the inconveniences. It's pretty, pretty obvious. I don't mind having to pay that $40 fine. As opposed to watching somebody in a wheelchair have to go around the front end of your car in traffic. Just to get to the other side. Well, your car. And I agree. Councilman Fox, I would love to have an officer sit there and watch cars go through and ticket them. I like that idea. I wish I was an officer. Every intersection I do that. But guess what? The same time, we got to be frugal with our budget, and we don't have enough officers. And Councilwoman in the budget. I was with you in making sure that we had more officers. I want to do this every single year. Until we're cool. But until then, every tool that we have in the toolbox to protect people's safety as they walk in this city. As a cross in the city should be utilized. And it gets the best of us. And it's inconvenient. But imagine if that were your kid in the coffin, in a hospital bed. Because it didn't cross a line or because they crossed the red line. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Councilman Lopez. Councilwoman Sussman. Thank you, Mr. President. I think it's easy for all of us to be. Real clear about the fact that running a red light is. Dangerous and against the law. But many of us have forgotten, probably from long, long ago, taking our driver's ed, that it is also against the law to stop in a crosswalk for safety reasons. It might be more evident to us that how dangerous it is to run a stoplight than how dangerous it is to cross into a crosswalk. And just because the after picture of not seeing anybody in the crosswalk doesn't matter. Because when you are coming up on a light, you can't always tell whether there's somebody in that crosswalk or not. There is a reason why it is against the law. And we have seen some terrifying photos from the police department of Mothers and strollers being barely missed of people in wheelchairs being barely missed because they are in the crosswalk. And the driver who is not paying attention has is almost not stopped in time. If we would want to not give a ticket for those who are breaking the law about crossing a crosswalk, then we need to change the law. But we can't just say, let's not give a ticket. Let's give a ticket for this lawbreaking, but not for that lawbreaking. What sense does that make? And we have seen the danger that it produces for the disabled, for people in bicycles, for people in wheelchairs. It is dangerous to stop at a crosswalk. A person has an opportunity to drive more carefully. Often the lights have countdowns. And if you remember that it is illegal to stop at a crosswalk. You can be more careful about making sure that you do it. Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilwoman. Thank you, Mr. President. A lot of the things I was planning on saying have been really pointed out by Council Bin Lopez and also Councilman Sussman. I got a I got one of these ones. And it was about ten years ago. I have never gotten one since. They are about changing behavior and there is no better way of changing behavior than getting one of these types of tickets at a red light. I am. I would say one of the top five complaints I get from constituents on a regular basis is about crosswalk and intersection safety on a regular basis. I'm a mom with a seven year old kid and I am hyper hypersensitive to these issues because I regularly am crossing the street with my son. I can't tell you how often I tell him to look both ways before he steps in the street. But my son did a little bit in the clouds, and I can't tell you how often he steps out into the street without doing exactly what I'm telling him. And I, you know, because I walk him to school every day, I see horrible behavior on the parts of drivers as they go through intersections. And I notice this particularly around my son's school, but I've seen it countless other places in my district. My district is full of a lot of seniors. It is full of a lot of boomers who are eventually going to find themselves perhaps with a walker or a cane or also, you know, just wheelchairs as well. A lot of the folks that live in my West Colfax corridor are also disabled. And I cannot stress enough how important I think it is to, as Councilman Lopez said, to ensure that we use every tool in our toolbox to ensure safety for all users of our of our roads. One thing that's important to note that if a car hits a pedestrian going ten miles an hour, nine out of ten pedestrians will survive that accident. If a car hits a pedestrian at 40 miles an hour, nine out of ten pedestrians will not survive that accident. I know most of us in this room are drivers. 40 doesn't feel like very fast to a driver, but it is the difference between life and death for a pedestrian in a crosswalk. So just because a ticket met the photo generated when a ticket is issued may or may not show. Someone in the crosswalk or about to enter the crosswalk. As Councilman Sussman said, that's irrelevant because once someone is killed, they're killed. Thank you, Councilwoman Sheppard. Councilwoman Monteiro. Thank you, Mr. President. I received an email regarding this issue from an individual that lives in West Denver, and he asked some very, very good questions. And so I'm just going to put it out there so that I can get some answers to his questions before second reading. But there are people that feel that while this is a safety issue, they also feel that it's probably an illicit tax, that the city of Denver hasn't been very good at explaining what we're doing with with the money and where the proceeds from the from the tickets go. So that's one question that I have. And also and I think I think it's good to have this conversation about about this particular program, because every time we're supposed to vote on it, it does raise some controversy. And so the other thing that I would like to ask is. How how this revenue is really used so that it's helpful towards the safety of drivers and pedestrians. So if I could have that information to be able to send back to my constituent that lives in West Denver, I would really appreciate it. Sure. Councilman Monteiro The simple answer is, like all other fines that goes into the general fund and those dollars are allocated as part of the budget process every year for all sorts of things within the city, including safety. But there is no specific breakdown because it does all just run into the general fund. So so I think that that's probably I think that's probably the issue with this gentleman is that, you know, he lives near one of the intersections and sees people not taking it very serious at all. And it may be people that are so used to it from the neighborhood or I'm not sure, you know, chronic folks that just go through there. But I think that's part of the issue. Is that something that impacts people that we're not very good at seeing where those revenues go and for them to go into the general fund kind of diminishes the importance. So I just wanted to share that. Thank you. Happy to pass that on. Thank you. Thank you. Councilman Monteiro. Councilman Fattah, I know you just ring back in, but I was going to go to some of our councilmembers having spoken. Is that okay, Councilman Nevitt? Thank you, Mr. President. I'll be real brief. I agree with Councilwoman Monteiro that we've probably done a poor job of explaining the rationale for this. Educating people and