Roaming DOT cameras prompting calls to police

GATES, N.Y. (WROC) — Over on Sun Valley Drive in Gates, strapped to a stop sign is a white pole atop of which sits a black camera.

That camera is one of a number just like it scattered around Gates.

Their appearance concerned some residents enough they called police.

Gates Police Chief Robert Long didn’t know why they were there so they looked into it.

“It was easy to find out what was happening after that,” Long said.

Long learned what News 8 learned.

The cameras are part of a New York State Department of Transportation effort to track the number and type of vehicles that travel on almost any given road throughout the state.

Remember those strips they used to lay down on the road to measure all that?

This is an updated method.

NYS DOT hired a company called National Data and Surveying Solutions, or NDS, to collect the data around the state.

Justin Wypij, an operations manager with NDS, say the state will be able to use that data in many ways.

“For example, they collected data and years later they need to undertake a large construction project, they would understand that a road that has tractor-trailers needs a larger stone and different aggregate to build that roadway. If they want to subtract or add a lane they would have the understanding what makes logical sense with the data that’s interpreted,” Wypij said.

Wypij says they move the cameras every three days and put them up on all types of streets, even the small ones.

“A lot of people will be like well, this is on a cul-de-sac or this is on a dead end road or there’s only 200 cars that go down it, it doesn’t matter, it’s still a road that gets federal funding,” Wypij said.

Federal funding and requirements, a spokesperson for the NYS DOT said in a statement, are big reasons this data collection is happening:

“The traffic counters observed along various streets in Gates and other locations belong to a NYSDOT vendor and are being operated in accordance with NYSDOT’s federally mandated and funded requirement to collect traffic volume data across New York State on an annual basis. Traffic-counting cameras are now the industry standard and are considered safer to operate and more efficient than previous counters, which often required workers to enter the roadway. These traffic counters – which are used solely for the purpose of collecting vehicle counts – are placed on a select number of randomly chosen local streets each year.”

Wypij says some people have damaged the cameras adding if they are made inoperable, NDS will have to come out and start the recording again.

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