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The Alberta government issued new photo radar rules last week for municipalities requiring towns and cities to prove the technology is reducing collisions and injuries and is not simply a “cash cow” for city coffers.

It’s time for the Manitoba government to do the same.

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Alberta Transportation Minister Brian Mason announced Thursday that municipalities will have to document where they use photo radar, what rationale was used for site selection, and most importantly, prove – with data – that the cameras are reducing collisions and injuries.

“I think in some cases photo radar in the province of Alberta has been a cash cow,” Mason said during a news conference in Edmonton. “It’s my intention that we are going to humanely put the cash cow down.”

Sound familiar?

The city of Winnipeg has been using photo radar as a cash cow for over 15 years, raking in millions annually for the city treasury while providing no data whatsoever on whether it’s reducing collisions or injuries. The city has released crash statistics for intersection safety cameras over the years, although even those figures have been unreliable. The data has been incomplete and the methodology used to collect it has changed several times since the beginning of the program.