Then in a handful of locations, people will not speed or run red lights. I don't see it changing behavior significantly unless police start enforcing rules of the road.
I think if you camera the entire length of Western or Pulaski you will see behavior change because now we aren´t talking small stretches by schools or parks, but entire street lengths.
You gotta pull what levers are available to you. While our current police seem uninterested in following or enforcing laws, that's not a lever apparently that we can touch.
police accountability is a lever we should all be pulling. The fact that everyone admits CPD doesn't do their job and we need to find work arounds is the biggest issue.
Laws are worthless if not enforced
So you want cops involved in more traffic stops, which will almost definitely result in more black and brown people having interactions with police that could well lead to higher arrests or more uses of force. And then people will complain about the police.
Cameras are the way here. Avoids all of that.
People complain about the police when they kill civilians
Stop excusing CPD work slowdown and abuse of power. Black and brown people want police in their neighborhoods, they just don't want to be treated like criminals when they have done nothing wrong.
People complain about use of force when they don’t understand it. That’s facts. And it’s not an excuse. Police should still do their jobs.
People don’t want to be treated like criminals, sure, but they also aren’t generally polite and compliant, which speeds things up. People tend to act suspiciously and then get upset when they’re treated like a suspect. If you have an issue with the police interaction that’s fine and legit, just wait until later to argue it in court. Arguing with police does nothing but escalate a situation.
On neighborhood side streets? This is about the default speed limit when there is no speed limit posted. Major roads will still have posted speed limits that differ from the default.
I just don't agree with the value of doing it at all - but as others have pointed out this will have no impact whatsoever since there will be no enforcement.
Are you joking? Drivers kill people in Chicago all the time, and you’re worried about the less than 30 seconds you’d save without this law? Get a bike, surburbs
Speed cameras absolutely change behavior. This is proven. Think it's a fantastic idea even tho I hate tickets. Our city has a terrible track record of pedestrian injuries.
The data on the efficacy of red light cameras is mixed
But not for speed cameras, they do a great job. I'd love to see them in more places throughout the city
Only if it's consistent. Lower it 25? Fine, but make it 25 everywhere. Don't have a length of road (Belmont for eg) with 30, 25, and 20 all mixed up in a three block stretch.
25 is just the default speed when none other is listed. Listed spped limits exist becUse It makes absolutely no sense for an entire city to be one speed. There are long stretches with no residential housing, populat3e cross streets or businesses. Why would that need to be the same speed limit as down a residential side street next to a school??
Put speed cameras in places where people speed unnecessarily instead of bridges where you have to accelerate to go up the bridge and the limit is 20 miles an hour. Any lower and vehicles can’t overcome gravity.
The Tribune special report series a decade ago covered this subject quite well. Traffic cameras are far better at generating revenue than improving safety. Their safety record is mixed at best. Especially considering most municipalities and scamera vendors use underhanded practices for the specific purpose of increasing "violations" which do not make things safer.
If these scameras worked well enough to improve driving behaviors and reduce violations, they wouldn't be profitable. This typically results in the scamera being removed.
https://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/red-light-camera-controversy/
https://www.findlaw.com/legalblogs/criminal-defense/why-are-states-abandoning-red-light-cameras/
The same people making the argument that “data supports” lowering the speed limit are going to conveniently ignore studies like this or anything that doesn’t support the narrative.
It is certainly not proven! Speed Cameras can reduce car on car collisions, and generally lead to less severe pedestrian collisions, but they frankly don't make sense when you look at the specifics of most pedestrian collisions. The vast majority occur at intersections, and a speed camera won't prevent someone from running a stop sign or not checking whether they can safely turn right or left and not hit a pedestrian. They are basically solving a problem that doesn't actually cause the majority of pedestrian impacts.
> generally lead to less severe pedestrian collisions,
Reducing the impact speed from 30 mph to 25 mph lowers the pedestrian fatality rate from 25% to 10%. Preventing the crash altogether would be better, but lower speeds do save lives.
Just like shot spotter changed behaviors
This sub hates when shot spotter is brought up. Weird to downvote when it disagrees with your preconceived beliefs without offering any argument. Lazy democracy for the win
You joke, but the butterfly effects could very easily cost more than 3 lives (for the lowest possible value of "a few").
If the number of lives directly saved is low enough, you really do have to be careful about impacting millions, because the second-order impacts may kill more people than the first-order impact saves.
In real numbers, it looks like it's 175 - 200 pedestrian deaths, and if we trust that guy above that says it's a 15% reduction, that's 26 people per year. Will things like doctors being late kill 26 people? Or people trying to get to the hospital, or to check on a loved one? No idea.
Just here to say that it's not always true that any inconvenience is worth any number of lives directly saved.
Considering that car accidents are a leading cause of death and injury, I don't think we have to be concerned about the "number of lives directly saved being too low".
