ENCINITAS — New white cameras that have popped up along several major intersections in Encinitas are aimed at helping traffic along those streets flow smoother, city officials said.
The 10 new cameras were recently installed along El Camino Real, Encinitas Boulevard, Leucadia Boulevard, Coast Highway 101 and Vulcan Avenue at several key intersections.
They are part of a large fiber optic infrastructure project that was approved in 2012 and financed by an $800,000 federal grant, said Luke Baker, a traffic engineering specialist with the city.
The cameras join a network of seven cameras already in place around the city that relay information back to the city’s traffic operations center and its wall of video monitors. It is in that room where Baker monitors the feeds and traffic conditions and can respond to them, including making changes to traffic signals to accommodate traffic flow or alerting law enforcement or first responders to collisions on city streets.
The project also includes the installation of the network of fiber optic lines that will relay the information from the cameras to the traffic operation center at City Hall.
The cameras aren’t operational yet, but Baker said that they will likely be online in early 2017, possibly late January.
