City Seeks Contractor for School Bus ‘Stop Arm’ Cameras

City officials are finally looking for a company to deploy stop-arm enforcement cameras on school buses.

On Wednesday, the Department of Transportation issued a solicitation for the tech to catch drivers blowing past the yellow pupil movers nearly a week after the public school year started, and more than five years after the state first allowed automated enforcement on the extendable “Stop” signs.

Responses to the city request for proposals are due within a month.

This year is on track to be one of the deadliest for children since the launch of Vision Zero in 2014, and advocates praised the city for moving forward with the tech.

“We know changes like this can save lives, and we hope to see the program move forward quickly so it can start protecting New York City’s children,” said Elizabeth Adams, interim Co-Executive Director of Transportation Alternatives.

Once it takes effect, violators will get slapped with $250 for their first offense, $275 for their second and $300 for every subsequent ticket within an 18-month period, per city rules enacted late last year.

Other states, including Washington, Connecticut, and Georgia, have deployed camera enforcement on bus stop arms for more than a decade, and jurisdictions closer to home have gotten in on the action, too.

Suffolk County experienced 42-percent drop in drivers disregarding the signs after rolling out stop arm cameras in 2021, according to a study by BusPatrol, a camera contractor.

Rockland County doled out more than 17,000 stop-arm violations since launching last school year, the Journal-News reported. Yonkers created a program in November that issued 18,132 tickets as of late June.

The state legalized the cameras back in 2019, and the City Council enacted a law in early 2022 to create a half-year trial run. The law, sponsored by then-Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez who now heads DOT, also required an annual report.

However, the incoming Adams administration questioned whether the program would have an impact, given that there hadn’t been a death caused by a driver going around a bus arm since 2014.

Making streets with schools on them safer is sorely needed. An in-depth 2022 Streetsblog investigation revealed that school streets are far more dangerous than other roads during pickup and drop-off hours, particularly at locations where most students are poor and of color.

The six-month pilot rolled out on some 30 buses last year, but the city has yet to publish findings from that test.

The city enacted a rule with automated fines last November and the Albany Legislature extended the state law enabling stop arm cameras to 2029 earlier this year.

City Hall declined to comment.