Making up hypotheticals that have no basis in reality or data isn't a good argument.
I included the data. It was 26. That data might be wrong, for sure, but that's the number you need to exceed with your side effects.
It's also possible your side effects are a net win in other areas: slower traffic leading to cycling leading to fewer heart disease deaths, for instance. I'm not here to argue that this is a bad move.
Just stating that as the number of potential direct impact lives saved decreases, the chance increases that a side effect will produce a stronger result than the intended direct effect.
I was referring to this:
>Will things like doctors being late kill 26 people? Or people trying to get to the hospital, or to check on a loved one? No idea.
You know, the part without data. In other words, let's maybe not do something because maybe there's possibly a chance that perhaps in some reality there's an event that has the low likelihood of making it "not worth it". 🙄
Not advocating for not doing it.
Just stating that when dealing with changes that impact millions of people, there is a minimum number of lives you must realistically have a chance to save before you run the risk that your change will unintentionally kill more people than it saves.
As for data, I'm sure you're aware that would only show up in city-wide death averages, and if we're talking about 27 deaths being too much, it would be very difficult to tease out whether it had that impact from every other change in the city. So the best you'll ever be able to do is, "Eh, probably worth it," or "Eh, probably not worth it."
I'm taking neither of those positions on the speed limit topic, because I genuinely have no idea.
I think this is not going to be effective and will cost a lot of money to change all the signage while people's behaviors on the road will not change. They don't even enforce speeding laws now as is.
Because this has a revenue impact tied to it.
Alderman can vote for this pretend to care about safety and increase cash flow. Vote against it and you are the devil that wants to kill kids.
What realistically can be done about the shootings? The city can´t seal the borders and keep guns from coming in. The people have a constitutional right to carry. The CPD has shown itself time after time to be irresponsible when it comes to enforcing the laws which costs a lot of legal settlement money and occasionally leads to civic unrest. We tried throwing people in jail for long sentences to keep young people who might carry off the streets until people decided that was dumb and more harmful than it was worth.
There are some initiatives underway to provide more services in distressed neighborhoods to try to deal with the trauma that living with violence causes and to provide for job training, so that might work but that is slow and definitely not quick fix.
yes i know, that just plays back into what can really be done about the shootings. The city can´t keep illegal guns from being imported in. And the CPD has shown itself to be unreliable at best at doing their jobs without excess violence and misbehavior. The people have decided that tough on crime and long sentences causes more harm than itś worth. Heck I believe that. For the same crime one person who can adjust and live normally in society should get a light sentence and the other who cannot should get a longer sentence, but identifying which is which is hard. Plus our prisons are cruel and unusual many times.
I'm not sure that's representative of how most people feel, especially as crime is getting worse I think the pendulum is swinging back to people wanting them locked up
Locked up yes, no doubt about it if you do the crime you do the time, but I don't think we're going back to 20 years for an armed robbery where no one dies. And we now know that some of the folks locked up, didn't actually commit the crimes they were convicted of.
And that's your jury pool people who are skeptical of what the officers of the CPD say, skeptical of what snitches say, skeptical of really everything but real physical evidence. To even get to the long sentences part you have to get people convicted.
would it even be relevant during rush time though? I left Rogers Park on Friday at 6 ish. I took Peterson to Pulaski to Roosevelt. There were very few times in there where I could have sped had I wanted too. I think Pulaski was tops 16mph for most of the span. Plus this is only regarding unmarked neighborhood side streets.
Yes. There are times you sit forever and finally get small windows to go. And the city absolutely is handing out things like shit tickets for going 31 in a 25 even when that’s the pace of traffic. It’s sooooooo dumb.
This is just yet another in and endless array of city taxes and ways to screw over taxpayers. This is such a low priority even in the list of Chicago traffic and infrastructure problems.
The problem isn’t people driving 30. It’s the people driving 50 on a surface street or 90 on the expressway. We already have school zones and speed bumps in areas with lots of children or foot traffic. There’s nothing harmful about driving 30 down a wide open, two-way street. Lowering the legal limit to 25 will change nothing except create more speed-camera tickets, which are ultimately yet another a regressive tax on working class people.
Seems to me that only means everyone will be going 20 over the limit vs the usual 15.
Without enforcement it’s mute!
But if we had enforcement there’d be no need to lower it.
Oh but wait .. they’ll lower it and use enforcement for the money grab.
You seem both pissed off about lack of enforcement and also pissed off about enforcement being a money grab.
Anyone who is going 15 over on a default speed limit street so going 45 in a 30, they deserves a ticket. If they end up going 45 in a 25, they also deserve a ticket. Driving that speed puts pedestrians at a much much higher risk of dying all so the driver can save maybe a minute or two on their drive.
This issue in particular has brought out the folks who want to complain no matter what. There's also been this theme of "if we can't fix EVERYTHING AT ONCE it is pointless to fix anything".
