An average of 4,800 speeding tickets are being issued every month in three Alexandria school zones, and the city’s school system will soon look for locations for future speed cameras.
The data was presented at a joint City Council/School Board Committee meeting at City Hall on Monday (Sept. 23).
Mayor Justin Wilson said that the group was going to start discussion with the number of citations issued to City Council Member John Taylor Chapman.
“We’re going to begin with a number of tickets that Councilman Chapman has got,” Wilson said.
Chapman quickly responded, “I’ll tell everybody. I just got one in the mail. I have no clue where it’s from. I have not opened it yet. My wife has three so, whew. Hey, transparency.”
Speed cameras started tracking drivers last year in the city’s West End near Francis C. Hammond Middle School, John Adams Elementary School, Ferdinand T. Day Elementary School, and in Del Ray at George Washington Middle School.
The speed cameras have almost resulted in an overall reduction in speeding in all three school zones. Mount Vernon Avenue in Del Ray has seen a small increase in the percentage of speeding drivers in the p.m. hours, according to an ACPS presentation.
Additionally, 82% of citations last year and this year were issued to non-city residents, and one-third of the nearly 50,000 tickets have gone unpaid.
Locations for the new cameras haven’t been identified, Alex Carroll, the city’s Complete Streets program manager, told the committee.
“We don’t have the locations set,” Carroll said. “We’re hoping that we can have them done (selected) over winter break and have them be ready by the new calendar year in 2025.”
Carroll said that the city is considering adding more signage alerting drivers that they are entering a speed camera zone.
“Even though we do have signage in place that’s compliant with state law, there may be some opportunities to go above and beyond what the law requires to to make people make it abundantly clear that folks are entering zone and modify their behavior accordingly,” Carroll said.
