Committee OKs measure to lower Chicago speed limit, sending it to full council

CHICAGO — The City Council’s Committee on Pedestrian and Traffic Safety on Monday passed a measure that would lower the city's default maximum speed limit to 25 MPH, down from the current 30.

Alders passed the measure with an 8-5 vote, sending it to the full City Council.

The measure was introduced in July by Ald. Daniel La Spata (1st Ward), the chair of the committee, with the backing of transit and biking advocates, and stem from the city’s 2017 “Vision Zero” plan to eliminate traffic deaths by 2026.

"The goal is not more revenue. The goal is to change behaviors and save lives," La Spata said at Monday's meeting.

The speed limit measure would amend the city’s existing ordinance and impact the speed limit on city streets. It would not apply to streets owned by the Illinois Department of Transportation.

"When you're dealing with homelessness, violence, lack of economic opportunity, a plethora of issues, I'm sorry but reducing the speed limit is not the number one issue that my community is looking at," Ald. Michael Ervin (28th Ward) said in opposition to the change.

The city says that 70 percent of the traffic fatalities last year involved motorists traveling at high speeds. City data shows that a person struck by a vehicle traveling 30 MPH has a 60 percent chance of survival. That chance of survival increases to about 95 percent if the person is struck by a vehicle traveling 20 MPH.

“If you think about it from a logic standpoint, when a car is going faster it takes longer to stop. So when a car is going 30 miles an hour it takes about 120 feet to stop and just a 5 mile reduction it can stop at 85 feet. It gives cars a chance to stop,” said Audrey Wennink, the senior director of the Metropolitan Planning Council, which supports the change.

New York and San Francisco have seen reductions in fatalities since reducing their speed limits, Wennink said.

Data provided to WGN shows traffic fatalities in Chicago are on pace with last year, down from a peak in 2021 but still higher than pre-pandemic levels.

A separate measure being debated Monday would create a pilot program that would allow citizens to submit photos of vehicles illegally parked in bike and bus lines to the city through 311. The city’s Department of Finance would then issue citations to the vehicle’s registered owners after two warnings.