Total traffic enforcement

New York City's streets can be dangerous due to traffic violations. Technology has been used to improve enforcement, just not at full scale. A mere 150 red light cameras cover just 83 intersections citywide, but issue an average of 5 violations per intersection. Drivers are responding—there's been an 83% reduction in the number of red light violations at these spots. A somewhat larger network of 2000 speeding cameras operates from 6am to 10pm. They have helped double the number of speeding tickets issued over the last decade.

Rebooting NYC: An Urban Tech Agenda for the Next Administration proposes a massive expansion of this camera network that would allow for universal, automated enforcement of traffic rules. In addition to safety improvements, evidence suggests that automated enforcement would reduce discretionary traffic stops by armed officers which "tended to escalate into violence in ways that were disproportionate to the reason for the stop, and disproportionately against people of color ".

This proposal suggests a future where streets, as they were 100 years ago with the introduction of automatic traffic control signals, are transformed through new technology for automation, with substantial efficiency and potential equity benefits through fairer and more comprehensive enforcement.