3 Iowa cities appeal DOT rulings to turn off speed cameras

Officials with three Iowa cities have filed petitions for judicial review in connection with recent Iowa Department of Transportation rulings requiring some automated traffic enforcement cameras be turned off.

Petitions were filed this week by the cities of Des Moines, Cedar Rapids and Muscatine.

The filings are a continuation of a long-running dispute between local officials and those with the DOT over who has the authority to decide where enforcement cameras can be placed and how long the devices can operate.

Officials in their filings argue the DOT is infringing on cities’ ability to self-govern, a right guaranteed by the Iowa Constitution. City officials also argue that when the DOT in 2014 approved rules governing the use of automated traffic enforcement cameras, the agency failed to follow its own administrative procedures or those set by Iowa Code. Because those procedures were not followed, the DOT rules are not enforceable, city officials argue in the petitions.

Steve Gent, the DOT’s traffic and safety director, said department officials did not have a comment because they hadn’t yet read the filings.

In March, the DOT ruled that 10 of 34 automated traffic enforcement cameras be turned off because they did not make roads safer. Communities affected by the decision were Cedar Rapids, Council Bluffs, Davenport, Des Moines, Muscatine and Sioux City, which has litigation pending against the DOT regarding the rules.

Davenport did not appeal the DOT’s ruling. The other five cities did; Sioux City’s appeal is now included in its litigation against the DOT.

Transportation officials reviewed their initial ruling and in May, turned down the cities’ appeals. In general, the appeals were denied because the cameras are not making interstate highways or nearby intersections safer, the DOT wrote to the four communities.

Officials in Des Moines, Cedar Rapids and Muscatine are now turning to district courts with their requests for judicial reviews. Council Bluffs did not file a judicial review request.

The DOT wants speed-enforcement cameras removed from:

•Eastbound Interstate Highway 235 near Waveland Golf Course in Des Moines.

•Three locations along Interstate Highway 380 in Cedar Rapids. The DOT wants other cameras along the interstate moved to a different locations.

•Westbound University Drive and U.S. Highway 61 in Muscatine.

The speed-enforcement cameras in the three cities continue to operate during the appeal process.

The DOT’s mandate that the speed camera at University Drive and Highway 61 be turned off is “illogical, irrational … unjustifiable, and unreasonable, arbitrary, capricious (and) an abuse of its discretion,” Muscatine’s attorneys wrote in the city’s petition.

The DOT has 20 days to respond to the petitions.