Archive for December 15th, 2009

Maybe that ribbon of pavement connecting River Road to the city of Tacoma should be renamed “Pay Street.”

A radar-triggered camera erected on the Bay Street curve near the Emerald Queen Casino snapped photos of close to 2,100 speeders during its first week of operation, city officials said Thursday.

Nearly 830 tickets – at $101 a pop – already have been mailed and another nearly 1,260 are being prepared for the registered owners of cars caught speeding between Dec. 2 and Wednesday, Tacoma police spokesman Mark Fulghum said Thursday.

The infractions are treated like a parking ticket and do not go on a driver’s record.

If that rate holds, the camera could generate up to $11 million a year in citations.

“Those numbers surprised us,” Fulghum said. “It’s a fairly sharp corner and people take it too fast coming from River Road.”

By contrast, another speed camera erected recently near Downing Elementary School in the city’s North End has yet to record a speeder, Fulghum said.

“We expected some violators,” he said. “We knew there were some concerns there.”

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