Council will reassess the long-term viability of the Town’s photo radar program in the first quarter of 2026.
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During its September 22, 2025, Special Council Meeting, Coaldale Town Council voted to suspend the operation of the Town’s Automated Traffic Enforcement (“photo radar”) program for the remainder of 2025, and to convert a growing backlog of tickets into warnings rather than fines.
The move comes in response to ongoing negotiations between Canada Post and members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, and in response to the Town’s own ongoing labour stoppage.
On May 13, 2025, a letter was sent from the province to all enforcement agencies explaining that should a postal interruption occur, service of all violation tickets sent by mail will be impacted, and that appropriate mitigation measures should be taken – including hanging onto tickets until such time that the potential for a postal interruption has passed.
The potential for a postal interruption over the past four and a half months has limited the Town’s ability to deliver tickets in a timely manner, which Council determined was unfair to Town residents.
“Council’s view is that if you receive a traffic violation, it should be delivered to you in a timely manner—not months later due to circumstances beyond your control,” said Town of Coaldale, Mayor Jack Van Rijn. “If it’s about safety and correcting behavior, residents should be informed that they’ve committed an infraction in a timely manner. That’s why we directed that the backlog of tickets be issued as warnings. We don’t believe it would be fair to residents to issue those as fines at this stage. At the same time, by suspending the photo radar program for the balance of the year, we’re giving ourselves the space to carefully reassess whether this tool makes sense for Coaldale going forward.”
In December of last year, the Government of Alberta announced the following changes to photo radar:
- prohibiting photo radar on all provincial highways and connectors;
restricting photo radar speed enforcement to school, playground and construction zones; and - restricting Intersection Safety Devices (ISDs) to red-light enforcement only
For more information about these changes, and to read the 2025 ATW Technology Guideline, please visit: https://www.alberta.ca/photo-radar-alberta