City of Cape Girardeau seeks to install camera to monitor bridge traffic

The city of Cape Girardeau wants to install a camera to monitor traffic crossing the Bill Emerson Memorial Bridge.

The city already has some cameras situated atop signal poles at several intersections that are linked to a fiber-optic network that allows the city’s dispatchers at Fire Station No. 3, Public Works staff and police to view video of intersections in case of collisions and other public-safety incidents, city manager Scott Meyer said.

Police have used video from some intersection cameras in traffic crash and crime investigations, said public information officer Adam Glueck.

The new camera would be installed at the Fountain Street and Highway 74 intersection and be connected to the fiber-optic network, providing a video tool when needed.

But Meyer said purchase and installation of such a camera could be several years down the road.

The city uses intersection cameras primarily to activate traffic signals. Meyer said the cameras are more reliable than sensors in the roadways.

Camera-equipped intersections allow the city’s public works staff to change traffic-signal patterns as needed in the case of a collision, Meyer said.

The city manager said such technology would have been useful in dealing with Tuesday’s rollover crash that closed the bridge to traffic for nearly an hour.

A new fiber-optics agreement between the city and Southeast Missouri State University will aid in future installation of the bridge camera and benefit the university, city officials said.

City council members approved an agreement with the university this week that governs the use of the city’s and university’s fiber-optic networks.

Southeast plans to use six strands of the city’s existing fiber-optic cable to connect its main campus with the new Center for Mass Media Excellence at 325 Broadway, city clerk Gayle Conrad wrote in an agenda report to the council.

As part of the arrangement, the city will use six strands of the university’s fiber-optics system that runs from the main campus at New Madrid Street to the River Campus near the Mississippi River bridge, the report noted.

While video from traffic cameras hooked up to fiber optics can detect license plates, Meyer said the city does not use the cameras to catch motorists who run red lights.

“We have never done that in the city of Cape Girardeau, nor do we plan to do so,” Meyer said.

Some cities have used red-light cameras to ticket motorists, but the city manager said such systems have been subject to legal challenges.

The city operates cameras at 22 intersections.

Cameras at nine intersections are linked to the fiber-optic network.

Meyer said the proximity to the fiber-optic cable has determined which intersection cameras are linked to the network.

Disclosure: the building at 325 Broadway for the Center for Mass Media Excellence is owned by members of the Southeast Missourian ownership group.

mbliss@semissourian.com

(573) 388-3641

Pertinent address:

Fountain Street and Highway 74, Cape Girardeau, Mo.