Automated speed cameras have watched Roosevelt Boulevard since June 1, 2020, and the program they started is still growing. On Oct. 30, 2026, at 12:01 a.m., the Philadelphia Parking Authority is scheduled to begin issuing tickets on the final stretch of Route 13, a Pennsylvania state route separate from Roosevelt Boulevard (U.S. Route 1), in the latest expansion of a program that began on the Boulevard, after a 60-day warning period that began Aug. 31, the authority announced.
The Boulevard remains the model. In its annual report to the state for the fiscal year ending March 2026, the PPA said violators on the Boulevard fell 95 percent between the program’s first month, June 2020, and November 2025.
How the cameras started
In October 2018, Gov. Tom Wolf signed Senate Bill 172, which allowed speed cameras on the Boulevard from 9th Street in Hunting Park to the Bucks County line as a five-year pilot. The same law allowed cameras in highway work zones across Pennsylvania. State Rep. John Taylor, who backed the bill, called it “a new tool for enforcing existing laws” when it went to the governor on Oct. 3, 2018.
The state law required a city ordinance before any camera could operate. City Council passed one unanimously in May 2019. Then-Councilwoman Cherelle Parker of the 9th District, now mayor, introduced the bill, as the Northeast Times reported at the time. The authority is now written into Chapter 12 of the Philadelphia Code, according to the PPA…