A divided City Council on Wednesday put the brakes on efforts to reduce the city’s default speed limit from 30 mph to 25 mph.
The 28 to 21 vote against lowering the speed limit followed a spirited and emotional debate that pitted traffic safety advocates, many of them on the North Side, against African-American alderpersons concerned about uneven enforcement and a surge in pre-textual traffic stops targeting Black motorists.
West Side Ald. Jason Ervin (28th), Mayor Brandon Johnson’s hand-picked Budget Committee chair, led the charge against the lower speed limit.
Ervin said he “understands the logic that, if you go slow,” there will be fewer traffic fatalities and serious injuries.
But, at a time when Johnson’s 2025 budget is balanced, in part, by installing even more speed cameras, he is concerned about an avalanche of speeding tickets that struggling Chicagoans cannot afford to pay.
“We’ve got people who can barely pay their bills and a speed camera ticket at 25 or 30 miles-an-hour can be a vast difference in peoples’ budgets,” Ervin said.
If individual alderpersons want to lower the speed limit in their own communities, they can. But making it 25 mph citywide would have “unintended consequences,” Ervin said.
“The folks I represent are not looking for more tickets. … What may work in one part of the city may not work in another part. ”
Police Committee Chair Chris Taliaferro (29th) also warned of the “disproportionate impact” of a lower citywide speed limit.
Taliaferro noted some neighborhoods “don’t have speed cameras at all while minority communities, particularly Black communities” have a “disproportionate share” that “impacts them financially.”
Wednesday’s vote was a bitter and emotional disappointment to LaSpata, an avid cyclist who represents Bucktown, Wicker Park, West Town and Logan Square, where several fatal accidents have occurred.
On Wednesday, he recalled a little girl killed by a speeding motorist in 2022. She’s the same age as LaSpata’s daughter, and should have been in kindergarten about now. Instead, she was one of 162 Chicagoans killed in speeding accidents that year.
LaSpata has estimated the lower speed limit could save the lives of more than 300 Chicagoans over the next decade, and “I can’t put a price on that.”
He has argued that fears that the lower speed limit will trigger an avalanche of tickets and traffic stops are unfounded.
By delaying enforcement for a year, he had hoped to use the “education-based enforcement” that accompanied the lower speed limit in other major cities.
“You get a citation for speeding. But rather than us hitting you with a fine, we give you a traffic module that you can do on your phone, answer a few questions, and see if that isn’t actually more effective in getting folks to change their behavior,” LaSpata has said.
LaSpata made no apologies for pushing the issue — despite an estimated $2.6 million cost to change speed limit signs citywide if the state doesn’t follow Chicago’s lead.
He’s confident that, under the leadership of newly-appointed Il. Transportation Secretary Gia Biaggi, the state is poised to reduce the speed limit on arterial city streets that it controls. That would eliminate the need for $2.6 million in signage.
“In conversation with our state partners, they stand committed and ready to act with us to lower the speed limit on those streets as well. But, they won’t act until we act,” he said. “But, if we wait until the legislative window closes, we lose that opportunity.”
$27 million deal tops list of settlements approved
The Council authorized a series of costly settlements, the largest of which stem once again from allegations of police wrongdoing.
The largest — for $27 million — goes to the family of Angela Parks, a single working mother of five who was rendered a quadriplegic, then died 18 months later — at age 45 — after being struck by the passenger door of a Jeep that Chicago Police Department officers were pursuing because they believed it had been stolen.
Of the $27 million, $20 million will be borne by Chicago taxpayers, while $7 million will be covered by the city’s catastrophic insurance.
The second-highest settlement — for $3.5 million — will compensate Nicholas Pellegrino. He suffered a traumatic brain injury when a dead tree neglected by the city fell and hit him on his head.
And a $1.25 million settlement goes to Nicole Banks, whose hiring as a Chicago Fire Department paramedic was unfairly delayed three years because of a hearing impairment that did not interfere with her ability to handle emergency medical calls.
Crackdown on sale of unregistered cars
After years of efforts, North Side Ald. Andre Vasquez (40th) led the successful charge against the insidious practice he calls “curbstoning” — illegally selling unregistered cars without a dealer’s license on Chicago streets, depriving local residents of precious on-street parking spaces.
“Efforts to ticket these vehicles don’t work because they have no plates,” Vasquez was quoted as saying in a press release.
The ordinance approved Wednesday would empower the Chicago Police Department to fine and refer for immediate towing any vehicle left on the street without a permanent or temporary license to match that vehicle. Vehicles without license plates with a “make, model and color” matching a car advertised as “for sale by owner” would violate the new law.
Zoning approved for $7 billion development around United Center
Council members also approved rezoning the land around the United Center, paving the way for construction to begin on a proposed $7 billion mixed-used development that transform a sea of parking lots around the West Side home of the Bulls and Black Hawks into a thriving new neighborhood.
The zoning application filed by the Wirtz and Reinsdorf families that built and jointly own the United Center makes no mention of a new CTA station that developers believe is needed to access the planned residential and entertainment district and minimize the need for parking.
But local Ald. Walter Burnett (27th), who chairs the City Council’s Zoning Committee, has said the new station and related infrastructure improvements have been at the center of negotiations with city planners.
A likely funding source would be the surrounding tax increment financing district. But that district “may be expiring,” said Burnett, whose 27th Ward includes the project.
Black Ensemble Theater development
Also approved Wednesday was a zoning change that will pave the way for a $76 million expansion of the Black Ensemble Theater. Local Ald. Angela Clay (46th) has called the “Free To Be Village” development in the 4400 block of North Clark Street a “dream come true” for her North Side ward. It includes 53 affordable housing units for artists, ground-floor retail and new centers for performing arts education and technology and media.
Fulton Market mixed-use project
Final zoning approval was granted to a 29-story mixed-use project, including 80 condominiums, in Fulton Market. The building is the first of three planned for the site at 1325 W. Fulton St.