A new speed camera will start citing drivers going as little as 6 mph over the limit this weekend near a South Side park, the latest addition to the city’s “safety zone” program that has also been a boon to the municipal bottom line.
Ald. David Moore, 17th, said he requested the city install the camera close to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Park in the 1200 block of West 76th Street in Auburn Gresham, despite his belief that City Hall views the cameras more as a moneymaker than as a safety enhancer.
He said cars routinely speed along 76th to try to make the light at Loomis Boulevard, leading to several serious crashes at that intersection in the past few years.
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“It’s just too dangerous,” Moore said. “The park’s right there, and there’s a senior building across the street. People race along 76th to try to make the light at Loomis so they can also make the light at Ashland, which is a long light. Three separate times in the past year cars have crashed through the fence at a house there. We’ve had four or five serious crashes.”
The new camera will be operational starting Sunday, making it the 69th such “safety zone” with a camera within ? mile of a Chicago park or school. There are a total of 162 speed cameras tracking auto speeds within the zones.
But Moore said he also requested an electronic speed sign be put in to let drivers know how fast they’re traveling on 76th Street and warn them a camera is ahead.
“I’m not a fan of the speed cameras. I usually see them as a trap,” he said. “This way, people will hopefully realize it and slow down.”
Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s decision to lower the threshold for speed cameras to issue tickets to cars going as little as 6 mph over the limit starting this March has greatly increased the number of such tickets issued citywide.
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The Tribune recently reported that, in the first two months Lightfoot’s new benchmark was in place, speed cameras across Chicago issued 322,447 of the $35 tickets, which will bring in $11.3 million to city coffers if violators pay all the fines.
That’s a nearly 17-fold increase over those same months in 2019, when the city was only hitting drivers with $35 citations for going exactly 10 mph over the limit, and 19,480 such tickets were issued. Drivers caught on camera at higher speeds receive $100 tickets.
Lightfoot has defended the change as a safety move, pointing to decreases in crashes after the cameras are installed. When Lightfoot included the new rule in her 2021 budget, the city estimated all fines and fees would bring in about $39 million more this year than last year.