SAN FRANCISCO — It’s been six months since the use of phony video surveillance cameras on train cars here caused widespread criticism of the practice. At that time, the Golden Gate Transit was already discussing updating the cameras on its buses.
On Thursday, that effort came to fruition. The Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District’s board of directors plan to approve a $900,000 plan to install new cameras on 80 buses, according to KQED.
“They don’t work reliably, unfortunately,” says Priya Clemens, a bridge district spokeswoman. “Sometimes they malfunction and we don’t always know which camera is not working at any given time until the bus is pulled into our lot and we’re able to do a system’s diagnostic check.”
Back in January, the city’s Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) experienced a deadly shooting onboard a train car. It was later discovered that the security cameras on the train did not work as some of the train cars featured phony cameras.
“We had already been talking about our camera system at that point,” Clemens said of the BART camera controversy. “We’ve known for a while that we need to replace these 80 obsolete cameras.”
The plan was already approved by the district’s Transportation Committee, according to the report. Not only will the older cameras get updated, but the newer cameras will also receive upgraded technology, such as live monitoring.
