How Much Did Albany Make With School Zone Speed Cameras?

Since September of 2024 we've seen new speed zone cameras in the City of Albany. It is all aimed to make sure that Albany is as safe as possible for all of its residents.

This of course is all part of Albany's new safer streets program. In 2024 automated speed cameras were set up in 20 different school zones in Albany set to give drivers tickets who are going above to 20mph limit.

In total Albany has made $3.24 million off of these speed cameras. WNYT reports that there were 107,000 tickets issued as $50 per fine and around $71,000 have been paid so far. With that amount of money being made it is only a matter of time before we see other municipalities in the Capital Region start to use these tools.

How much goes to the city?

After all is said and done the city will get 40% of the money from those issued tickets. That would mean that the city of Albany will have made close to $1.3 million. The rest of that goes to the camera company. That is a significant amount of money to made off of speed violations.

My concern, as someone who lives in the city is why are people speeding so much in school zones? You only get a ticket if you're going 10mph over. Now, 30mph isn't super fast, but it is fast for a school zone.

Slow down

One driver was reportedly clocked at 70mph in an Albany school zone. That's absolutely ridiculous. They also noted that many of these tickets were issued to drivers that didn't reside in the city.

An observation I have about Albany is that most of the people who live there care about it on a deep level. We want to make sure people are safe and taken care of. It's folks from outside of Albany that generally don't obey the rules and have negative things to say about it. The ticket amount given to people who don't live in the city is proof enough of that.

If you want people to care about your community you need to start caring about others.