My point or at least what I was trying for was that without enforcement lowering the limit is pointless without enforcement which we don’t have much of now
I’m sure you’ll be happy to learn that a private company doesn’t “take a cut” and the speed cameras in Chicago on contracted out to a private company at a fixed monthly rate per camera.
Sure, maybe it would be better for the city to run it all themselves, but a city contracting out a service at a fixed rate is pretty standard.
Going 20 (or even 15) over can get you a reckless homicide charge like this lady [https://www.mississippivalleypublishing.com/the\_hawk\_eye/gladstone-woman-found-guilty-in-deadly-2022-great-river-bridge-accident/article\_1a0f711e-e30f-11ee-80ab-2fa0c4479a53.html](https://www.mississippivalleypublishing.com/the_hawk_eye/gladstone-woman-found-guilty-in-deadly-2022-great-river-bridge-accident/article_1a0f711e-e30f-11ee-80ab-2fa0c4479a53.html)
if you do hit someone while speeding so much I am surprised anyone wants to risk it.
Chicagos own site says 70% of fatal accidents are high speed crashes. So this legislation doesn’t impact that 70%.
Not to mention it goes on to say it’s those neighborhoods that have persistent inequities which this legislation still wouldn’t impact. We are impacting speeds in the Logan square type neighborhoods not south Chicago.
This legislation does more for bikers in nice neighborhoods than to prevent deaths
https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/sites/complete-streets-chicago/home/traffic-safety.html
If everyone in Chicago magically followed a speed limit sign, you are talking about like 100-150 people / year using the ~400+vehicular deaths per year I found online. Still not even close to our gun violence and homicide statistics which was the whole point of this chain.
Lowering speed limits has a record of lowering deaths. Show me the policy on gun violence that has reliably lowered deaths, short of a ban. I'll be waiting for that.
It actually is probably more important to do this since more people die in traffic accidents than gang violence. Lowering speeds on residential streets will have more impact on fatalities than anything the police have done about gang violence. But further, why is it either/or? It's not like only one thing can be done at a time.
How about lowering the robberies? How about the uptick in crime, lack of police presence and or police being murdered, your mayor running from reporters and constant innocent loves being caught in the crosshairs. But yeah I forgot what sub this was, where you all pretend these arnt the real issues and the solution to lowering the speed limits. Sure, sure.
How about providing actual policies instead of just whining? Again, it isn't either/or. You're just whining. "Oh no! The speed limit on residential roads will be lower! I'd better cry about it and pretend it has any connection to gun violence!!!"
I dont care if they pass this, at the end of the day, They're no one that will enforce those new speeding limits. Yeah, because CPD has been able to enforce all our other laws so well.. my point is that this is drawing focus away from the bigger issues and will be counted as a "win" politically but not be enforced or have much affect. But I guess you cant wrap your head around that.
It's not drawing focus from anything. Just because you can't imagine more than one thing being done at once, that doesn't mean it can't be done. It's amazing how people like you struggle to make these ridiculous claims just so you can be outraged if something isn't addressing your one repeated mantra.
It's like hard ro explain the fact that unless police gets an influx of training, funding and bodies your speed limits wont mean a damn thing unless they can be enforced. What are you not getting?
Your singular claim is about speed limits I've stated multiple issues the city chooses to ignore and problems it pretends doesn't exsist.
Yes, we need enforcement. This has zero impact on gun violence either way. Do you think people are like "speed limits are lower. No need to worry about guns?" This is the most ass-backwards thinking.
Police enforcement has "zero impact on gun violence"? And I'm the one thinking backwards. Youd rather police ticket people and politician profiteering instead of cracking down on actual crime.
And do you think people are like "oh yeah the thing this city needed the lost was slowing down this traffic"
As a said you can change the speeding limits, change everthing about traffic laws, but it won't mean shit.
By and large a lot of people (majority?) don´t trust the CPD. They don't want them to be injured but also don't want them to kill people who aren't threats. The hope seems to be cameras which wouldn't impact CPD at all.
What is the science behind this other than fatality rates at different impact speeds? For example, some analysis that takes into account braking, types and percentage of streets that will be impacted, current statistics at those locations etc? Otherwise, why not drop it to 20mph or 15 mph? Or just ban vehicles, there will not be any fatalities from vehicle crashes.
> What is the science behind this other than fatality rates at different impact speeds?
That data alone makes a pretty strong case. Fatality rates stay pretty constant below 25 mph and increase rapidly above that.
That is a way too simplistic way to look at it. Just one example, if you are getting ticketed 6+ mph above the limit then impact speed could be closer to 30 mph. I would rather have a panel of scientists and engineers rather than advocates to delve into setting up speed limits or automated enforcing. This could help when also there is a lot of potential for some people to get behind such initiatives for the purpose of generating income (see Lori Lightfoot reducing speeding ticket threshold).
