Statewide Photo Radar Program Begins Friday

The Department of Public Safety will add 100 mobile and fixed cameras across the state.

A state official's decision Tuesday to let a contract award take effect means Arizona will launch its groundbreaking photo speed enforcement program on Friday, the Department of Public Safety said.

"We're going to be ready come Friday with some sort of photo enforcement,'' said Lt. James Warriner, a DPS spokesman.

The contract with Redflex Traffic Systems Inc. provides for 100 mobile and fixed cameras to be deployed statewide. Arizona's program would be the first such statewide deployment by a U.S. state though similar programs are used in other countries.

The DPS' contract with Redflex had been put on hold because of a challenge by competitor American Traffic Solutions Inc., but Department of Administration Director William Bell vacated the stay.

Bell said the state law authorizing the photo enforcement program clearly states that the program is in the state's public policy interests.

ATS' challenge remains pending, and it wasn't immediately known when the company would go to court to try to block implementation of the contract.

"We've just received the DOA document on the stay and we have several days to respond,'' said ATS spokesman Josh Weiss. "We're keeping all of our options open.''

Friday is the effective date of the budget law that was approved by lawmakers on June 26 and signed into law by Gov. Janet Napolitano on June 27.

Citing public safety benefits demonstrated by cameras deployed by Scottsdale on a state freeway, Napolitano in 2007 directed DPS to develop a photo speed enforcement program.

Lawmakers balked but she won authorization for the program in the current state budget approved in June. She included a projected $90 million in new state revenue from citations.

Though the contract challenge and stay delayed preparations for the program's launch, "we're going to try and do exactly what we were asked to do by the Legislature and the governor,'' Warriner said.

DPS will deploy some mobile units starting Friday but it will take longer to put fixed cameras in operation because DPS is still awaiting information from the Department of Transportation on suitable sites, he said.

The statewide program dramatically expands a two-vehicle pilot program already under way, also run by Redflex.

Redflex asked Bell to lift the stay, and DPS urged him to do so. The agency argued that launching the program was important to public health and safety because photo enforcement would reduce crashes on Arizona highways, let Highway Patrol officers focus on apprehending drunk drivers and improve safety for highway workers.

ATS argued that lifting the stay would allow Redflex to unfairly oppose the contract challenge on grounds that the program was already under way.

However, with a retroactivity clause in the law and wording that overrides any laws that conflict, "it is difficult to imagine a more emphatic statement by the Legislature that it considered the photo enforcement project necessary for the health and safety of the public of Arizona,'' Bell wrote.