In the first few weeks of active ticketing, a handful of Chicago’s speed cameras have issued a total of 2,700 speeding violations according to the Chicago Department of Transportation.

Nine cameras near four city parks (Gompers, McKinley, Garfield, and Marquette) began issuing speed camera tickets with monetary fines between $35 and $100 between October 16th and October 22nd.

According to CDOT, speeding events have dropped by nearly two-thirds between the first of warnings and the third week in ticketing.

After the cameras were first installed back in late August and early September, warnings were issued for a period of 30 days. CDOT says each camera issued an average 507 warnings per day in the first week of operation. But by the third week of issuing tickets, violations for exceeding the speed limit by 10 mph or more had dropped to just 175 per day.

“It is encouraging to see that automated speed enforcement has already had a

significant positive impact of drivers’ behavior by reducing the level of speeding,”

said outgoing CDOT Commissioner Gabe Klein in a press release. “But we still have a chronic problem of excessive speed, and we need to continue to change the culture of speeding in Chicago in order to increase the safety around our parks and schools.”

But ticket volume has also dropped between the first week of violations and the third week. CDOT says that daily average has dropped 17%, from 211 violations per day to 175.

An equally interesting statistic indicates 90% of the motorists caught speeding by the cameras have not been issued a second speed camera violation since ticketing began in mid-October.

Barnet Fagel of the National Motorists Association and a critic of Chicago’s massive automated traffic camera enforcement programs acknowledges the speed cameras are slowing down cars around the parks. But he doesn’t believe the cameras will actually improve safety on Chicago’s streets saying drivers have figured out where the cameras are located and are temporarily slowing down near the cameras before resuming their normal driving speeds.

“People are finding different routes or slowing down,” says Fagel. “I think their impact on surface streets will be minimal.”

To date the city says on top of the 2,700 speed cam tickets, it’s issued 300,000 30-day warnings, and 24,000 final warnings–an essentially a freebie warning given to every driver if they get caught by a camera for the first time outside the 30-day warning period.

The city plans to install over 200 speed cameras at 100 locations across the city by the end of 2014. City law allows for up to 350 speed camera locations.

Fines are $35 for exceeding the speed limit between 6-10 mph and $100 for traveling at speeds 11 mph or higher. Although, for the time being the city is only enforcing at speeds at 10 mph or more. CDOT says it will eventually drop the speed enforcement threshold but has not announced a date this will happen thus far.

Speed camera enforcement near parks runs every day from 6 AM to 11 PM.

This year’s budget is counting on an estimated $60-$70 million in revenue from the speed cams. The city claims this revenue is earmarked for safety programs including funding for crossing guards and police around schools, infrastructure improvements like signs and crosswalk markings.

Speed cameras installed near Douglas, Legion, Washington Parks have starting issuing tickets this week, while cameras at Abbott, Humboldt, Major Taylor will be sending out violations by the end of the month.

The cameras installed by Portage, Columbus and Warren parks are currently in the warning-issuing phase.

Cameras at Horner Park and by Lane Tech High School are still in the testing phase according to CDOT.

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