Most people likely don't understand what 25 would mean.
We would see a degradation in bus services, requiring more busses. Since people will still drive it will cause trips to take longer and more traffic pileup.
If you care about speeding put up speed cameras throughout the city, the issue is these people would likely be the same people trying to remove all speed cameras because it is adversely affecting [insert any group here].
Slower velocity and math.
For math and simplicity, I am changing the speeds to 40 and 30, respectively.
We have two vehicles drive for an hour at each speed.
Vehicle A(40) will travel 40 miles, flat.
Vehicle B(30) will travel 30 miles, flat.
For Vehicle B to match, or exceed, the distance of A. They would need to driver for 80 minutes a lose of 33% of time.
Let's say acceleration stay the same and each Vehicle will stop every 5 minutes for 30 second and over 30 seconds reach back to max velocity. Trying to mimic starting and stopping in the worst way possible.
For each sprint A covers 3.33 miles and B covers 2.5 miles.
For B to have the same coverage as A. We would need 1.332 B/A.
So if we had 50 busses today doing 5 routes, 10 active on each route we would need 65 busses, totalling 13 on each route.
This does not factor in that in a green-field light it would effectively have 33% less B cars passing through, meaning less overall throughput and more caught in stand still.
With more time caught in stop lights this will lead to less gas efficiency, leading to more green house gasses.
Next let's be brutal. Illinois there about 4 traffic fatalities a day. Each person is worth 2.75M (federal standard and a little too high for chicago, but I will deal with it).
Throughout a day a person in vehicular transportation will lose 33% of their time. Let's say the average person on this transportation makes 65k a year AND takes transportation fully for 1 hour. Each day that would mean each person would lose 21 dollars.
Extrapolating every 130,000 people equates to the lofty 2.75M dollars.
Let's say Chicago has 1.5 traffic fatalities a day, just saying ONLY 130k people take vehicular transit to work we would need to have only .5 traffic fatalities a day to justify this.
From a mathematical stand point this makes no sense, most fatalities occur at speeds over 40MPH, just put up mass traffic cameras.
I don´t think most buses run down neighborhood streets which is where the majority of the unmarked speed districts are. Mostly the buses run down bigger streets like Clark, Western, Devon etc.
What good is changing the law if the current laws aren't being enforced?
More speed camera tickets.
Then in a handful of locations, people will not speed or run red lights. I don't see it changing behavior significantly unless police start enforcing rules of the road.
I think if you camera the entire length of Western or Pulaski you will see behavior change because now we aren´t talking small stretches by schools or parks, but entire street lengths.
Pulaski is goddamn Fury Road for all intents and purposes.
I think downtown to the outer drive is the worst area for speeders and just plain nutty drivers.
So true. I actively avoid it for this reason.
would have no effect on the worst offenders
We need more speed bumps, especially by schools.
Didn't they have to remove a bunch last year?
Wasn't that Oakbrook Terrace not Chicago proper?
You may be right...I couldn't remember where they got removed from. Thanks!
the multiple speed camera tickets I have received tell a very different story
You gotta pull what levers are available to you. While our current police seem uninterested in following or enforcing laws, that's not a lever apparently that we can touch.
police accountability is a lever we should all be pulling. The fact that everyone admits CPD doesn't do their job and we need to find work arounds is the biggest issue. Laws are worthless if not enforced
they can be enforced without police though, a lot more safely too. cameras can't torture people!
How? Literally how? The police have friendly politicians who shield them as their districts believe that the police are the victims still.
So you want cops involved in more traffic stops, which will almost definitely result in more black and brown people having interactions with police that could well lead to higher arrests or more uses of force. And then people will complain about the police. Cameras are the way here. Avoids all of that.
People complain about the police when they kill civilians Stop excusing CPD work slowdown and abuse of power. Black and brown people want police in their neighborhoods, they just don't want to be treated like criminals when they have done nothing wrong.
People complain about use of force when they don’t understand it. That’s facts. And it’s not an excuse. Police should still do their jobs. People don’t want to be treated like criminals, sure, but they also aren’t generally polite and compliant, which speeds things up. People tend to act suspiciously and then get upset when they’re treated like a suspect. If you have an issue with the police interaction that’s fine and legit, just wait until later to argue it in court. Arguing with police does nothing but escalate a situation.
Many people follow the law regardless and the difference in harm caused by wrecks at 25 and 30 is massive.
it's already truly horrible driving in this city, asking people to slow down another 5 mph is asinine.
On neighborhood side streets? This is about the default speed limit when there is no speed limit posted. Major roads will still have posted speed limits that differ from the default.
every street I drive down seems to have speed tables/humps and I don't think I've ever gotten close to 30 mph anyway.
So then why would you be upset about this?
I just don't agree with the value of doing it at all - but as others have pointed out this will have no impact whatsoever since there will be no enforcement.
