speeding

The Chicago Tribune’s David Kidwell and his colleagues have written extensively about the city’s red light camera program. Some of that reporting has been constructive, including revelations about the red light cam bribery scandal, unexplained spikes in ticketing, and cameras that were installed in low-crash locations during the Richard M. Daley administration.

The Edgewater neighborhood along the north lakefront should be a pleasant place to walk. It's the second-densest community area in the city, with 56,521 residents in an area just 1.5 miles across, and boasts lively commercial areas like Andersonville. Yet local residents say that their neighborhood is effectively cleaved into two by a roiling river of car traffic. The north end of Lake Shore Drive pumps tens of thousands of cars through the neighborhood, first onto Hollywood and then to Broadway or Ridge and onto Clark and Peterson.

Fast times on Ridge Avenue, in front of Senn High School, are now over: The speed camera that CDOT installed in front of Senn Park has sharply cut the number of speeders cruising at a dangerous 40+ mph. Right after the camera was first installed, roughly seven out of 1,000 drivers received an official mailed warning for driving more than 10 mph above the speed limit. After the camera had been on for 44 days, it finally began issuing citations but sent tickets to fewer than two out of every 1,000 drivers.

Slow-speed zones are an increasingly widespread tactic to improve street safety and urban livability. Inspired by a German town that limited motor vehicle speeds to 30 kilometers per hour -- or roughly 19 miles per hour -- British activists have made 20 mph zones a core street safety policy across the nation.

WGN TV recently reported this week that 26 bicyclist and pedestrian injuries at Addison and Western, just outside of Lane Tech High school and within view of three speed cameras, "is relatively small." Reporter Jackie Bange did not clarify just how many injured Chicagoans would be "relatively large" and thus merit a public response.

To reach Mayor Rahm Emanuel's goal of having five percent of trips under five miles made by bike, bicycling will have to appeal to a much broader base of people than it does today. CDOT's bikeway projects will only succeed at that goal if new cyclists feel safe and comfortable while riding in these lanes -- which, in turn, largely depends on whether they feel safe from nearby traffic.

Washington, DC, has the same "vision zero" goal to eliminate traffic deaths as Chicago. In this new public service announcement, DC police chief Cathy Lanier says, "High speed collisions are much more deadly than other collisions." Exactly. When you compare the severity of injuries that pedestrians suffer in speeding-related crashes to non-speeding crashes, you see what Lanier is talking about.

After the fatal Metro-North commuter rail crash in the Bronx this weekend, yesterday the Chicago Tribune published an informative article about Positive Train Control for Metra. PTC is a technology that can slow or stop a train when the engineer is incapable of operating it, not paying attention, or when something else goes wrong.

Today in the Tribune, reporter Hal Dardick implied that Chicagoans should be outraged because, despite Rahm Emanuel's promise that money generated by speed cameras will be invested in traffic safety and violence prevention programs for kids, he hasn't created a separate "children's fund" in the proposed city budget. Dardick notes that any revenue generated by the cams will go into the city's general fund. The newspaper is using this relatively minor budget issue to fuel criticism that speed camera program isn't about safety but revenue. While the Trib has done more data analysis on speeding in Chicago than any other publication, the Trib too often skirts the fact that, around the world, the cameras have been proven to reduce speeding and traffic casualties.