More than $34 million has poured into Denver city coffers in less than five years from red-light and photo-radar speed cameras, and police are facing some pressure from City Council members to expand use of the devices. The next chance for city officials to expand either program is coming soon, and adding red-light cameras is attracting the most interest.

Early next year, the Denver Police Department plans to initiate the first fresh bid process in years for contractors to help run both types of photo enforcement. At the same time, the city could re-examine the scope of the programs, along with considering new technology and equipment.

To allow time for the bids, the council at Monday’s meeting will introduce proposed six-month extensions of the current contracts with Xerox State and Local Solutions, through June 30. Xerox provides equipment and handles payments for both types of camera systems.

Though claims about improved safety have drawn a heavy dose of skepticism, police and city officials cite evidence of reduced accidents and say that’s still the motivation behind photo traffic enforcement — rather than the revenue the cameras generate.

But any expansion likely would inflame the passions of drivers, including Evan Williams, who have been angered by citations in their mailbox.

“I feel like they have a monopoly on people because they know it costs the victims more in time and lost pay to fight these stupid fines, and that most people will pay them because of those reasons,” said Williams, who reluctantly paid an $80 speeding fine he felt was unfair.

Police officials say the new bids’ scope will be open-ended, with no assurance of an expansion when they submit new contracts to the council for approval.

Several City Council members told them at a recent committee meeting that they at least should consider adding more red-light cameras.

Devices are operating at four intersections, three of them south of downtown.

Other cities have installed more cameras than Denver. Neighboring Aurora has red-light cameras at 14 intersections. Portland, Ore., has them at 10 intersections, and Seattle has them at 21.

The king of red-light cameras, Chicago, has 352 cameras at 174 intersections, though that system has weathered a bribery scandal with a previous contractor.

Council concerns about speed cameras center less on acquiring more cameras than on making sure streets are targeted more equally. One sore spot cited by councilwoman Robin Kniech was the heavy rotation on First Avenue before it turns into Speer Boulevard.

Denver police employees operate photo-radar devices in five vans that have been set up at hundreds of spots across town. State law limits that program to targeting streets with a speed limit of 35 mph or less in residential areas, bordering parks, and in school or work zones.

Earlier this year, a bipartisan coalition of state legislators nearly passed a law outlawing photo-enforcement cameras statewide. But then several mayors (including Denver’s Michael Hancock) and, according to media accounts, Gov. John Hickenlooper, the city’s former mayor, helped turned the tide. The mayors called the cameras an important law enforcement tool that makes pedestrians safer.

Williams, 26, considers them a blunt-force instrument.

He lives in Arvada and says he received the mailed citation for going 30 mph in a 20 mph school zone near 38th Avenue and Lowell Boulevard in Denver.

His gripe: He had turned onto Lowell from a parking lot near the photo van, so he saw neither a warning sign about the van nor the posted school zone sign. If he’d been pulled over by a police officer, he would have had a chance to argue for a warning instead of a ticket.

“It is an incredibly unjust system,” Williams said.

Other complaints cited by drivers and officials, including Denver Auditor Dennis Gallagher, include what they perceive as insufficient evidence of the cameras’ safety effect, too little leeway on a violation before the camera snaps and the futility of fighting a citation later. Also maddening to some are white-line violations at intersections when drivers stop too late, but don’t run the light (costing $40).

Several Denver Post readers shared their experiences on Facebook, swapping strategies for avoiding payment. Often, it’s as simple as ignoring the citation, since the Denver Police Department doesn’t have enough manpower to serve them all in person or send final notices by certified mail within the 90 days required by law. It cancels about 10 percent because the picture didn’t show the vehicle owner at the wheel.

But about 65 percent of citations get paid, police estimate, and at least one national survey has found most drivers don’t mind photo-radar systems.

“Yeah, it’s fair,” said Aurora resident Stacy Bynum, 45, who says she got several $75 red-light tickets in Denver on her way to work. She’s now more careful to stop. “I knew the flash went, and I knew I was in the intersection when it turned red. My feeling is, the cameras are genius.

“Yeah, they’re annoying as hell. But they’re a great idea that makes us slow down.”

Denver police Cmdr. Patrick Phelan says 80 percent of violators have never gotten another citation — suggesting, he says, many lessons learned.

Since 2010, according to DPD figures, Denver has collected $6.5 million from the red-light camera program, with citations declining as more people have become aware of them (from 42,171 in 2011 to 34,834 last year). Photo-radar speeding citations have brought in $27.9 million, with the yearly total fluctuating. The city issued 194,628 of those citations last year.

If the council approves the six-month contract extensions, the Xerox division’s red-light contract, dating to 2010, will be worth $1.1 million. Its 2008 contract for the speed cameras will total $9.3 million.

Both photo-enforcement systems have fans among advocates for the disabled, children and the elderly.

“We have an issue of folks getting hit in the crosswalks, (with) folks not paying attention,” councilman Albus Brooks said during a recent Safety & Well-being Committee meeting on Xerox’s contract extensions. But, he added,

“I don’t know if four (red-light cameras) in our city is going to change our behavior.”

Numbers provided by DPD show significant drops in accidents at three of the four red-light camera intersections, with little change at 36th Avenue and Quebec Street. That’s based on annual averages for the three years before the cameras’ 2008 installation and for the five years afterward.

For the intersection approaches targeted by the cameras, average annual accidents decreased 47 percent, and side-impact crashes dropped by 65 percent.

But the crash declines also may be attributable in large part to longer yellow light times that the city implemented both at intersections with cameras and at others without them, as Channel 7, The Post’s news partner, recently reported.

More red-light cameras could be on the way, depending on pricing and other information supplied by bidders early next year. The process to ink new contracts, called a request for proposals (RFP), could begin in late January, said Jeannie Springer, DPD’s finance director.

“We have looked at expanding,” she told the council committee. “Obviously, there is a cost associated with that. Since we were going to RFP, we wanted to do that first. And we’re doing some studies on what intersections are most conducive to having a photo red light, so that would be rolled into the new RFP as well.”

An unknown variable is whether state legislators again will try to ban enforcement cameras in the coming session. Otherwise, Denver’s systems may be due for an upgrade.

“As with any other technology, it evolves quickly over time,” said Lewis Miller, the Denver-based vice president of operations for photo enforcement at the Xerox division, which could rebid for Denver’s contracts.

He said Chicago and other U.S. cities have taken advantage of advances that include higher-resolution cameras, more compact red- light units and detection at intersections using radar instead of in-pavement sensors. And some speed cameras now rely on an alternative to radar that uses laser-based sensing technology that distinguishes better between multiple vehicles and other factors.

The upshot, Miller said, is that cities have increasing options for better oversight and to capture higher-quality evidence to show drivers caught by the systems.

Jon Murray: 303-954-1405, jmurray@denverpost.com or twitter.com/JonMurray

495

U.S. cities or counties that use red-light cameras, including nearly a dozen in Colorado

138

Communities that use photo- radar speed cameras, including three in Colorado — Denver, Boulder and Fort Collins

Source: Insurance Institute for Highway Safety