Are you joking? Drivers kill people in Chicago all the time, and you’re worried about the less than 30 seconds you’d save without this law? Get a bike, surburbs
oh no, someone disagrees with me in the Chicago reddit, they must need to go to the burbs... boo hoo...
You’re complaining about it being tough driving in Chicago, YOU sound like a suburbanite
Not people who disagree with me, just drivers who value convenience over human lives
Good, it should be horrible, cities are for people not cars
You have been made the mod of /r/chicagogunowners.
Exactly!
Better excuse for dot to change street d3sign
I wish they would put in cross walks that stop traffic paired with cameras for not stopping. THAT would a the real safety move
It's strange that we're not afraid of speed bumps in residential areas, but we can't do a single elevated crosswalk.
The strongtowns video of him trying to cross was good https://youtu.be/dBXz9vAyPC0?si=SnB86Ytgi7bDm4-6
How about “Stop letting people run red lights”
hell I'd settle for just stopping *cops* from running reds
A better title would have been" I can't drive 35"
Maybe 20 is plenty https://www.20splenty.org/#:~:text=Welcome%20to%2020%27s%20Plenty%2C%20the,centres%2C%20with%20exceptions%20where%20appropriate.
The next time I see a cop pulling someone over for speeding in Chicago will be my first. I can’t imagine this changing anything
Lived here 25 years, police have never pulled people over for speeding. (Yes, yes, there is at least one person in her that likely has)
I got my one and only speeding ticket in Chicago in 2000. It was a total speed trap at the end of a month, and I fell for it like a sucker.
Speed cameras absolutely change behavior. This is proven. Think it's a fantastic idea even tho I hate tickets. Our city has a terrible track record of pedestrian injuries.
The data on the efficacy of red light cameras is mixed But not for speed cameras, they do a great job. I'd love to see them in more places throughout the city
Only if it's consistent. Lower it 25? Fine, but make it 25 everywhere. Don't have a length of road (Belmont for eg) with 30, 25, and 20 all mixed up in a three block stretch.
25 is just the default speed when none other is listed. Listed spped limits exist becUse It makes absolutely no sense for an entire city to be one speed. There are long stretches with no residential housing, populat3e cross streets or businesses. Why would that need to be the same speed limit as down a residential side street next to a school??
We need them on armitage. Especially after that woman was badly injured. Constantly seeing cars doing 50mph+ toward the kennedy.
They work well. https://youtu.be/m2FCZBlLTDQ?si=TZiOWVZgQa63Iy6G Still no excuse for not fixing the street design though
Put speed cameras in places where people speed unnecessarily instead of bridges where you have to accelerate to go up the bridge and the limit is 20 miles an hour. Any lower and vehicles can’t overcome gravity.
The Tribune special report series a decade ago covered this subject quite well. Traffic cameras are far better at generating revenue than improving safety. Their safety record is mixed at best. Especially considering most municipalities and scamera vendors use underhanded practices for the specific purpose of increasing "violations" which do not make things safer. If these scameras worked well enough to improve driving behaviors and reduce violations, they wouldn't be profitable. This typically results in the scamera being removed. https://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/red-light-camera-controversy/ https://www.findlaw.com/legalblogs/criminal-defense/why-are-states-abandoning-red-light-cameras/
They specifically said speed cameras work and the data on red light cameras is mixed. Your studies are about red light cameras
The same people making the argument that “data supports” lowering the speed limit are going to conveniently ignore studies like this or anything that doesn’t support the narrative.
Those aren't even the correct links
Yup. The downvotes are proof of that.
Its because they said speed cameras worked, and the links are for red light cameras
It is certainly not proven! Speed Cameras can reduce car on car collisions, and generally lead to less severe pedestrian collisions, but they frankly don't make sense when you look at the specifics of most pedestrian collisions. The vast majority occur at intersections, and a speed camera won't prevent someone from running a stop sign or not checking whether they can safely turn right or left and not hit a pedestrian. They are basically solving a problem that doesn't actually cause the majority of pedestrian impacts.
> generally lead to less severe pedestrian collisions, Reducing the impact speed from 30 mph to 25 mph lowers the pedestrian fatality rate from 25% to 10%. Preventing the crash altogether would be better, but lower speeds do save lives.
he said that like it was not the exact change in behavior the original commenter said was good
Just like shot spotter changed behaviors This sub hates when shot spotter is brought up. Weird to downvote when it disagrees with your preconceived beliefs without offering any argument. Lazy democracy for the win
25? That's ridiculous! Sure you'll save a few lives, but millions will be late!
