(The Center Square) – One of Chicago’s latest moves to collect revenue may have a disproportionate effect on lower-income drivers.
According to Dylan Sharkey of the Illinois Policy Institute, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson is adding 50 new speed cameras across the city, 27 of which are expected to begin issuing tickets this month.
The city’s speed cameras issued more than $90 million worth of fines in 2024, with $54 million in late fees accounting for more than half the total.
Sharkey said this is not the progressive revenue the mayor promised.
“Drivers in low-income communities who can’t shell out a ticket on the spot and have to wait, they’re on the clock, and if they’re living paycheck-to-paycheck, they get penalized just because of their financial situation,” Sharkey said.
Sharkey said the city’s stated goals of helping with revenue and safe driving compete against each other.
“If everyone tomorrow stops speeding, you’d get no money from this and the budget would be worse off. On the flip side, if everyone was going 40 miles an hour over the speed limit, the streets would be less safe but the city would get more money,” Sharkey said.
Chicago Alderman Anthony Beale said the system is broken.
“Mayor Johnson’s decision to add 50 new speed cameras is an obvious revenue grab. Chicago’s speed cameras have increasingly become about making the city money and not making the city safer,” Beale said.
Beale suggested that the city council should undo the actions taken under previous Mayor Lori Lightfoot and restore the ticketing threshold to ten miles per hour above the limit.
Sharkey agreed and said the speed camera policies are not targeting dangerous drivers.
“Someone who’s driving erratically, say 40 miles an hour over the speed limit, they were always getting ticketed. This policy doesn’t affect them. It affects the people who are driving six miles an hour over the speed limit, you know, 26 in a 20. I think no one has felt threatened by someone doing 26 in a 20, but according to the city, you are Speed Racer,” Sharkey said.
Sharkey said there have been no signs of the mayor following recommendations by Beale and more than a dozen other aldermen to cut unnecessary expenditures from the city budget.
