Crashes and injuries were reduced by half after the installation of speed cameras along a notoriously dangerous stretch of road in Philadelphia, according to a new study.

The estimated annual safety benefits of an automated speed enforcement pilot program along Roosevelt Boulevard are six times higher than the $22 million in revenues generated in fiscal year 2021, according to the authors of Evaluating the Effectiveness of Speed Cameras on Philadelphia’s Roosevelt Boulevard, published in February in the Transportation Research Record.

“Automated enforcement is likely particularly effective in the absence of other types of enforcement,” according to the authors, who recommended the program be extended and expanded.

Between 2016 and 2022, 100 people died in car crashes on Roosevelt Boulevard and another 17 people died on the local roads immediately surrounding it. The road still accounts for around 8 percent of all traffic fatalities in Philadelphia. The 12-lane arterial "has long moved highway levels of traffic at grade through densely populated neighborhoods at high speeds and taken a steep toll in crashes, injuries, and traffic fatalities,” according to the paper.

The road remains a dangerous combination of high-speed highway that intersects with local streets in densely populated neighborhoods. Further safety improvements will likely require one of three approaches: 

-- Lower speed limits and ramp up enforcement to get traffic speeds closer to 30 mph instead of 50 mph;

-- Grade separate the Boulevard and turn it into the type of limited access highway envisioned by early federal highway planners;

-- Redesign the Boulevard to operate as a lower speed and lower-capacity boulevard that looks and behaves more like other urban arterials.