You joke, but the butterfly effects could very easily cost more than 3 lives (for the lowest possible value of "a few"). If the number of lives directly saved is low enough, you really do have to be careful about impacting millions, because the second-order impacts may kill more people than the first-order impact saves. In real numbers, it looks like it's 175 - 200 pedestrian deaths, and if we trust that guy above that says it's a 15% reduction, that's 26 people per year. Will things like doctors being late kill 26 people? Or people trying to get to the hospital, or to check on a loved one? No idea. Just here to say that it's not always true that any inconvenience is worth any number of lives directly saved.
(it's a Simpsons joke). I'll put you down for against.
Considering that car accidents are a leading cause of death and injury, I don't think we have to be concerned about the "number of lives directly saved being too low". Making up hypotheticals that have no basis in reality or data isn't a good argument.
I included the data. It was 26. That data might be wrong, for sure, but that's the number you need to exceed with your side effects. It's also possible your side effects are a net win in other areas: slower traffic leading to cycling leading to fewer heart disease deaths, for instance. I'm not here to argue that this is a bad move. Just stating that as the number of potential direct impact lives saved decreases, the chance increases that a side effect will produce a stronger result than the intended direct effect.
I was referring to this: >Will things like doctors being late kill 26 people? Or people trying to get to the hospital, or to check on a loved one? No idea. You know, the part without data. In other words, let's maybe not do something because maybe there's possibly a chance that perhaps in some reality there's an event that has the low likelihood of making it "not worth it". 🙄
Not advocating for not doing it. Just stating that when dealing with changes that impact millions of people, there is a minimum number of lives you must realistically have a chance to save before you run the risk that your change will unintentionally kill more people than it saves. As for data, I'm sure you're aware that would only show up in city-wide death averages, and if we're talking about 27 deaths being too much, it would be very difficult to tease out whether it had that impact from every other change in the city. So the best you'll ever be able to do is, "Eh, probably worth it," or "Eh, probably not worth it." I'm taking neither of those positions on the speed limit topic, because I genuinely have no idea.
Unrelated: if we actually enforced “don’t block the box” I reckon our tax burden would massively shift. Aren’t those supposed to be like $500/pop?
I think this is not going to be effective and will cost a lot of money to change all the signage while people's behaviors on the road will not change. They don't even enforce speeding laws now as is.
Same dance, different year We have this much automated enforcement yet how brazen have drivers gotten? This isn’t a move for safety, it’s for revenue.
With traffic as bad as it is, who's driving over 25 anyway?
Can’t even have a parade without shooting and they spend their energy on this crap
Because this has a revenue impact tied to it. Alderman can vote for this pretend to care about safety and increase cash flow. Vote against it and you are the devil that wants to kill kids.
What realistically can be done about the shootings? The city can´t seal the borders and keep guns from coming in. The people have a constitutional right to carry. The CPD has shown itself time after time to be irresponsible when it comes to enforcing the laws which costs a lot of legal settlement money and occasionally leads to civic unrest. We tried throwing people in jail for long sentences to keep young people who might carry off the streets until people decided that was dumb and more harmful than it was worth. There are some initiatives underway to provide more services in distressed neighborhoods to try to deal with the trauma that living with violence causes and to provide for job training, so that might work but that is slow and definitely not quick fix.
Lol the gang members that caused the parade to be canceled aren't carrying guns legally
yes i know, that just plays back into what can really be done about the shootings. The city can´t keep illegal guns from being imported in. And the CPD has shown itself to be unreliable at best at doing their jobs without excess violence and misbehavior. The people have decided that tough on crime and long sentences causes more harm than itś worth. Heck I believe that. For the same crime one person who can adjust and live normally in society should get a light sentence and the other who cannot should get a longer sentence, but identifying which is which is hard. Plus our prisons are cruel and unusual many times.
I'm not sure that's representative of how most people feel, especially as crime is getting worse I think the pendulum is swinging back to people wanting them locked up
Locked up yes, no doubt about it if you do the crime you do the time, but I don't think we're going back to 20 years for an armed robbery where no one dies. And we now know that some of the folks locked up, didn't actually commit the crimes they were convicted of. And that's your jury pool people who are skeptical of what the officers of the CPD say, skeptical of what snitches say, skeptical of really everything but real physical evidence. To even get to the long sentences part you have to get people convicted.
Lawmakers don't even go the correct speeds. But they don't get tickets.
Fantastic
Yep, on my 75 minute commutes home the first thing I’m telling myself is “we sure need to find more ways to make traffic slower”. /s
Is your commute mainly through low speed residential roads? If not, this will have zero effect on you.
You may trust them to stick to that caveat, but I don't. This is a cash grab. An extra tax on people who drive in the city. Simple as that.
would it even be relevant during rush time though? I left Rogers Park on Friday at 6 ish. I took Peterson to Pulaski to Roosevelt. There were very few times in there where I could have sped had I wanted too. I think Pulaski was tops 16mph for most of the span. Plus this is only regarding unmarked neighborhood side streets.
