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North Riverside’s third, and likely final, red light camera has been installed and could be operational by early August, the village’s police chief said today.

Work crews earlier this week placed a camera on Harlem Avenue facing south toward 26th Street. Police Chief Anthony Garvey said that after the village gets final clearance from the Illinois Department of Transportation, the company responsible for maintaining the camera, Redflex Traffic Systems, will do testing before the unit goes live.

“There’s no go-live date yet,” said Garvey, though it appears the camera will become operational early next month. The North Riverside Police Department will give motorists a warning period during which offenders will receive notices, but won’t be fined. After that, though, anyone who blows through a red light or turns right on red without stopping will be fined $100.

North Riverside also has one red light camera at Cermak Road and 17th Avenue (on 17th, facing north toward Cermak) and two at First Avenue and 26th Street (both the north and south approaches to 26th on First Avenue). The former went live in April 2009, while the latter went live in late January 2010.

In the first eight months the camera at Cermak and 17th caught more than 800 violations, according to police, which resulted in gross revenues to the village of $81,300. North Riverside collects 80 percent of the fine revenue. The remaining 20 percent goes to Redflex.

About 90 percent of the violations during the first eight months at Cermak and 17th were for illegal right turns on red. About 5 percent of violations were for running the red light and the other 5 percent were for illegal left turns on red.

Garvey said he has not analyzed the numbers yet for the newer camera at First and 26th, but he said the camera has logged many violations.

“We see a lot of violations at that intersection, a lot of truck violations,” Garvey said. “They come around that curve at a pretty good clip.”

While the camera at 26th and Harlem will catch red light offenders, it’s not designed to catch what may be the most common offense at that intersection – driver’s using the right-turn-only lane to speed ahead of cars and then merge back left onto southbound Harlem.

“Hopefully it’ll have a deterrent effect of that intersection being under surveillance,” Garvey said.