PHILADELPHIA – The City of Philadelphia in partnership with the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) today released a report that makes the case for the installation of Automated Speed Enforcement (ASE) cameras on State Route 611, which covers the vast majority of Broad Street. This comes on the heels of City Councilmember Mark Squilla (1st District) introducing Bill No. 240434 on May 9 to allow for an ASE program on Route 611.

“Automated Speed Enforcement has been extraordinarily successful in saving the lives of pedestrians and motorists on Roosevelt Boulevard,” said Mike Carroll, Deputy Managing Director, Office of Transportation and Infrastructure Systems (OTIS). “We’re looking to bring that same lifesaving technology to Broad Street, which has the city’s highest level of traffic deaths and serious injuries.”

Since 2018, speeding-related crashes have increased from 15% to 22% of all severe crashes in Philadelphia. This alarming number of speeding-related crashes has led to 296 deaths and 501 suspected serious injuries from 2018 to 2022. To reduce traffic deaths, it is necessary to reduce vehicle speeds. Lower vehicle speeds lead to less severe crashes.

Automated speed cameras were first used by the City, in partnership with the Philadelphia Parking Authority (PPA), in 2020 along Roosevelt Boulevard in a pilot program permitted by the state legislature to curb speeding on the city’s most dangerous road. The program reduced speeding violations on the corridor by 95% and pedestrian-involved crashes have been reduced by 50% since the cameras were put in place.

Due to the success of the Roosevelt Boulevard pilot, the state legislature has permitted the City to expand the ASE program to five additional corridors with high levels of speeding and pedestrian-related crashes. The City evaluated state and local routes and ranked them based on crash data. The results indicate the top five corridors for ASE expansion are state routes 611, 13, 2016, 3, and 291.

For more information, please find the full Automated Speed Enforcement Expansion 2024 report on Vision Zero Philadelphia’s website.