Automated ticketing of bus, bike lane parking violators begins downtown trial run
The city on Monday kicked off a program to automatically ticket drivers illegally parked in downtown bike and bus lanes, over a year after the City Council approved the pilot that uses cameras mounted to city vehicles.
Vehicle owners will receive warning notices by mail during the first 30 days of the Smart Street pilot ordinance. Starting Dec. 5, drivers will receive a warning for the first offense, followed by fines for additional violations. The ordinance also covers parking violations in metered and specially designated spots.
The pilot, set to expire two years after the first fine is issued, is limited to an area bounded by North Avenue, Ashland Avenue, Roosevelt Road and Lake Michigan.
It took the city's Transportation Department over a year and a half to initiate the pilot ordinance passed by City Council in March 2023 under former Mayor Lori Lightfoot's watch.
Transportation Commissioner Tom Carney said choosing a vendor took longer than expected when asked about the delay during a kickoff event Monday at Chicago and Milwaukee avenues. The objective of the ordinance is not to issue fines, Carney said, but to improve road safety and quicken bus routes by deterring parking violators in bus-only lanes.
"These dedicated lanes help cut down travel times and make transit more efficient, but just one vehicle illegally stopped in a designated, dedicated bus lane creates slowdowns for dozens of passengers," Carney said.
Tickets will be issued for several parking ordinances already on the books: $90 fines for parking in a bus lane, $250 fines for bike path obstructions, $50 tickets for parking in expired meters outside of the central business district, and $140 tickets for personal vehicles parked in commercial loading zones.
Cameras have been installed on eight Department of Finance vehicles used by city ticket-writers. The Chicago Transit Authority is seeking to add cameras by the spring on up to six buses that use Dearborn, Madison, Washington streets and Chicago Avenue, according to the Transportation Department.
The city has been testing the ticketing cameras for the two weeks, according to city Comptroller Chasse Rehwinkel.
Ald. Daniel La Spata (1st), chair of City Council's Committee on Pedestrian and Traffic Safety, said the pilot is a "common sense solution" to improving bus service and road safety for cyclists who sometimes have to bike in the roadway when bike lanes are blocked.
"We want, when you get on the bus, to feel that's one of the smartest, best decisions that you made today," La Spata said. "When you choose to bike to work [or] to the grocery store, we want you to feel like that's one of the best, safest, most comfortable decisions that we made you made that day.
"But when those lanes are blocked, you feel angry and frustrated at best. You feel unsafe and endangered at worst."
La Spata is sponsoring a proposed ordinance to allow residents to submit photos of parking scofflaws to the city, along with another proposal to reduce the citywide speed limit from 30 mph to 25 mph.
Ald. Andre Vasquez (40th), vice chair of the Transportation Committee, said the impetus for the pilot was to reduce the deaths and injuries of pedestrians and cyclists due to blocked bike lanes. He pointed to the 2022 death of 3-year-old Lily Grace Shambrock, who was fatally struck by a truck on the back of her parent's bicycle while they biked around an illegally parked vehicle in Uptown.
"The goal isn't revenue. The goal is to not have any revenue collected because no one's blocking the bike lane," Vasquez said.
The city's Transportation Department must file a report to the City Council about the effectiveness of the pilot, 120 days before it expires, to help alderpeople decide whether to expand the program.