A Chicago alderman on Wednesday introduced a proposal to lower the city’s default speed limit from 30 mph to 25 mph.
Ald. Daniel La Spata (1st) said even a small reduction in speed on city streets could drastically reduce the number of traffic fatalities every year in Chicago.
“I don’t even just believe it, I know that it will,” La Spata said.
The alderman has said data show pedestrians hit by cars traveling 25 mph are half as likely to die as those struck by cars traveling 30 mph.
La Spata said many other major cities in the U.S. have reduced their default speed limit to 25 mph in recent years, including New York, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C.; as well as a handful of Chicago suburbs, including Evanston, Wheaton, and Aurora.
The alderman said, after New York City reduced its default speed limit to 25 mph in 2014, it saw a 23% reduction in traffic deaths.
La Spata said the city could enforce the lower speed limit the same way it enforces the current speed limit, through a combination of traffic stops by police and automated traffic enforcement using speed cameras.
Some opponents of the ordinance have called it a cash grab, because it could result in a huge increase in traffic fines.
The proposal to reduce the city’s speed limit to 25 mph was sent to the City Council Rules Committee, which will effectively delay any formal debate or vote on the measure. First the Rules Committee must vote on which other committee will take up the ordinance. The full City Council must confirm that vote before the ordinance is formally assigned to a committee for debate, and with the City Council taking its annual August recess, the soonest the ordinance can be assigned to a committee will be September, meaning the soonest the full City Council could vote on the measure would be October.
If approved, the new 25 mph speed limit would go into effect in 2026.
