Red Light Cameras
The people of the city of Chicago, and anyone else driving through it, have had to suffer at the hands of an administration that supposedly wants to keep them safe, but in actuality just wants their money. When Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration and their red-light cameras surreptitiously changed the yellow light standard to 2.9 seconds (from 3 seconds) in the name of “safety,” he brought in $7.7 million from tickets. Who knows where that money really went – to city programs that are in desperate need of more funding, or personal expenses?
Thankfully, according to The Chicago Tribune, Aldermen Tom Tunny (44th) and Anthony Beale (9th) are attempting to change Chicago intersections and yellow lights for the actual good of the people.
They want to change yellow lights to stay yellow for 3.2 seconds and require all intersections to have the pedestrian “countdown” so that motorists approaching an intersection to see how much time they actually have before the light turns yellow.
They also propose that meetings be held in order to determine if a red light camera would really make an intersection safer before installation. These community leaders are acting based on the evidence that red light cameras caused more harm than good that the Tribune presented from their study in December 2014.
However, if Mayor Rahm Emanuel does not support these changes, then we Chicagoans have little to look forward to in terms of change in the traffic intersections of the city. Based on his previous actions for the city (like shortening the yellow lights from 3 seconds to 2.9 seconds), these changes may never be actualized. We can only hope for the best.
For the original Chicago Tribune article