Council faces two more close votes — on 25 mph speed limit and empowering CPD to cooperate with ICE

No vote is a sure thing in a City Council that stared down Mayor Brandon Johnson during the marathon budget stalemate.

Wednesday’s meeting could feature more of the same.

Stalled proposals to reduce the default speed limit on Chicago streets to 25 mph and restore exceptions to the city’s Welcoming City ordinance face potentially close votes after parliamentary maneuvers to revive both.

The speed limit vote could be the more comfortable of the two.

The Committee on Pedestrian and Traffic Safety approved it, 8 to 5, over objections from Black and Hispanic alderpersons fearing the lower speed limit could cause an avalanche of speeding tickets and provide a pretext for traffic stops targeting minority motorists.

The same spirited debate followed former Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s controversial decision to reduce the ticketing threshold for Chicago speed cameras to 6 mph over the posted speed limit.

This year, 50 more speed cameras will be installed as part of the deal that ended the long budget stalemate, Transportation Commissioner Tom Carney said Tuesday.

During a hearing Tuesday on the Chicago Department of Transportation's 2023 crash report, Carney acknowledged Chicago's “traffic-calming" investments in pedestrian refuge islands, raised crosswalks, curb extensions and speed humps is paying off. Traffic fatalities were down 27% “from the 2021 peak," compared to a 5% drop nationwide, Carney said.

But, he added, “changing the speed limit has to be part of the overall tool box."

Ald. Daniel La Spata (1st) estimated the lower speed limit could save the lives of more than 300 Chicagoans over the next decade, and “I can’t put a price on that.”

Fears that the lower speed limit will trigger an avalanche of tickets and traffic stops are unfounded, LaSpata said.

With a delayed enforcement date a year from now, his goal is the “education-based enforcement” that accompanied the lower speed limit in other major cities.

“You get a citation for speeding. But rather than us hitting you with a fine, we give you a traffic module that you can do on your phone, answer a few questions, and see if that isn’t actually more effective in getting folks to change their behavior,” LaSpata said.

LaSpata made no apologies for pushing the issue — despite an estimated $3 million cost to change speed limit signs citywide if the state doesn’t follow Chicago’s lead.

“When I … hear from parents who have lost 3-, 4-, 7-year-olds — when I hear from people who have lost grandparents — there is urgency on their part,” LaSpata said.

“The time to act is now.”

Johnson supports the lower speed limit, but his floor leader and Budget Chair Jason Ervin (28th) will be a “no” vote.

“You’re always concerned about uneven enforcement. This becomes another tool for that,” Ervin said.

“I just don’t think that, for the residents that I represent, it makes sense to do. ... The matter really needs to go back to committee for a fuller conversation than we had.”

A less welcoming city?

The vote to restore so-called carve-outs to Chicago’s Welcoming City Ordinance could be closer, though Johnson's administration and immigrant rights advocates are furiously lobbying against it.

With President-elect Donald Trump threatening mass deportations and vowing to make Chicago Ground Zero in that effort, they argued empowering police officers to “work with federal immigration officers or agencies” when certain crimes are involved would deny due process rights and open the door to a wave of potentially costly lawsuits against the city.

The list of crimes would include prostitution, drug or gang-related activities including loitering

Carve-outs also would make the city “less safe” by discouraging Chicago’s 200,000 undocumented immigrants from cooperating with police to solve crimes or calling 911 to report criminal behavior.

"We have a really big coalition. As more people learn about the serious legal and financial liability, a lot of folks are expressing their opposition," said Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35th). Those carve-outs originally were eliminated from the law after a six-year campaign by immigrant rights advocates led by Ramirez-Rosa.