Report: Money from traffic cam fines isn’t going to city streets

By Paul Murphy

Source: WWL-TV

May 26, 2017

NEW ORLEANS — According to a new report, the City of New Orleans is only spending $3.8 million on street maintenance and none of that is coming from traffic camera fines.

Ask any New Orleans driver, our city streets are in bad shape.

“People just don’t have no place to park because the potholes and the streets are so bad,” one man said.

“I’ve seen a lot of makeshift cones that really don’t do service to how dangerous those deep sinkholes, small sinkholes can be,” another man said.

FEMA recently awarded New Orleans nearly $2 billion to repair streets and underground pipes damaged during Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

The independent Bureau of Governmental Research maintains now is the time to install a reliable maintenance program for city streets.

“It’s very important that we go about it in a way that captures and preserves for the long term, the rebuilding that we’re about to embark upon,” BGR President and CEO Amy Glovinsky said.

According a new BGR report entitled “Paying for Streets: Options for Funding Road Maintenance in New Orleans,” the city is only spending about $3.8 million a year on street maintenance.

Glovinsky says that’s a fraction of the $30-$35 million a year needed just to seal cracks and fix potholes.

“I think the current condition of the streets speak for themselves in terms of past practices,” Glovinsky said. “Preventive maintenance shouldn’t be delayed any longer.”

According to the report, traffic camera citations, parking tickets and other street-related revenue sources generate more that $50 million a year, but the city invests none of the money on street maintenance.

“The dollars that come from street related funds and fees, certainly seem to be a very rational place to start on looking for these dollars,” Glovinsky said.

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