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Email Article Article Last Updated: 09/24/2005 10:23:50 AM Badly timed traffic signals cost Union City big bucks Yellow cycle found to be too short; red-light camera tickets to be dismis sed By Barry Shatzman, CORRESPONDENT UNION CITY Every ticket generated by red-light enforcement cameras in t he city before last Saturday will be dismissed due to a snafu letting thousands of red-light runners off the hook and costing the city hundred s of thousands of dollars in anticipated revenue. Police officials and city engineers discovered last week that the yellow- light duration at every one of its camera-enforced intersections was too short in some cases by more than a second. The city began using camer as in the summer at five intersections along Alvarado-Niles Road and Uni on City Boulevard. Since then, about 3,000 people have been photographed driving through red lights. With the city getting $136 for each conviction, dismissing ever y ticket means the city now will not receive more than $400,000 that wou ld have gone into its general fund. Adding to the impact are the costs i ncurred in processing all of those tickets that now will be dismissed. The state Department of Transportation sets the minimum amount of time th at a traffic signal must remain yellow before turning red, based on the road's speed limit. For a road with a speed limit of 45 mph, such as Uni on City Boulevard at Lowry Road, the light needs to stay yellow for at l east 43 seconds. The Castro Valley resident received a ticket in the mail for running that particular light. Feeling that he would not ha ve had enough time to stop had he tried to when the light turned yellow, he started doing some research. Goodson found the state code where the minimum times are listed, and then wrote to the city asking how long the signal at that intersection remai ns yellow. E-mail replies he received from City Engineer Carlos Jocson a nd Michael Dalisay, the police officer who runs the red-light enforcemen t program, both said the same thing. But both also incorrectly stated that standard as being o nly 3 seconds. When first questioned by a reporter about the timing discrepancy, police officials said they believed the lights were set correctly and that Jocs on and Dalisay simply had quoted Goodson the incorrect value.
city engineer" that the lights were properly set, police Capt. The investigation revealed that the yellow signal was set too short at ev ery photo-enforced intersection. Rather than place the blame on any one individual, the investigation pointed to a process of checks any one o f which would have pointed out the problem earlier that all failed. Foley said he and other officials were well aware of the minimum standard s and had assumed that Jocson and Dalisay also knew them. Still, city en gineers are required to provide a monthly audit of the signal settings. Those audits, which would have alerted officials to the problem, were ne ver received, he said. By 10:21 am last Saturday, all of the intersect ions had been set to the state-required standards. In meetings that continued late into the week, officials decided it would be best to dismiss every ticket issued before the lights were correctly reset last weekend, Foley said. Most could have stood anyway, since they greatly exceeded the time by several seconds," he said. He added t hat "numerous" near collisions and even a hit-and-run incident were captured on the cameras' video systems. "(The program) does generate revenue, but look at what a problem there is . Only about 100 of the 3,000 people who were photographed already had eith er paid the $351 fine or had registered for traffic school, and they all will be reimbursed, Foley said. Foley also responded charges that yellow-light times were shortened when the cameras were installed in order to nab more drivers. The improper ti ming had been in effect well before the program began, he said. We're not going to let anything hurt the integri ty and credibility of this program," he said. "At least it's better to f ind out now than a year from now."
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