Ottawa photo radar: Councillor wants fine revenue invested in neighbourhoods [Video]

The chair of Ottawa’s transportation committee is hitting the brakes on calls to invest revenue from photo radar camera tickets into the neighbourhoods where the traffic offence occurs, saying the idea would turn the cameras “into a cash grab.”

This after Coun. Stephanie Plante suggested her ward of Rideau-Vanier should see some of the money generated by the automated speed enforcement camera on King Edward Avenue, the busiest photo radar camera in the city.

Ottawa’s 40 automated speed enforcement cameras have issued 154,341 tickets in the first five months of the year. The camera on King Edward Avenue near Cathcart Street issued 18,150 tickets in its first three months of operation. 

“We have a lot of drivers who think that is a highway, it is not,” Plante said. “It’s in a residential area, so I do think it’s important that when people break the law there is some sort of …