A bipartisan proposal to put cameras in construction zones on the Maine Turnpike to catch speeders may undergo changes in a bid to win more support while still exposing differences among lawmakers tied to costs and privacy.
Sen. Brad Farrin, R-Norridgewock, introduced the bill in April. It would authorize the Maine Turnpike Authority to start a pilot program between 2026 and 2029 featuring up to three sets of speed control systems at a time in construction zones on the tolled section of Interstate 95 from the New Hampshire border to Augusta.
The system would produce an image of a vehicle including its license plate number if the vehicle exceeds the speed limit by at least 11 miles per hour in a highway work zone. The owner of the vehicle would receive a violation notice and be subject to a warning for a first offense and then a fine for additional offenses.
While the Maine Turnpike Authority and Maine State Police are largely on board with Farrin’s measure, similar systems in other states and “red-light cameras” in cities such as Chicago have been controversial due to corruption tied to operating contracts and perceptions that they only exist to generate revenue. A cost estimate is not yet available for Farrin’s bill, which came up Thursday for discussions but no vote in the Transportation Committee.
Farrin, a member of the committee, said Thursday he wanted to hear ideas from colleagues on appropriate fine amounts and amend it to feature potentially 90 days or more of “lead-in time” in which cameras and signage informing drivers of them would go up by construction zones before any warnings and penalties would begin. Officials could collect data on vehicle speeds during that period to get a sense of whether the cameras are effective, he said.
The turnpike authority would find a vendor to operate the system and submit a report on the pilot to lawmakers by 2028. Personally identifiable information for vehicle owners would have to remain confidential under the proposal.
Farrin testified that more than 7,000 work zone crashes in Maine in the last decade show the need for more safety measures on highways. At least 10 states have authorized speed cameras in highway construction zones, and Farrin said they are “seeing real results.”
Groups such as the ACLU of Maine and the conservative Maine Policy Institute along with libertarian-minded lawmakers are not on board, arguing systems in other states have threatened privacy and been driven by revenue rather than highway safety.
The libertarian-leaning Rep. David Boyer, R-Poland, said “1984 is alive and well in the Transportation Committee,” referring to George Orwell’s dystopian novel to criticize Farrin’s bill and repeated proposals to raise vehicle inspection fees. Bills on both issues have revealed splits among not only Republicans but also Democrats who control the Legislature.
“The privacy concerns, data security risks and the troubling prospect of outsourcing enforcement to a private corporation make speed cameras a poor fit for Maine,” Boyer told a reporter Thursday. “We need approaches that respect our values and protect our communities, not invasive technologies that prioritize profit over people.”
But Jeff Stevens, a Maine Turnpike Authority highway supervisor, said while testifying in favor of the bill he has seen traffic volumes, vehicle speeds and inattentive driving all increase during his 30 years of work. He mentioned a turnpike authority employee, Jeffrey Abbott, who died in 2017 after a truck hit him in a construction site on I-95 by the Portland-Westbrook line.
Five traffic control trucks were also hit in 2023 and 2024, Stevens said, highlighting an incident last December in which a tractor-trailer hit a turnpike authority truck in a construction zone. A turnpike authority employee survived injuries from the crash, but Stevens said two colleagues who witnessed it “are still grappling with the trauma to this day.”
“This bill is a critical step forward in improving work zone safety — for us and for every driver on the road,” Stevens said. “All of our lives depend on it.”
