Chicago drivers face lower speed limit, more cameras after $28M fine drop
Chicago speed cameras sent drivers $28 million less in tickets through September than during the first nine months of 2023. Annual revenues could spike again under proposals to drop the citywide speed limit or boost the number of cameras.
Chicago speed cameras collected $28 million less in ticket revenue through September than during the first nine months of 2023, but two things could drastically change that.
First, city leaders have considered lowering the citywide speed limit from 30 to 25 mph.
Second, Mayor Brandon Johnson has an initial OK for more speed cams to raise $11 million next year to restore police positions related to the federal consent decree.
During his campaign, Johnson told voters a lower speed limit was nothing but a “cash grab.” He promised to eliminate speed cameras, calling them “regressive taxation.”
But now that he wants a budget that spends nearly $1 billion more than Chicago will receive, it is clear he sees speed cameras as money machines. Regressive taxation and cash grabs are OK when he needs cash.
Speed cameras issued $54 million worth of fines between January and September 2024, which was $28 million less than during the same period a year earlier. They still slapped motorists with a ticket every 20 seconds, Chicago Department of Finance data shows.
While 1.18 million tickets were issued, just 804,197 carried fines and the rest were warnings, according to a Freedom of Information Act request. Two-thirds of the fines were paid on time, but more than half of the revenue came from late fees.
Late penalties more than double the cost of a speed camera ticket, turning a $35 fine into an $85 ticket or a $100 fine into a $244 ticket.
About $35.2 million worth of the ticket revenue came from $35 fines for driving 6-10 mph over the posted speed limit, with one-third of those tickets incurring a late fee.
The remaining $18.8 million in revenue came from 11 mph-plus tickets, which incurred late penalties at an even higher rate of 41%.
A lower speed limit could hit Chicago drivers hard: one city saw speed camera tickets increase 81% when it dropped its limit. After 18 months, the revenues were still 75% higher, according to the Journal of Public Economics.
That was essentially Chicago’s experience after former Mayor Lori Lightfoot lowered the speed camera threshold to fine drivers for going 6-10 mph over the limit. Chicago speed cameras churned out eight times as many tickets per day in the seven months after Lightfoot’s change.
Seven $1-million cameras
While Chicago operated 165 speed cameras during the first nine months of this year, seven cameras managed to each issue more than $1 million worth of fines, not including late fees.
The most lucrative of these cameras in the West Pullman neighborhood on the Far Southeast Side. It sent out 40,752 tickets to drivers January through September, issuing 15,303 more tickets than the neighborhood has residents.
This top-performing speed camera at 445 W. 127th St. issued over $1.26 million worth of tickets to motorists.
Southeast Side gets most tickets
Overall, speed cameras on Chicago’s Southeast Side issued the most tickets and generated the most revenue per camera between January and September 2024.
Speed cameras on the Southeast Side issued about 13,029 tickets each since January, sending an average $416,206 worth of tickets to drivers.
Cameras on the city’s Southwest Side issued the fewest tickets during this time, only sending drivers about 4,789 tickets each.
Down $28 milion
Chicago speed cameras issued a total 804,197 tickets carrying a fine so far this year, about 375,523 fewer tickets than were issued between January and September 2023.
That translates to about $28 million less in revenue for the city, following a trend of declining annual revenues for Chicago speed cameras since Lightfoot lowered the ticketing threshold in March 2021.
Chicago speed cameras are estimated to generate about $16.4 million more in tickets between Oct. 1 and the end of the year based on ticketing trends from the previous three years. That would bring the total estimated revenue for 2024 to nearly $70.4 million.
Since they were turned on in 2013, Chicago’s speed cameras have generated $933 million for the city, sending at least 10,318,536 tickets to motorists. That’s more than three tickets per Chicagoan or a ticket for four of every five Illinois residents.
Safety? More likely cash
Are the cameras making the streets safer? A decade-long city study of collisions around Chicago speed cameras shows total crashes declined by 2% between 2012 and 2022 compared to a 27% increase in collisions citywide during that time.
The count of speed-related crashes around cameras dropped by 16% while the city recorded a 22% increase in speeding collisions. Bicycle and pedestrian crashes also fell by 44% around camera sites, mirroring the citywide decrease in pedestrian collisions reported during the decade.
The Chicago collision study indicates speed cameras reduced total crashes around 53% of camera sites. But whether those cameras were changing driving habits and increasing collisions outside of designated camera sites was not addressed.
A 2017 speed camera study in Great Britain found safety was highly localized around intersections with speed cameras. The problem was the number of collisions away from monitored zones increased as drivers abruptly slowed down to avoid fines, then quickly sped up after passing the surveilled intersections.
An Arizona study found no effect on collisions from the cameras.
And University of Illinois-Chicago research also concluded there was “little relationship between the number of tickets issued and the safety impact of cameras.”
When it comes to the lower speed limit, a 2019 Vision Zero study examining the traffic safety impacts of New York reducing its speed limit from 30 mph to 25 mph on streets without posted speed limits found there was no measurable change in fatalities.
All of which begs the question: Are the cameras about safety, or about cash? The answer seems pretty clear in a city facing a nearly $1 billion budget deficit.
Johnson’s broken promises
Johnson pledged to phase out speed cameras during his final televised debate against mayoral challenger Paul Vallas.
In a Sun-Times mayoral candidate questionnaire, Johnson said, “The choice should not be between inequitable, regressive taxation and the potential for increased traffic violence. Lowering the speed limit is a cash grab and has not proven effective in making our streets any safer.”
According to CWB Chicago, Johnson said on the campaign trail that speed and red-light cameras were “an easy revenue grab by the city, and they’re horribly unfair.”
Johnson’s 2025 Chicago budget originally counted on residents paying about $325 million in fines, forfeitures and penalties to remain balanced – $22.3 million less than was budgeted for 2024.
Facing a nearly $1 billion shortfall for the city budget in 2025, Johnson has since proposed installing new speed cameras across the city to ticket drivers and raise $11 million to pay for the Chicago Police Department positions related to the federal consent decree. The proposal was approved Dec. 10 by the City Council Finance Committee.
Johnson’s support for a recent proposal to reduce speed limits across the city from 30 mph to 25 mph starting in 2026 could also end up driving revenues higher than expected in the future as drivers are again forced to adapt to the changing rules of the road.
A 2020 study from the Journal of Public Economics found the number of speed camera tickets issued in San Paulo, Brazil, after the city reduced its speed limit by about 13 mph increased 81% in the immediate aftermath of the policy change.
This surge in speed camera tickets declined about six-months after the speed limit reduction, but not by much. Tickets 18 months later remained about 75% above where they were before the change.
After Lightfoot lowered the speed cam ticketing threshold in March 2021, Chicago saw a similar surge. Revenues more than doubled for the two years directly following the policy change but have since declined to pre-pandemic levels as drivers adapted.
Johnson’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment.