Automated speed camera data from Toronto shows the value of this traffic speed enforcement mechanism

Doug Ford, Premier of Ontario, uses provincial powers a lot to preempt local government action, especially in Toronto.  One example is his elimination of the use of automatic speed cameras over "freedom etc." plus other measures can do just as well, such as oversize speed limit signs.

Guess what?  Tickets work.  Since the elimination of cameras, speeding has increased 235% in the Parkdale neighborhood, based on data collection associated with the speed limit counter signs, which collect data, they aren't limited to just saying "slow down" ("We all have one thing to say about Doug Ford’s ban on automated speed cameras: We told you so," Toronto Star).  From the article:

That’s based on data reported from one of the city’s digital “Watch your Speed” signs. You’ve seen them around. They’re typically posted near schools. They flash with your car’s speed as you pass by, hopefully serving as a visual reminder, when necessary, that you should slow the heck down. They also, it turns out, keep a permanent record of speeds.

These signs can be set up to collect data in both directions.  Yellow signs are typically placed near schools.  White signs elsewhere.  Photo: TrafficLogix.

Using the same basic methodology as Safe Parkside, I looked at data from more than 800 sites with these digital signs. In October 2025, the last full month before Ford’s ban on speed cameras took effect, the digital signs collectively recorded 626,137 vehicles exceeding the posted speed limit by at least 20 km/h. In April, with no more fear of speed cameras, the number nearly doubled, to more than one million.

Of 837 sites I looked at with data from both before and after the speed camera ban, the number of drivers doing 20 clicks over the limit increased at 476 of them. (Before the program was put on ice, the city had 150 speed cameras that rotated through locations like these.)

Tickets are "controversial."  They cost money so people don't like them, without acknowledging that if they followed the laws they wouldn't be ticketed.  

In the Douglas Shoup parking universe, parking tickets are a source of revenue for commercial district public space improvements.  But to me there is a fine line between encouraging and discouraging people to visit traditional commercial districts.  You have to balance parking concerns, bad behavior of parking--which is why Shoup encouraged low or no cost parking in garages, and high prices for street parking--and encouraging return passenger.

The recent director of the Philadelphia Parking Authority, Richard Lazar, made the point that rather than focusing on the revenue generating capacity of tickets, he prefers to think of them as "education devices" that people use to change their behavior ("Rich Lazer Would Like You to Love the PPA. No, Seriously.," Philadelphia Magazine).

Lazer recognizes that increased enforcement isn’t viewed positively across much of the city. He doesn’t look at enforcement as a revenue generator — a claim you can hear muttered at expired meters across Philadelphia — but rather as a behavioral change. If you’re blocking a crosswalk or parking on a sidewalk or jamming up a bike lane, yes, you’ll have to pay a fine. And maybe next time, you won’t do it (or at least will think twice about doing it).

“It’s about curb management and enforcing quality-of-life issues so they don’t happen anymore,” Lazer says. “And maybe that’s putting yourself out of business, because you want people to follow the rules. But at the end of the day, we don’t want to be looked at as somebody who just wants to generate revenue, because that’s not the mission. Our operation is not out to just crush people.”

I imagine he believes that parking scofflaws, who don't care about tickets--a problem in DC with out of state license plate users of the streets because it's hard to penalize them, that they should get their cars impounded, as another form of education.

Anyway, the Toronto findings are a sad but good example of real life experimentation to prove or disprove various approaches to public policy, in this case traffic enforcement.