Citywide expansion of automated bus, bike lane violation program advances in City Council panel
A City City council panel has advanced a measure to expand a program that automates enforcement of parking violations in bus and bike lanes.
The city’s nearly 2-year-old Smart Streets pilot would grow in phases to cover the entire city in 2028, according to the ordinance backed Friday by the Council’s Committee on Pedestrian and Traffic Safety.
The pilot is currently limited to a handful of ticket-issuing, camera-equipped Department of Finance vehicles and CTA buses. The current boundaries are North Avenue, Ashland Avenue, Roosevelt Road and Lake Michigan.
The ordinance would expand those boundaries, and the number of vehicles with cameras, if passed at next week’s City Council meeting.
The CTA expects to add cameras to 52 total buses in the next couple of weeks, Molly Poppe, CTA’s chief planning and innovation officer, told the committee. The ordinance lets the CTA add cameras to 100 buses total.
The Department of Finance would expand its camera-equipped vehicle fleet from eight to 26, Chuck Billow, the department’s deputy director of street operations, told the committee. If the program expands next year, the city could expect 207,000 parking violations and $9.4 million of increased gross revenue.
The program’s boundaries would be expanded twice before going citywide, he said. The first phase would happen in January, when the boundaries would grow to Foster Avenue, California Avenue and Pershing Road. In July, the boundaries would grow to Devon Avenue, Pulaski Road and 51st Street. The program would go citywide in January 2028.
Committee Chair Daniel La Spata (1st) said the pilot program, which kicked off in 2024 after more than a year and a half of delays, has already shown it is discouraging drivers from illegally parking in bike and bus lanes. He said 82% of drivers who received a warning never got a ticket. And 62% of motorists who got a ticket did not get a second ticket, he said.
Ald. Andre Vasquez (40th), the measure’s sponsor, said the idea for expanding parking enforcement began in 2022 after several children were fatally struck by drivers.
