Push to Lower Chicago’s Default Speed Limit to 25 MPH Hits a Red Light

(WTTW News) (WTTW News)

A monthslong effort to lower Chicago’s default speed limit to 25 mph from 30 mph hit a red light on Wednesday, with supporters of the push calling off a planned vote.

The decision by Ald. Daniel La Spata (1st Ward) to call off the vote at the last minute is an indication that the push designed to make the city’s roadways safer after a surge of deaths in recent years is not supported by a majority of the City Council.

However, the City Council voted 49-1 to create a working group to come up with ways Chicago can change its traffic ticketing system so Black, Latino and low-income residents are no longer disproportionately hit with fines.

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Ald. Brian Hopkins (2nd Ward) cast the lone dissenting vote.

La Spata said the working group would address concerns that reducing the city’s speed limit would give city officials a way to ease Chicago’s financial crunch by hitting drivers who refuse to slow down with fines and fees.

After the meeting, La Spata acknowledged those concerns forced him to call off Wednesday’s planned vote and promised to work to allay those concerns and bring the measure back for a vote.

La Spata said the push to reduce the speed limit on most city roads was an effort to make the city’s roadways safer after a surge of deaths in recent years.

Reducing a car’s speed by just a few miles per hour significantly increases the chance of surviving a crash and reduces serious injuries, according to the Chicago Department of Transportation.

New York City and Boston recorded fewer deaths as a result of traffic crashes involving speeding and pedestrians after lowering their default speed limits, records show.

In 2023, 163 people died in car crashes in Chicago, data shows. Nearly 70% of those crashes involved speeding, records show.

Traffic deaths surged during the COVID-19 pandemic, peaking in 2021, when 186 people died in crashes. That represented a 55% increase over the number of traffic deaths in 2019, records show.

Black Chicagoans are nearly four times likelier than White residents to be killed in a traffic crash, according to city of Chicago data from 2021.

That same data showed people 70 and older were more than 1.7 times as likely to die in a 2021 traffic crash in Chicago as the average fatality rate of those ages 20 to 69 — and that Latino residents, too, are almost twice as likely as White Chicagoans to be killed in a crash.

A measure to create a one-year pilot program that would allow residents to submit complaints — backed with photo evidence — of drivers illegally taking up a bus or bike lane was also not called for a vote.

Nick Blumberg contributed to this report.

Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]


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