The folks from the Chicago Tribune editorial board really need to step out from behind their windshields now and then. Here are a few of the claims they’ve made recently:
• Bike lanes were to blame for driver-created traffic jams on Elston and Milwaukee avenues during Kennedy Expressway reconstruction work.
• “[Suburban Metra] fares increased last year.” (Not really.)
• “New York’s [congestion pricing] solution clearly won’t work here in Chicago,” basically citing zero evidence for that argument.
• Raising tolls on drivers is a “cash grab”. But reader Jeff Swirenski noted in a letter to the editor, “Tolling road users is a more equitable and effective way to fund infrastructure”.
Yesterday, the board published its latest car-centric editorial, titled, “The 50 new Chicago speed cameras are all about cash — not safety.”
In fairness, that statement is sort of half-right. Mayor Brandon Johnson has previously argued that Chicago’s automatic enforcement is a form of “regressive taxation” – more on that in a bit. But he’s changed his tune as he faces a nearly $1 billion budget gap, and is now being open about plans to install 50 new speed cameras as a fundraising strategy. The mayor has said himself that revenue from the cams would help raise $11 million to pay for bringing back 162 police positions tied to our city’s consent degree. Coincidentally, the 50 devices would be in addition to Chicago’s 162 existing speed cameras.
Now, even safe streets advocates like myself acknowledge that automated enforcement should not be intentionally used as a revenue source. These installations shouldn’t be expected to produce a steady stream of ticket money that never declines. Instead, the number of fines issued by a particular camera should get smaller, as more motorists realize that if they drive dangerously near them, they’ll have to pay a price.
Currently Chicago issues $35 tickets for driving 6-10 mph over the speed limit and $100 for speeding by 11 mph or more. In a perfect world, the cameras would eventually issue zero tickets, because motorists would learn not to speed by more than 5 mph in their presence.
Ald. Daniel La Spata (1st) recently sponsored an ordinance to lower Chicago’s default speed limit to 25 mph, which data from peer cities indicates would significantly decrease serious traffic injuries and fatalities. Unfortunately, the legislation didn’t pass. But while the alder fully understands the importance of safer streets, he agrees that installing speed cameras with the goal of using them to raise money is the wrong approach.
An effective way to help ensure the tickets aren’t “regressive” is to reinstate the City’s previous policy of offering half-price traffic fines for lower-income residents as part of the Clear Path Relief Program. This pilot launched in April 2022 in response to reports of racial discrepancies in automated enforcement. However, that discount seems to have been eliminated during the Johnson administration. “The Clear Path Relief program is still around and offers debt relief as outlined on the website,” a City official told me last fall. “But it no longer offers the 50 percent cost reduction in new tickets.”
So to make ticketing speeding drivers more equitable, Chicago should bring back the discount. Or better yet, we should have income-based, sliding-scale traffic fines, as is the case in some European countries.
Returning to the Tribune’s claim that the 50 new speed cameras are not about safety, let’s take a look at some of the editorial board’s statements. “The case supporters make about speed cameras is that they improve safety, but even that isn’t a slam dunk,” they claim, citing one of the aforementioned studies from three years ago. “A 2022 University of Illinois Chicago report found some reductions in crashes but questioned the overall effectiveness in reducing serious injuries and fatalities.”
On the contrary, the study, titled “Red-Light and Speed Cameras: Analyzing the Equity and Efficacy of Chicago’s Automated Camera Enforcement Program,” stated that Chicago’s speed cameras were effective in reducing serious and fatal collisions. The authors analyzed 101 speed-camera locations, from
2015-2017, using 2010-12 as a baseline for comparison. “The deployment of cameras reduced the expected number of fatal and severe injury crashes by 15 percent,” they state. “Overall, injury and fatal crashes fell by 12 percent (204 fewer crashes) when compared to what would have been expected in the absence of cameras.”
Nonetheless, the Tribune editorial complains, “If the mayor is going to keep adding more cameras, officials should at the very least give us some legitimate proof that it’s improving safety.” I’m not sure why the paper feels that the cameras preventing hundreds of injury and fatality crashes isn’t valid evidence.
But if the Trib wants fresher data, I’ll provide them with more recent numbers from the Chicago Department of Transportation, which manages the speed camera program. Apparently the Tribune didn’t bother to ask CDOT for these latest stats themselves.
This analysis of all 162 cameras again used 2012-2013 data as the baseline, but skipped a decade ahead to 2022-2023 to measure the effects of the cams. Here are some encouraging takeaways from these findings:
• Between 2012-2013 and 2022-2023, while the total number of crashes rose by 28 percent citywide, it only increased by 2 percent near the speed cameras.
• While injury and fatal crashes went up by 19 percent citywide during that decade, they fell by 11 percent close to the cameras.
• Bicycle and pedestrian collisions fell by 14 percent citywide during that time, but went down by a whopping 46 percent near the cams.
• Speed-related crashes rose by 9 percent citywide during that period, but were reduced by 24 percent close to the cameras.
• While youth-related collisions went up by 28 percent citywide, the increase was only 15 percent near the cams.
Come on Tribune, if that’s not “legitimate proof” that Chicago’s speed cameras are making streets safer, I don’t know what is!
The paper notes that while Chicago currently issues tickets to drivers going 6 mph over the speed limit, New York City allows them to go as much as ten miles over the limit, arguing that’s a “more reasonable” threshold. What the paper doesn’t mention is that for more than a decade, NYC has had a 25 mph default speed limit. So whether you’re in the Big Apple or the Windy City, you can currently speed at 35 mph without getting ticketed.
So tell you what, Tribune. Why don’t we lower Chicago’s speed limit to 25 as well, but only ticket motorists going 11 mph over that? That way relatively law-abiding drivers who stay close to 25 will help keep the streets safer. But scofflaws who want to speed by 10 mph, without being fined, won’t be able to complain the system is unfair.
Notably, the editorial compares the installation of lifesaving speed cameras in the suburbs to a deadly disease, using the words “contagion,” “infecting,” and “plaguing.” That reminds me of how a Not In My Back Yard neighborhood newspaper in Edgewater said a proposal for pedestrian and bike improvements on Granville Avenue would “allow a new greenway to metastasize” – spread or grow like a cancer. Come on folks, we’re talking about traffic safety upgrades, not a measles epidemic.
The Tribune states that automated enforcement in the ‘burbs is “plaguing drivers who are just trying to get to work, go to the grocery, or drive their kids to a basketball game, among other everyday activities.” Is it really such a virulent imposition on motorists to ask them not to drive at speeds that can easily kill other other road users, or themselves? Seriously, editorial board members, you need to give the steering wheel a rest once in a while.
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