Chicago drivers will face an additional 50 speed cameras this year

CHICAGO (WGN) — Over the course of the year, Chicago’s Department of Transportation will install an additional 50 speed cameras throughout the city, bringing the total number to more than 200.

While locations for the additional cameras have largely not yet been determined, CDOT officials said they’ll consider crash data and requests from alders over the last three years. By state law, cameras can only be within 660 feet of a school or a park.

“Aldermen like myself and others have tried to get these speed cameras in the past in key areas of our city where we know we have speed issues, like 47th Street, like 63rd Street, and other major thoroughfares,” Ald. Ray Lopez (15th Ward) told WGN on Thursday. “The answer has always been, ‘No, no, no.’ Now that the mayor needs money, the answer is, ‘Yes, yes, yes.”

CDOT will publicize the cameras’ locations before they’re activated. Drivers will be given a 30-day grace period once the new cameras are installed and receive a warning in the mail.

Mayor Brandon Johnson said revenue from the cameras would help, in part, to generate $11 million needed to restore more than 160 police positions tied to the consent decree and would make up less than one-tenth of one percent of the 2025 budget.

“The City of Chicago does not rely on speed cameras to balance its budget,” a spokesperson from the mayor’s office said. “Mayor Johnson believes that speed cameras should be utilized to promote traffic safety in an equitable way, not as a revenue source for the City.”

The spokesperson said 136 people were killed in traffic crashes on Chicago roadways in 2023. Speed was a factor in nearly 70 percent of those crashes.

Chicago leases the cameras through Verra Mobility. The locations of active cameras is available on the city’s data portal.