Chicago needs to write fewer parking tickets and it needs to ban red-light cameras

Chicago's Northwest Side

So if middle class and wealthy people are more likely to be issued red-light camera tickets that would be acceptable? Perhaps Chicago should do the sensible thing and ban those accident-causing cameras? And while they are at it, the city should stop writing more tickets. When I lived in Chicago I was ticketed twice for having a "For Sale" sign on my car.

Chicago should also dump many of its parking regulations.

From the Chicago Sun-Times:

Mayor Rahm Emanuel was urged Thursday to go easier on parking and vehicle ticket scofflaws after a new report showed the city’s get-tough enforcement policies were having a disproportionate impact on low-income and minority communities.

In a report appropriately called, “The Debt Spiral,” the Woodstock Institute examined 3.6 million vehicle-related tickets issued by the city in 2017.

Those tickets included: 273,000 issued by red-light cameras; 250,000 by speed cameras; 187,000 sticker violations; 175,000 tickets for expired meters; 162,000 for expired license plates or temporary registrations and 144,000 for street cleaning violations.

Results of the ZIP code-based study were not all that surprising, but troubling nevertheless.

Did you notice the number of tickets? 3.5 million. In a city of just 2.6 million and falling.