How Philadelphia’s New Speed Cameras on Route 13 Target the City’s Deadliest Roads

Drivers who cut through West Philadelphia on Baltimore Avenue, 38th Street or Girard Avenue are about to meet a new set of eyes on the road. The city has installed automated speed cameras along Route 13, and a 60-day warning period is set to begin in mid-August before real fines start landing in mailboxes.

What Route 13 Covers and Why It Was Chosen

Route 13 is not one street. It is a 24-mile designation that stitches together some of the city’s most traveled and most dangerous corridors, including Baltimore Avenue, 38th Street, Patton Avenue, 33rd and 34th streets, Girard Avenue, Hunting Park Avenue, Roosevelt Boulevard, Levick and Robin streets, and Frankford Avenue. Philadelphia Parking Authority crews are installing 42 cameras along that stretch, an average of one in each direction per mile.

City data from 2019 through 2023 show why officials picked this corridor. Route 13 recorded 123 fatal and serious injury crashes, 160 speeding-related crashes, and 258 pedestrian crashes in that five-year window, making it the second most dangerous state route in Philadelphia. The Philadelphia Streets Department lists the corridor on its High Injury Network, the roughly 12 percent of city streets that account for the large majority of traffic deaths and severe injuries.

Mayor Cherelle Parker signed the legislation authorizing the expansion, and the Philadelphia Parking Authority has spent recent months touring the corridor and reviewing crash data to decide exactly where each camera goes. “The City is committed to making our streets safer for everyone, and speeding is the most common cause of traffic fatalities,” city officials said in a statement provided to NBC10 Philadelphia. “Speed cameras are not placed arbitrarily and are not meant to punish people. They are meant to enforce the rules of the road and decrease injuries and deaths.”

How the Warning Period and Fines Work

Drivers caught speeding on Route 13 will not get a ticket right away. The Parking Authority is running a 60-day warning period starting in mid-August. Drivers who speed in that window receive a notice in the mail instead of a fine. Once that window closes, citations kick in on a sliding scale: $100 for driving 11 to 19 mph over the limit, $125 for 20 to 29 mph over, and $150 for 30 mph over or more.

The cameras operate under Pennsylvania’s Automated Speed Enforcement program, which uses radar and license-plate recognition rather than an officer with a handheld gun. A violation is mailed to the registered owner of the vehicle, similar to how red-light camera tickets work in many states. Unlike a moving violation issued by a police officer, an automated speed camera citation in Pennsylvania does not add points to a driver’s license.

Does the Program Actually Work

Philadelphia already has a track record to point to. The city’s first speed camera corridor, Roosevelt Boulevard, has run cameras starting in 2020. After installation, city officials report that speeding violations on the Boulevard have dropped 95 percent, fatal and serious injury crashes are down 21 percent, and crashes involving pedestrians have fallen 50 percent. Cameras are also active on Broad Street, with Route 611 cameras next in line at 15 locations and 30 units, expected to go live once permitting wraps up.

Public reaction in Philadelphia remains split. Some residents say the cameras have changed how they drive. “I think it has helped a little bit. I think me personally I have slowed down because we got a couple warnings at the beginning,” South Philadelphia resident Jesse Veiselatt told NBC10. Other residents and critics have questioned the cost of the program and whether it functions as a safety tool or a revenue source, a debate that follows automated enforcement programs in most cities that adopt them.

City Councilmember Mike Driscoll, whose Northeast Philadelphia district includes part of the Route 13 corridor, said his staff has witnessed two fatal crashes near his district office in the years after pandemic-era lockdowns ended. “For some reason, post the pandemic, a stop sign was like maybe, and a yellow light or red light was maybe I’ll slow down, maybe I won’t,” Driscoll said. “So we have to get their attention.” He added that slower pedestrians, including seniors, need the same protection: “We owe it to our seniors that just want to go to Wawa and get a cup of coffee to not have to be in a Daytona 500.”

What Comes Next for Philadelphia Drivers

The Route 13 rollout is one piece of a larger enforcement push tied to the city’s Vision Zero goal of eliminating traffic deaths. Officials plan a pilot program for speed cameras in school zones, and a separate bill working through City Council would add cameras at dangerous intersections beyond the current highway-style corridors. The Parking Authority has also said it will push the state to lift the current cap on how many corridors can carry cameras statewide. Pennsylvania law currently limits how many locations a city can enforce with this technology at once.

For drivers who use Route 13 regularly, the practical advice is simple. Treat the 60-day warning period as a real grace period, not a loophole. Warnings arrive by mail to the address on a vehicle’s registration, so an out-of-date address means a warning notice, and later a fine, could go to the wrong place. Checking that a vehicle’s registration is current with PennDOT before the enforcement period begins is worth the ten minutes it takes.

Philadelphia’s speed camera expansion mirrors a national trend. Automated enforcement is legal in some form in roughly 19 states and Washington, D.C., and more cities are turning to cameras on their most dangerous corridors as police staffing shortages limit how much traditional traffic enforcement departments can do on their own. Route 13’s numbers, 123 fatal and serious crashes in five years, illustrate why Philadelphia moved this specific stretch of road to the front of the line.

Where the Fine Money Goes

Pennsylvania’s automated speed enforcement law was written as a political compromise, and that shows up directly in how the money gets split. Roughly half of the net revenue collected from Philadelphia’s speed cameras is distributed to communities outside the city, while the Philadelphia share funds local traffic safety projects rather than the city’s general budget. Recent grant rounds have put camera revenue toward intersection redesigns, safer bus stops, neighborhood slow zones and planning work tied to Roosevelt Boulevard, the corridor where the program first proved itself. That funding structure is part of why city officials keep pushing back on the “cash grab” label critics attach to camera expansion, a large share of the money is required by state law to leave city coffers entirely.

What Out-of-State and Visiting Drivers Should Know

Route 13 carries a mix of daily commuters and visitors passing through Philadelphia for work, sports events or hospital visits at nearby University City institutions. Out-of-state drivers are not exempt from automated enforcement. A citation still goes to the address on file with a driver’s home state motor vehicle agency, and unpaid camera fines can follow a vehicle into future registration renewals in states that share data with Pennsylvania. Anyone regularly driving through West Philadelphia on Baltimore Avenue, 38th Street or the other Route 13 segments should treat the posted speed limit as an active enforcement zone starting with the mid-August warning period, not a suggestion.

Philadelphia is not the only Pennsylvania city eyeing this kind of expansion. Camera programs already operate or are moving through approval in several other Northeast cities, and Pennsylvania lawmakers have discussed loosening the statewide cap that currently limits how many corridors any one city can outfit with cameras. If that cap moves, Philadelphia has signaled it intends to add more corridors quickly, building on the data it has already collected from Roosevelt Boulevard, Broad Street and now Route 13.

Sources:

• WHYY: More Speed Cameras Coming to Philadelphia Streets
• 92.5 XTU: Philadelphia Expands Speed Camera Program to Route 13 in West After Fatal Crashes
• NBC10 Philadelphia: Drivers Warned as Philadelphia Expands Automated Speed Camera Program