Police Details, Cameras, & Enforcement Methods

HelloBostonHi

HelloBostonHi

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F-Line to Dudley said:
They need to institute a signal system, be it a traditional wayside install or a virtualized all on-vehicle radio system so there's some enforced end-to-end headway adherence and byproduct of stop countdown clocks worth a damn in accuracy. And it's probably past time that the Central Ave. grade crossing got transit prioritized with a real traffic signal instead of just being single RR crossbucks sign with staring contest to see who's going to try to cut off whom.
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I was truly shocked the first time I rode the Mattapan line and saw the Central Ave crossing was a totally unsignalized grade crossing. This is what a light rail crossing looks like where I come from (complete with cameras to catch people junmping the lights) https://www.google.com/maps/@55.014...4!1s0xjQ8uoVDody_F6mC2SrMQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

Also if you move around a bit you'll see its properly built light rail, with high platforms and an 80 kmh speed limit. Can't even dream of light rail hitting that around here
 
Vagabond said:
Man, if only there were police around, like from the STATION DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF THIS SPOT.
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In Maryland we have this really cool new technology called "TRAFFIC VIOLATION CAMERAS". In Montgomery County they are up on almost every intersection. Amazing how much red light running and lane violations have decreased.

Boston should try it out. I hear this technology is available up north too!

The Commonwealth could save BILLIONS on police detail (along with ridiculous road work/construction police detail that other states pay jags $15/hour to wear yellow vests and wave traffic around).

Mass has the greatest brains on earth, yet is dragged down by pols and cops.
 
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shmessy said:
In Maryland we have this really cool new technology called "TRAFFIC VIOLATION CAMERAS". In Montgomery County they are up on almost every intersection. Amazing how much red light running and lane violations have decreased.

Boston should try it out. I hear this technology is available up north too!

The Commonwealth could save BILLIONS on police detail (along with ridiculous road work/construction police detail that other states pay jags $15/hour to wear yellow vests and wave traffic around).

Mass has the greatest brains on earth, yet is dragged down by pols and cops.
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What if I told you that you can still eliminate police details without the use of red light cameras?
 
kingofsheeba said:
What if I told you that you can still eliminate police details without the use of red light cameras?
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The quickest path to a fully-funded early retirement is the most time-and-a-half you can accrue standing around looking important while doing little. They're gonna have to hope for an incredibly high frequency of extremely peaceful and uneventful marches on every Town Hall in the Commonwealth in our new national political s@#$show reality to make replacement-level bank, doncha know.


Oh, you mean...like...don't schedule the time-and-a-half in the first place? That's fascism, bro. 🍩
 
shmessy said:
In Maryland we have this really cool new technology called "TRAFFIC VIOLATION CAMERAS". In Montgomery County they are up on almost every intersection. Amazing how much red light running and lane violations have decreased.

Boston should try it out. I hear this technology is available up north too!

The Commonwealth could save BILLIONS on police detail (along with ridiculous road work/construction police detail that other states pay jags $15/hour to wear yellow vests and wave traffic around).

Mass has the greatest brains on earth, yet is dragged down by pols and cops.
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Thought I read somewhere a court case in Mass rendered tickets from traffic violation cameras as unenforceable? Something about for a moving violation you need to catch the person doing it not the car?
 
Arlington said:
Like this view looking outbound from Lechmere (that nut co warehouse is gonna make somebody very rich)
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As much of an eyesore as it is (and as annoying as the trucks blocking Rt 28 are at certain times...) goddamn if that factory doesn't emit the most delicious smells of roasted nuts.

Arlington said:
Solution: call it a toll collection, or a car fee, not a driver violation.
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That's what a number of proposals I've seen would essentially do. Cameras would issue citations, but those citations would not impact one's driving record or insurance.
 
All in all, the Commonwealth could save BILLIONS annually (yes, annually) by implementing:

1) Video traffic law enforcement vs. human
2) Pay $15/hour to traffic construction flaggers instead of OT cops
3) (Aside from Boston/Worcester/Springfield and maybe one of two other urban places) move from Municipal government and towards County government.

The savings would be enormous - - and that is money that could be plugged back into progressive/evolutionary projects like housing, NSRL, West Station, etc.

The solution exists. The only impediment is old-timey attitudes.
 
Arlington said:
Solution: call it a toll collection, or a car fee, not a driver violation.
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Judges aren't stupid and I doubt they're going to look very positively on an attempt to dodge court judgement by renaming something to something it's not.

You could certainly implement a congestion zone, though. That is a toll.

shmessy said:
3) (Aside from Boston/Worcester/Springfield and maybe one of two other urban places) move from Municipal government and towards County government.
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MA's counties mostly don't exist as government entities, and their boundaries make very little practical sense in the Boston region.

I'd say that since you're starting from a mostly blank slate anyway, it would make much more sense to put together some sort of new regional entities with more sensible boundaries/criteria for shared services than to try to bring back counties.
 
^ we aren't trying to trick judges.
When l said "call it" I guess I should have been clearer and said "legally define it as" AFAIK, judges object to judging People (and their legal licensed history and insurance status) based on sensors, but have no problem with imposing $ on autos (property) by plate

We are proposing the same legal thing: a (high) toll on bus lane use, enforced by cameras and plate readers, except not just mounted on a gantry in a fixed location, OR mounted on a bus whose location is known from GPS and image.
 
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but the state already changed the law to allow non-police flaggers. The problem is that municipal govts and police unions ended up with police traffic duties still being contractual.
 
OldColony said:
What do the last 7 posts have to do with GLX?
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Lechmere Viaduct construction street impacts are a cop detail OT-pay bonanza months ongoing. It's dinging the project budget. It's fair game to ask why when the "mandatoriness" of all those time-and-a-half detail shifts is a bunch of institutional graft mob-enforced on its surroundings why we need to settle for the project budget taking a dinger over this in lieu of available streamlined alternatives.

It's a larger breakaway discussion because EVERY street-level construction project in the land takes the same budget dinger paying the mob rate for OT detail, and cumulatively that's an awfully outsized expense to be artificially shut out from examining lower-impact alternatives. The number of OT details induced by Lechmere Viaduct construction is well-illustrative of this begged question.
 
How is "on-street behavior" enforced? What are its economics, legality, and effectiveness?
(I'm going to be collecting a preamble of recent themes like:
-Costs and benefits of (Mass' unique) system of police details
- Legality of what behaviors can be enforced by whom
- Role of GPS, Sensors, Gantries, Red Light Cameras, and Speed Cameras

We also covered this really well in other threads (how Police Details drive up the costs of infrastructure and are a drag on municipal infrastructure renewal), and we covered a lot of e-tolling/plate pass/ punative tolling almost every time the Tobin or new bus lanes came up recently
(Since we usually get into this as a serious side discussion when we discuss transit and infrastructure projects)
 
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