By Pepper Parr
September 16th, 2025
BURLINGTON, ON
I really wanted to be there when Her Worship provided detail on the Automated Speed Enforcement (ASE) cameras are going to be installed.
When the city announced the event was going to take place, the City Communications people referred to the Mayor as Her Worship.
I was looking forward to using the Honorific in a public setting.
But while chatting with friends after the Burlington Community Foundation event, I was alerted to a tip from a very reliable source that Natalie Peirre intended to resign as the MPP for Burlington.
I chose instead to rush back to the newsroom and get the story out.
We have yet to hear from MPP Pierre.
Marianne Meed Ward did the requisite photo op with most of her Council standing with her. Sharman and Galbraith took a pass.
The City of Burlington has installed “Municipal Speed Camera Coming Soon” signs to give drivers at least 90 days’ notice before the Automated Speed Enforcement (ASE) cameras are installed and activated. These signs will be changed to “Municipal Speed Camera In Use” once the cameras are active.
From L – R: City of Burlington Councillors Angelo Bentivegna, Ward 5; Shawna Stolte, Ward 4; Lisa Kearns, Ward 2; Rory Nisan, Ward 3; Mayor Marianne Meed Ward; Craig Kummer, City of Burlington Director, Transportation Services; Chair of the Board, Amy Collard, Burlington Ward 5 Trustee, Halton District School Board; City of Burlington Transportation Staff Chris King, Manager, Transportation Operations; Josip Kafadar, Supervisor, Transportation Operations; Bryan Letoureau, Supervisor, School Crossing Guards.
ASE Camera Locations
The City will be installing six mobile ASE cameras near schools. They will be placed in Community Safety Zones where drivers need to reduce their speed and obey posted limits. Every six months, the cameras will move to another location to keep students safe.
At least 90 days before the cameras are active, there will be a “Municipal Speed Camera Coming Soon” sign. These signs will be changed to “Municipal Speed Camera In Use” once the cameras are active.
Ward 1 – Aldershot Secondary School – Fairwood Place West
Ward 2 – St. John’s (Burlington) Catholic Elementary School and Central Public School – Brant Street
Ward 3 – Kilbride Public School – Kilbride Street
Ward 4 – Sir Ernest Macmillan Public School – Headon Road
Ward 5 – St. Christopher Catholic Elementary School – Sutton Drive
Ward 6 – Notre Dame Catholic Secondary School – Headon Forest Drive
ASE Benefits
A number of studies show the benefits of municipal automated speed enforcement programs:
- Improved road safety – A SickKids and Toronto Metropolitan University study (July 2025) confirmed that ASE cameras are improving road safety. For every 1 km/h a driver slows down, it reduces the risk of a fatal collision by four to five per cent.
- Significant speed reduction – The City of Toronto found that ASE cameras reduced the number of speeding vehicles by 45 per cent across 250 urban school zones. This included an 88 per cent decrease in vehicles travelling more than 20 km/h over the speed limit.
- Cost effective – Speed limits are the law. Using ASE cameras allows police to focus on other community safety issues. The fines from the ASE cameras will go into the City’s Road Safety Reserve Fund. This fund is used for road safety initiatives, such as this one.
- Public support – A CAA South Central Ontario survey found that nearly three-quarters of Ontario drivers support ASE use in targeted safety zones such as schools and community centres.
Craig Kummer, Transportation Director said that for “Every dollar collected through ASE will be reinvested directly into road safety initiatives to further enhance the well-being of our residents.”
Couple of questions were raised by some of our readers. Why do the cameras have to be in operation during those hours the school are not open?
Has the budget any idea how much revenue the cameras will raise? A camera in the city of Toronto has raised millions. City of Vaughan decided not to put up with the blowback from citizens and cancelled the program.
Burlingtonians are too polite to get angry.
The cameras will begin to take pictures right around Christmas time.
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I wonder if anyone picked up the phone to call Toronto’s Mayor Chow as of several days ago 19 speed cameras have been cut down or vandalized.
The photo ops are in essence, advertising where the cameras can be found.
Bruce …. respectfully …..
You’re right that speeding and congestion are different issues — but, in my opinion, they’re both being “managed” by the same group of decision-makers, which is exactly why people don’t trust the process. Cameras may slow drivers down, but they do nothing to fix the mess on our arterial roads, and they end up looking like a revenue tool more than a safety tool.
And let’s be clear: Council and staff aren’t blameless on over-intensification. Yes, the OLT has final say, but it was local planning decisions, weak negotiation, and a lack of long-term vision that opened the door. Hiding behind “the OLT made us do it” ignores the fact that council has consistently failed to defend residents’ interests and has allowed development to get ahead of infrastructure.
So, while speeding tickets may go up, traffic flow, safety, and quality of life in Burlington keep going down — and that’s on both the Province and City Hall.
Bruce, while Premier Doug Ford has made significant changes to development policies, the push for urban intensification in Ontario actually began under Dalton McGuinty’s government in the 2000s. McGuinty introduced the Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe and the Greenbelt Act to curb urban sprawl and promote development within existing urban areas. Kathleen Wynne continued these efforts, focusing on transit-oriented development and affordable housing.
While Ford has made adjustments, such as relaxing certain regulations and allowing more suburban development, intensification was a foundational policy long before his tenure. Ford’s approach has shifted the focus toward faster development, but the roots of Ontario’s intensification strategy were laid under McGuinty and Wynne.
HOLD IT !!!!!
We’re supposed to trust the decision making process of this failed group to solve a “traffic” problem ?????
Traffic congestion has been the number one issue raised by Burlington residents for years. Yet instead of addressing it, council and staff are now pushing speed cameras as if that will solve this problem. Let’s be clear —- cameras don’t fix congestion or speeding ….. they fine drivers.
The irony is that this process is being overseen by the same planning and traffic departments that allowed over-intensification to strangle our downtown and clog our arterial roads. They ignored traffic flow concerns when approving development after development, and now they want us to trust them on enforcement? That’s a hard sell.
If safety is truly the goal, then council should prove it. Every dollar raised by cameras must be ring-fenced for road safety and traffic-flow improvements — not dropped into general revenues. And before expanding automated enforcement, residents deserve a real congestion-management plan: proper signal coordination, intersection upgrades, turning lanes where needed, and physical traffic-calming in school zones and neighbourhoods.
Burlington doesn’t need more punishment. We need better planning. Until council shows they can actually improve traffic flow, speed cameras look less like a safety measure and more like another money grab …… and an opportunity for another meaningless photo op.
why did Council and the Mayor find it necessary to all show up for a photo op. Serious vanity issues Going to wait for the photo of Ford telling MMW TO RIP THE CAMERA’S ALL OUT
If reducing speed is an objective, put a camera on the top of the bridge on Fairview between Maple and Brant, where drivers routinely race through at 70 or 80 in a 60 km zone.
So no camera for the Maple Ave speedway that is home to the Ècole élémentaire Renaissance, but fronts on Lockhart Rd? This road is monitored by Halton Police who issue tickets on a daily basis. I have mentioned this to council members current and past and was told a speed monitoring sign would be, but never was installed. Ticketing speeders usually occurs early in the day but not thereafter.