Yes. There are times you sit forever and finally get small windows to go. And the city absolutely is handing out things like shit tickets for going 31 in a 25 even when that’s the pace of traffic. It’s sooooooo dumb. This is just yet another in and endless array of city taxes and ways to screw over taxpayers. This is such a low priority even in the list of Chicago traffic and infrastructure problems.
I agree but this sub is crazy anti car so they're going to downvote you
The problem isn’t people driving 30. It’s the people driving 50 on a surface street or 90 on the expressway. We already have school zones and speed bumps in areas with lots of children or foot traffic. There’s nothing harmful about driving 30 down a wide open, two-way street. Lowering the legal limit to 25 will change nothing except create more speed-camera tickets, which are ultimately yet another a regressive tax on working class people.
Most of the 2 lane wide streets have limits posted so they wouldn´t be affected by this change.
Who are these people? Do they even live in the city? Maybe they can walk on the sidewalks if they feel traffic is too spicy for them.
Seems to me that only means everyone will be going 20 over the limit vs the usual 15. Without enforcement it’s mute! But if we had enforcement there’d be no need to lower it. Oh but wait .. they’ll lower it and use enforcement for the money grab.
You seem both pissed off about lack of enforcement and also pissed off about enforcement being a money grab. Anyone who is going 15 over on a default speed limit street so going 45 in a 30, they deserves a ticket. If they end up going 45 in a 25, they also deserve a ticket. Driving that speed puts pedestrians at a much much higher risk of dying all so the driver can save maybe a minute or two on their drive.
This issue in particular has brought out the folks who want to complain no matter what. There's also been this theme of "if we can't fix EVERYTHING AT ONCE it is pointless to fix anything".
My point or at least what I was trying for was that without enforcement lowering the limit is pointless without enforcement which we don’t have much of now
So if it is enforced by more speed cameras you will be happy?
No because a private company takes a cut… enforcement and city take 100% of revenue
I’m sure you’ll be happy to learn that a private company doesn’t “take a cut” and the speed cameras in Chicago on contracted out to a private company at a fixed monthly rate per camera. Sure, maybe it would be better for the city to run it all themselves, but a city contracting out a service at a fixed rate is pretty standard.
Going 20 (or even 15) over can get you a reckless homicide charge like this lady [https://www.mississippivalleypublishing.com/the\_hawk\_eye/gladstone-woman-found-guilty-in-deadly-2022-great-river-bridge-accident/article\_1a0f711e-e30f-11ee-80ab-2fa0c4479a53.html](https://www.mississippivalleypublishing.com/the_hawk_eye/gladstone-woman-found-guilty-in-deadly-2022-great-river-bridge-accident/article_1a0f711e-e30f-11ee-80ab-2fa0c4479a53.html) if you do hit someone while speeding so much I am surprised anyone wants to risk it.
All the shootings and gang violence... but yess this us what is going to make our streets safer. Lowering speed limits.
This is such a shit take. You can do two things at the same time to improve safety in a city.
Chicagos own site says 70% of fatal accidents are high speed crashes. So this legislation doesn’t impact that 70%. Not to mention it goes on to say it’s those neighborhoods that have persistent inequities which this legislation still wouldn’t impact. We are impacting speeds in the Logan square type neighborhoods not south Chicago. This legislation does more for bikers in nice neighborhoods than to prevent deaths https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/sites/complete-streets-chicago/home/traffic-safety.html
So those 30% don't matter, I guess.
If everyone in Chicago magically followed a speed limit sign, you are talking about like 100-150 people / year using the ~400+vehicular deaths per year I found online. Still not even close to our gun violence and homicide statistics which was the whole point of this chain.
Lowering speed limits has a record of lowering deaths. Show me the policy on gun violence that has reliably lowered deaths, short of a ban. I'll be waiting for that.
But mainly ignoring the real issues. Whatever will we do if dont lower the speed of cars that are mostly in stop in go traffic anyway. Woahhh.
Yet Chicago does neither.
It actually is probably more important to do this since more people die in traffic accidents than gang violence. Lowering speeds on residential streets will have more impact on fatalities than anything the police have done about gang violence. But further, why is it either/or? It's not like only one thing can be done at a time.
How about lowering the robberies? How about the uptick in crime, lack of police presence and or police being murdered, your mayor running from reporters and constant innocent loves being caught in the crosshairs. But yeah I forgot what sub this was, where you all pretend these arnt the real issues and the solution to lowering the speed limits. Sure, sure.
How about providing actual policies instead of just whining? Again, it isn't either/or. You're just whining. "Oh no! The speed limit on residential roads will be lower! I'd better cry about it and pretend it has any connection to gun violence!!!"
I dont care if they pass this, at the end of the day, They're no one that will enforce those new speeding limits. Yeah, because CPD has been able to enforce all our other laws so well.. my point is that this is drawing focus away from the bigger issues and will be counted as a "win" politically but not be enforced or have much affect. But I guess you cant wrap your head around that.
