Chicago drivers are getting slammed by new speed cameras that went live in June.
The 22 new cameras helped the city issue more than 91,000 speeding tickets over their first month of operation, according to a Sun-Times/WBEZ analysis of city data.
In all, city data shows 186 speed cameras issued more than 240,000 tickets in June, the most in any month in nearly three years.
If history provides a guide, the new cameras will continue to catch drivers unaware until they change their habits. Five of the city’s six highest-ticketing cameras in June were cameras that started operating that month.
The city’s highest-ticketing speed camera is attached to a light pole at 3358 S. Ashland Ave., near a McKinley Park day care along the wide, four-lane truck route just south of Interstate 55. With more than 21,000 violations issued, the camera nabbed more drivers than any other, despite going live in the middle of the month, on June 15.
In its first 16 days, from June 15 through June 30, the camera at 3358 S. Ashland Ave. ticketed more drivers than any camera in the city during any 16-day period since July 1, 2014, the earliest date for which data is available.
Residents on that block say they’ve seen the cameras flashing constantly since it started issuing tickets.
“I’m a late-night walker. It goes off all night,” says Eddie Johnson, 38, who moved to the block recently.
He said he hopes the camera will slow drivers down. But Johnson and another neighbor who spoke with a Chicago Sun-Times reporter are skeptical that the camera is ticketing only speeders. Earlier this summer, ABC7 reported that several city speed cameras were inaccurate by less than 1 mph, though the city says that’s within the legal limit.
“I won’t drive down the street,” Johnson said.
The cameras that began ticketing in June comprised nearly half of the 50 new speed cameras approved by Mayor Brandon Johnson to help fill an $11.4 million hole in the city’s 2025 budget.
The city announced that 34 new cameras started ticketing motorists between June and August.
Fines are $35 for traveling between 6 and 10 mph over the speed limit. It jumps to $100 if the recorded speed is 11 mph or more above the speed limit.
Are the cameras fair?
The city’s speed camera program has been controversial since it began ticketing drivers in 2013.
Studies have shown the cameras are more likely to ticket Black and Brown drivers. But the cameras are also proven to improve traffic safety and potentially help the city tackle its stubbornly high rate of vehicle fatalities, which disproportionately affect the city’s poorest neighborhoods.
The City Council recognized the conflict, and in January it formed a task force to explore potential reforms to the speed camera program to make it more fair. The Equity in Enforcement working group, which asked for public input earlier in August, is expected to share its recommendations at the Committee on Pedestrian and Traffic Safety’s September meeting.
The city could consider changing the ticket fee formula to a sliding scale to lessen the burden on poorer drivers and discourage well-off drivers with higher fees, said Stacey Sutton, a professor at the University of Illinois Chicago who published research on the city’s speed cameras in 2022.
Her study found that many drivers, after receiving one ticket, did not speed again. But some drivers repeatedly got tickets and did not seem discouraged by the fee structure.
“Until we address the regressiveness of this, it will never be fair,” Sutton said.
The city’s Transportation Department has said it is taking a “data-driven approach” to its speed camera placement. Sutton said her research found some cameras improved safety, but others did not. So it’s important the city continually analyze the data and remove cameras that are not having the intended effect, she said.
The city should also use speed cameras only as a tool for improving road safety, not for collecting revenue, Sutton said.
“The safety benefits are diminished when the public is thinking about this as revenue-generating,” she said.