New red-light, speed traffic cameras coming to San Jose

SAN JOSE, Calif. (KGO) -- Two new kinds of traffic safety cameras are coming to San Jose streets: red-light cameras and speed cameras.

The city's transportation department is holding a series of town halls about how these two different pilot programs work. On Thursday evening, the meeting was packed at Evergreen Square Village Library.

Colin Heyne is the public information manager for the city's Department of Transportation.

"People want to make sure that we're treating their data and privacy well and that we're not profiteering off either of these camera systems," Heyne said.

Intersections with a history of crashes and red-light running drivers are slated to have these systems. The city has mapped out four locations for red-light cameras and 33 locations for speed cameras.

"People get a warning when they're approaching the cameras - they're not going to be hidden we will announce their presence," Heyne said.

Residents like Dorothy Hines came with questions.

"One, will it make the community safer? And two, sometimes with the AI people are unfairly targeted," Hines said.

Gayathri Sridhar hopes to know what the education push will be as opposed to punitive measures taken against people.

"I've been in a lot of accidents nearly and it's kind of scary to drive around so I just want to see what steps are being taken here in San Jose to kind of fix that," Sridhar said.

MORE: SF speed cameras now in use; warnings to be given out for 2 months before citations

For the speed cameras, if a driver goes more than 11 miles per hour over the speed limit - the camera is activated. Depending on how fast over the speed limit, a citation can range from $50 to $500.

"The ticket price is very low, it's an administrative ticket from the department of transportation, not a ticket that goes through the police department they don't count against your drivers record," Heyne said.

We could see the red-light cameras installed as early as July.

For the speed cameras, there's no firm start date but they're hoping to launch in the fall.

Five more town halls are scheduled. For more information and future meetings, click here.