Sunday Open Thread [7.28.13]

The NJ does a long piece today about the red-light camera industry here in Delaware. Most interesting is that Wilmington’s program seems most disconnected to any effort to increase traffic safety, even though safety data is available for analysis. I’m also intrigued by the fact that Wilmington operates its camera on a revenue-sharing basis with its contractors, while DelDOT does not. Revenue-sharing with an entity that is supposed to make money obviously changes the incentives for camera placement and enforcement, and is one more deal that Wilmington was willing to cut that doesn’t look like it was for the benefit of its taxpayers. Interestingly, there seems to be some movement across the country to dump these cameras, with California looking like it leads this effort, with cities like San Diego, Belmont, Hayward, Emeryville and Yuba City among the many dumping their camera systems. Other cities in New Mexico, Georgia, Tennessee have also voted to dump their cameras and New Jersey has a current moratorium on new cameras while the legislature works on an effort to ban them outright. No doubt there are intersections where people are running red lights, but I wonder if we get our traffic engineers to develop a much less eccentric timing system (especially on major thorofares), we could accomplish a reduction in folks running lights. No matter though, time for Wilmington to address and manage these cameras as a safety issue, not a revenue enhancement program.

In other news, my Favorite Governor (Martin O’Malley) announced an aggressive state-wide emissions reduction program. This is what I’m talkin’ about:

There’s a pdf of the plan here.

John McCain as a bi-partisan dealmaker? Really? Hmmm. MCain was part of the Senate Gang that brought us the immigration reform package, but this has been on his agenda for years. He has been making some noises for some of the teajhadi portions of his party to Get Off His Lawn. But you’ll understand if I’m not quite ready to see him as anything other than interested in furthering McCain’s interests.

So what interests you this Sunday morning?