education is definitely a critical, critical component of having this program be successful. I also agree with my colleagues who talked about the importance of protecting the crosswalk for children, for the disabled. But I want to make a pitch here, but I want to stake a claim that this is for the benefit of all of us. We are all pedestrians first before we get into a car. And we have made a deep commitment as a city to transform Denver into a true, multi-modal city. Where all forms of transportation and all forms of locomotion are honored and facilitated. And that means that we need to do a better job of mediating between the different forms of transportation. So, yes, cars belong on the road, but the roads also belong to pedestrians. When the light is red, the crosswalk belongs to the pedestrian. And that is worth reinforcing to all drivers so that all of us as pedestrians know that the street is safe. Because if we don't enforce it, then when the light is red, take your chances. But that's not what we want to say when the light is red. The crosswalk belongs to pedestrians. And if we can live with that and as people begin to get the message, and if we do a better job of communicating that message, we will make a big step forward to making a multi-modal city. If we abandon the crosswalk to haphazard approach of you can invaded if you want, or if there's a policeman there, you might get a ticket. I think we won't make very much progress. So thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Councilman. Councilwoman Ortega. I just want to ask a couple of specifics, and I'm not sure who is here from Public Works that can address my question. So let me just start out by saying, first of all, what we're doing here is adding $81,000 to an existing contract and extending it by six months. So, Sky, I guess you're the point person here to answer my question. It's actually safety's bill, but I'm happy to take the question. Okay. That's right. I forgot it was safety net. Public works. Do we get any additional interchanges? Because right now we only have four intersections that are photo redlining. Correct. So this doesn't do anything more than extend the contract and add those dollars. Yes, that's absolutely correct. We are in the process of developing an RFP. It's been a number of years since these two contracts were instituted, and so it's time to go back out for RFP and they intend to do that in the early part of next year. So this is an extension to get us through the first six months of the year while that RFP process takes place, and it does only include the four intersections. There will be a component of the new RFP that might consider future intersections, but that's a policy conversation to have in the future. And at. That time, we'll have another robust conversation about this, and we. Are very sure we will. Thank you. Thank you. Councilwoman Ortega. Councilwoman Fox. Thank you, Mr. President. I want to be sure you understand that. I really do want safety measures, those things that I think are really pertinent to safety. One, as I said, was the longer yellow caution light. I think that really did help drivers be able to stop. Secondly, it was referenced a countdown mechanism that is very important to and we really should be having the larger countdown signs so that people can see how many seconds left there are. I get worried, though, when you have something that is such a generator of revenue that sometimes the safety part may take second steer, maybe not to these council members, but it may and I'm going to use a deer for an example. It was just told to me from a different city and adjacent city that uses photo red light and the citizen contacted them trying to get the larger count down measures. And the city purposely didn't want to put them in because it would cut into the revenue. And so just understand, unless you see these other safety measures in connection with this, somebody is talking out of half of their mouth, not the full story. I also had staff do some research and some cities do not ticket for white line violation. They ticket blowing through the red light. They do not ticket the white line. Other cities have found the program to be so ineffective they have discontinued it altogether. Thank you, Councilman Fox. Councilman Lopez. Thank you, Mr. President. Good for those other cities. But in Denver, we take it for the white line, because those as my colleagues said, the crosswalk belongs to pedestrians and not just the ones that walk, but the ones that roll and the ones that can't see. That's why it's important. If they have that problem, the other city that that city council deal with it. What I see here is a solution. It is a tool that we can use to help change behavior. You know, I wouldn't mind seeing those revenues down to zero, which means not very many people at all would be crossing those crosswalks or running those red lights out. I think that's the goal. I would like to go on record saying I want that goal to see that come down to zero. That means there are less accidents, more folks that are obeying that red line. And if I can go on record, I know we're not expanding, but I have some recommendations. Alameda and federal I would say Alameda. Knox I would say 10th in federal federal next position. Man I'll have one at the end of the block. I think these work, it's not about revenue. And you're talking to somebody whose family member can no longer work because they were struck by a vehicle running a red light. It is a very hard thing to deal with. We'll still be we will still be running red lights. Absolutely. Will people still be spitting? Absolutely. But hopefully. The number of people running red lines and the number of people speeding drops dramatically. And I think that's the purpose of this program. I would like to see that zero barrel balanced one time. That would be a great day in the city. Thank you. Thank you. Councilman Lopez. Councilwoman Robb. Oh, just for people listening to this debate that we seem to have every other year or so, about three or four years ago when we had the debate, we did cut the fine for the white line violation in half. So it's half the cost of that going through the whole intersections. It's $40 and that's $10 less than a gosh darned street sweeping ticket. So I think it's as easy to stop at a white line as it is to read a street sweeping sign. So I tend to agree with Mary Beth assessment. I just wanted people to realize that it's a relatively poor Denver low cost ticket. Thank you, Councilman Rob. Any other comments? 950. Scene on Madam Secretary. Roll call. But no. Can each layman. I. Lopez. Montero. Nevitt. I. Ortega. I. Rob. Shepherd. Susman. Hi, Brooks Brown. Hi. Mr. President. Hi. Madam Secretary, please close the voting and announce the result. 12 eyes, one nay, 12 eyes. One day. 950 has been ordered published. So I believe that was all the bills that are called out. So all other bills are introduction except for council bill 941 are ordered published council will postpone order and published council Bill 941 concerning the Denver Zoological Foundation Certificate of Designation Application for the proposed Waste to Energy System Methods Institute at the Denver Denver Zoo until after the required public hearing this evening. And so we are now ready for the block votes. Councilman Brown, will you please put the resolutions on the floor for adoption?