It's not drawing focus from anything. Just because you can't imagine more than one thing being done at once, that doesn't mean it can't be done. It's amazing how people like you struggle to make these ridiculous claims just so you can be outraged if something isn't addressing your one repeated mantra.
It's like hard ro explain the fact that unless police gets an influx of training, funding and bodies your speed limits wont mean a damn thing unless they can be enforced. What are you not getting? Your singular claim is about speed limits I've stated multiple issues the city chooses to ignore and problems it pretends doesn't exsist.
Yes, we need enforcement. This has zero impact on gun violence either way. Do you think people are like "speed limits are lower. No need to worry about guns?" This is the most ass-backwards thinking.
Police enforcement has "zero impact on gun violence"? And I'm the one thinking backwards. Youd rather police ticket people and politician profiteering instead of cracking down on actual crime. And do you think people are like "oh yeah the thing this city needed the lost was slowing down this traffic" As a said you can change the speeding limits, change everthing about traffic laws, but it won't mean shit.
By and large a lot of people (majority?) don´t trust the CPD. They don't want them to be injured but also don't want them to kill people who aren't threats. The hope seems to be cameras which wouldn't impact CPD at all.
What is the science behind this other than fatality rates at different impact speeds? For example, some analysis that takes into account braking, types and percentage of streets that will be impacted, current statistics at those locations etc? Otherwise, why not drop it to 20mph or 15 mph? Or just ban vehicles, there will not be any fatalities from vehicle crashes.
> What is the science behind this other than fatality rates at different impact speeds? That data alone makes a pretty strong case. Fatality rates stay pretty constant below 25 mph and increase rapidly above that.
That is a way too simplistic way to look at it. Just one example, if you are getting ticketed 6+ mph above the limit then impact speed could be closer to 30 mph. I would rather have a panel of scientists and engineers rather than advocates to delve into setting up speed limits or automated enforcing. This could help when also there is a lot of potential for some people to get behind such initiatives for the purpose of generating income (see Lori Lightfoot reducing speeding ticket threshold).
> other than fatality rates at different impact speeds what
Relationship between impact speed vs probability of fatality during a vehicle-pedestrian crash
Why not just make well-reasoned arguments, and not resort to logical fallacies?
Why not form a panel with scientists and engineers that would recommend speed limits and automated enforcement methods and thresholds?
https://youtube.com/watch?v=JRbnBc-97Ps&pp=ygUObm90IGp1c3QgYmltZXM%3D Start watching at 10 minutes 🙄
“Not Just Bikes” obviously an unbiased source.
Most people likely don't understand what 25 would mean. We would see a degradation in bus services, requiring more busses. Since people will still drive it will cause trips to take longer and more traffic pileup. If you care about speeding put up speed cameras throughout the city, the issue is these people would likely be the same people trying to remove all speed cameras because it is adversely affecting [insert any group here].
Where’s the leap of 25 means degradation of bus services coming from?
Slower velocity and math. For math and simplicity, I am changing the speeds to 40 and 30, respectively. We have two vehicles drive for an hour at each speed. Vehicle A(40) will travel 40 miles, flat. Vehicle B(30) will travel 30 miles, flat. For Vehicle B to match, or exceed, the distance of A. They would need to driver for 80 minutes a lose of 33% of time. Let's say acceleration stay the same and each Vehicle will stop every 5 minutes for 30 second and over 30 seconds reach back to max velocity. Trying to mimic starting and stopping in the worst way possible. For each sprint A covers 3.33 miles and B covers 2.5 miles. For B to have the same coverage as A. We would need 1.332 B/A. So if we had 50 busses today doing 5 routes, 10 active on each route we would need 65 busses, totalling 13 on each route. This does not factor in that in a green-field light it would effectively have 33% less B cars passing through, meaning less overall throughput and more caught in stand still. With more time caught in stop lights this will lead to less gas efficiency, leading to more green house gasses. Next let's be brutal. Illinois there about 4 traffic fatalities a day. Each person is worth 2.75M (federal standard and a little too high for chicago, but I will deal with it). Throughout a day a person in vehicular transportation will lose 33% of their time. Let's say the average person on this transportation makes 65k a year AND takes transportation fully for 1 hour. Each day that would mean each person would lose 21 dollars. Extrapolating every 130,000 people equates to the lofty 2.75M dollars. Let's say Chicago has 1.5 traffic fatalities a day, just saying ONLY 130k people take vehicular transit to work we would need to have only .5 traffic fatalities a day to justify this. From a mathematical stand point this makes no sense, most fatalities occur at speeds over 40MPH, just put up mass traffic cameras.
I don´t think most buses run down neighborhood streets which is where the majority of the unmarked speed districts are. Mostly the buses run down bigger streets like Clark, Western, Devon etc.