City Council committee backs plan for 25 mph default speed limit in Chicago

CHICAGO (CBS) — Chicago could lower its default speed limit from 30 mph to 25 mph starting in 2026, under a measure advanced by a City Council committee on Wednesday.
The City Council Committee on Pedestrian and Traffic Safety on Monday approved the measure by an 8-5 vote, but Ald. Daniel La Spata – the committee’s chair and the ordinance’s chief sponsor – said he would not call for a vote by the full City Council at its next meeting on Tuesday, to allow his colleagues more time to discuss it before a final vote.
The ordinance would lower the maximum speed limit on most city streets from 30 mph to 25 mph. It would not affect DuSable Lake Shore Drive or other streets under the jurisdiction of the Illinois Department of Transportation.
If approved, the lower speed limit would not go into effect until January 2026.
Streets with speed limits already lower than 30 mph would not have their existing speed limits lowered any further.
Bronzeville resident Julieta Neloms is all for the city possibly to reduce the speed limit in her neighborhood.
“Cars are zipping past,” Neloms said, “so I wish they would either give us speed bumps, or I’m all in favor of the reduced speed limit.”
Some motorists were also behind the idea.
“It is so important, but people don’t care about speed limit sometimes,” said driver Baris Sarigode. “People don’t care about the red lights or traffic rules.”
Mayor Brandon Johnson has also thrown his support behind the measure.
“I fully support it,” Johnson said last week. “It’s a matter of how do we implement it so that … it’s done in an equitable way.”
Supporters of the measure have 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 has said many other major cities in the U.S. have reduced their default speed limit to 25 mph or lower in recent years, including Boston New York, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C.; as well as a handful of Chicago suburbs, including Evanston, Wheaton, and Aurora.
“The goal is to change driver behavior, not to raise revenue for the city,” La Spata said.
La Spata said, after New York City reduced its default speed limit to 25 mph in 2014, it saw a 23% reduction in pedestrian deaths, and a 39% drop in total traffic crashes.
New York City this year began lowering the speed limit even further to 20 mph in 250 locations across every borough except Staten Island, following passage of “Sammy’s Law” earlier this year.  The city says it is targeting roads near schools, open streets and shared streets.  
However, a handful of aldermen objected to lowering speed limits across the city, suggesting Chicago take a more targeted approach to lowering driving speeds by neighborhood.
“What you’re arguing is totally correct in speed reduction and fatalities,” Ald. Jason Ervin (28th) said. “But communities have different challenges. I think this one size fits all approach is not necessarily in the best interests of all of Chicagoans.”
Ald, Brian Hopkins (2nd) said a 25 mph speed limit also would not make sense on major thoroughfares like Irving Park Road, Harlem Avenue, or Stony Island Avenue.
“To suggest that a 25-mile-an-hour maximum speed limit applies across the board on the city makes zero sense,” he said.”It doesn’t make sense to use this one-size-fits-all approach.”
Ervin also questioned why La Spata and the ordinance’s sponsors settled on a 25 mph default speed limit for most city streets, rather than going even lower.
“Why not reduce it to 10 miles an hour?” he said. “It’s not something that I’m proposing, but I’m just saying of course if you walk, if nobody drives, yes we have zero traffic fatalities, but that’s not grounded in the terms of reality.”
La Spata said supporters of the ordinance looked at speed limits in other large cities like New York and Los Angeles, as well as in neighboring suburbs like Evanston and Oak Park.
“Nobody wants to be silly or have an unserious conversation, and everybody wants to actually take reasonable steps that will keep more Chicagoans safe,” La Spata said.
Ald. Nicholas Sposato (38th) said he worries about “unintended consequences” from lowering the speed limit, predicting it could lead to a surge in road rage from frustrated drivers.
“You think people are nuts right now? You try to do 30 down the street, people want to run you off the road. Imagine when it’s going to be 25. The road rage problems we’re going to have with it is just going to be through the roof,” he said.
Sposato said he also wants to hear from representatives of the Chicago Police Department, Chicago Department of Transportation, and Chicago Department of Revenue on how the city would enforce the new speed limit before a final vote.
Ald. Brian Hopkins (2nd) echoed criticisms of a one-size-fits-all speed limit, pointing out some major city roadways where he said it would not make sense.
“To suggest a 25-mile-an-hour max speed limit applies across the board makes zero sense,” said Hopkins. “It doesn’t make sense on Irving Park in Ald. Sposato’s ward. It doesn’t make sense on Harlem Avenue on Far Northwest Side. It doesn’t make sense on Stony Island Avenue on South Side.”
Several aldermen also raised questions about how the new lower speed limits would be enforced without placing an undue burden on low-income drivers or Black and Latino communities, which already pay a disproportionate share of traffic tickets in Chicago.
La Spata said that is why he also sponsored a resolution to create a working group to examine changes to traffic enforcement to ensure traffic laws are enforced equitably before the lower speed limit could go into effect in January 2026. That measure also advanced on Monday.
The alderman said the working group would look into ways to use money from speeding tickets to implement infrastructure changes to support slower speeds; to fund a free drivers’ education program for people who are caught speeding, rather than relying solely on tickets in an effort to change drivers’ behavior; and to set up a program for qualifying low-income drivers to apply for reduced fines.
“The question is can we do this and implement it in a way that is equitable?” La Spata said.
Ald. David Moore (17th) suggested that, in order to make sure minority drivers are not unfairly targeted for enforcement of a new lower speed limit, the city should do away with its entire system of speed cameras. However, after other aldermen said people in their wards support speed cameras to keep kids safe near schools and parks, the committee voted down Moore’s bid to add a ban on speed cameras to La Spata’s speed limit ordinance.