South Side gets 2.5X as many tickets per red-light camera as North Side
Red-light cameras on the city’s South Side issued the most tickets per intersection between October 2023 and September 2024, more than 2.5 times as many as cameras on the North Side. Citywide, fines are up to $61.4 million for past 12 months.
Red-light cameras on Chicago’s South Side issued the most tickets per intersection during the 12 months through September, more than 2.5 times as many as red-light monitored intersections on the North Side.
Drivers citywide were fined $61.4 million, without accounting for late fees, through 614,498 tickets from October through September. That’s 131,556 fewer tickets than during the previous 12 months and a nearly $13.2 million drop in revenue.
Red-light cameras on the South Side issued an average 9,132 tickets between October last year and September 2024, or 5,521 more tickets than each camera on the North Side.
Despite the high volume of tickets per intersection on the South Side, drivers on the North Side were issued nearly 100,000 more tickets worth nearly $10 million more than the South Side fines.
North Side drivers were issued more than $16.2 million in red-light tickets. The North Side has 45 of the city’s 150 red-light monitored intersections, while the South Side has seven.
West Side drivers incurred the next most tickets, with red-light cameras at 33 monitored intersections issuing nearly $14.2 million in fines.
A minority of the cameras produced a majority of the tickets. More than half of all the red-light tickets were issued by cameras at 33 of Chicago’s 150 monitored intersections.
Red-light cameras at 10 of these monitored intersections across Chicago averaged about $1.5 million worth of fines to drivers between October 2023 and September 2024.
The most lucrative red-light camera monitored intersection was at Lake Shore Drive and Belmont in Chicago’s Lake View neighborhood. Cameras at the intersection on the North Side issued $2.5 million worth of tickets to drivers.
These revenue estimates assume all red-light camera fines are paid on time. Incurring a late fee on a red-light ticket in Illinois doubles the cost from $100 to $200.
Chicago is home to more red-light cameras than any other large city in the nation. In total, these cameras generated $915 million in revenue from issuing red-light tickets from January 2008 through September 2023.
A study from Case Western Reserve University in 2018 suggested while the number of T-bone collisions decreased with the use of red-light cameras, the number of non-angle collisions, such as rear-enders, increased by 18% – leading to more crashes overall.
The Chicago Tribune study also found the Illinois Department of Transportation determined over half of the intersections at which red-light cameras where placed were among the safest in the state prior to installation.
These red-light cameras impact Chicago minority and low-income communities most. A ProPublica study determined Chicago households in Black and Latino ZIP codes received camera tickets at about twice the rate of those in white ZIP codes.
Without any clear safety benefit, red-light cameras are reduced to cash grabs by city governments. Chicago leaders should look at what the cameras do to their low-income residents and to the city’s reputation, then ask themselves if these robo-cops are worth the costs.