Red light verdict casts harsh light on rationale for cameras

[Brandon]

Red light verdict casts harsh light on rationale for cameras

Dozens of red light cameras that a Tribune safety study found to be potentially dangerous were placed in low-crash intersections by a corrupt Chicago official who was taking up to $2,000 in bribes for every new camera he ordered.

But most of those cameras are still snapping photos – and raking in millions of dollars in traffic fines for City Hall – even though Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his transportation chief were given scientific evidence more than a year ago that showed many of the cameras are causing more injuries than they prevent.

Those findings take on new significance since a federal jury last week convicted the former City Hall manager of the camera program of taking up to $2 million in bribes from camera vendor Redflex Traffic Systems Inc. Testimony in the trial of John Bills indicated that greed – not safety – was the driving force behind the city's expansion of the camera network into the largest in the nation.

Last week's guilty verdicts against Bills on charges of tax fraud, mail fraud, extortion, conspiracy and bribery followed a four-year Tribune investigation that exposed a camera program rife with corruption, mismanagement, failed oversight and unfair enforcement practices.

The series revealed tens of thousands of tickets issued improperly while Emanuel and his lieutenants defended the program with safety statistics that were false. All the while, the $100 fines continued to roll in, more than $600 million and still counting. None of that revenue was ever used by the city to conduct a scientific study on the effects the cameras have on the streets of Chicago.

The Tribune-sponsored study, conducted by traffic researchers at Texas A&M University's Transportation Institute and first published in December 2014, found the city routinely placed cameras at intersections that had few if any injury-related crash problems, leaving the cameras little room to improve safety.

At the same time, experts found, the unnecessary cameras at more than 70 intersections prompted many drivers to slam on the brakes in efforts to avoid an automated ticket, causing a significant increase in injury-related rear-end crashes near cameras throughout the city.

National transportation engineering experts who participated in the Tribune investigation said last week they are perplexed at the city's failure to adequately address problems in the program.

"If I was a motorist in the city of Chicago, I would be incredibly angry right now," said Joseph Hummer, chairman of the civil and environmental engineering department at Wayne State University.

"I have to say I am surprised that more than a year later those cameras are still operating," he said. "They should turn off the cameras that were installed for no good engineering reason."

Emanuel and his transportation chief, Rebekah Scheinfeld, have argued the city has done many things to reform the troubled program. Last year, for instance, an ordinance was passed requiring pedestrian countdown timers at each intersection equipped with cameras in order to help drivers gauge the city's three-second yellow light times, which are among the shortest in the nation.

Emanuel and Scheinfeld declined to be interviewed for this report.

Too chicken to defend yourself here, Rahm?

The Texas A&M study used data collected by the Tribune under the guidance of experts such as Lord and Hummer. It included characteristics of each intersection, such as number of lanes, traffic flow and speed limits combined with a decade of crash statistics from the Illinois Department of Transportation.

The study also included a control group of similar intersections that never had cameras for comparison. After the data were compiled, the academic researchers applied a complex mathematical formula to strip away any other factors that might have caused changes in crash rates. Then they compared crash rates from periods before and after the camera installations.

What the research concluded largely mirrored the findings of studies done on other, smaller programs throughout the country. Overall, there was a 15 percent reduction in more dangerous T-bone crashes involving injury, but a 22 percent increase in injury-causing rear-end crashes.

Perhaps more significant, the study concluded that the cameras did not reduce T-bone crashes at those intersections that had fewer than four such crashes per year before the cameras were installed. And the lack of safety benefits likely means that the increase in rear-enders made those intersections more dangerous for Chicago drivers.

The lack of a stated rationale behind the camera locations was noted by the city's own inspector general, Joseph Ferguson, in a 2013 investigation that followed Tribune reports.

"It's troubling that CDOT cannot produce documentation or an analysis demonstrating how each camera location was chosen, including all of those currently in operation," Ferguson wrote.

Bills, 54, faces a sentence that could exceed 20 years in federal prison for accepting between $1,500 and $2,000 in cash from Redflex for every new camera that was installed – 384 at the program's peak. In addition, witnesses testified, he took lavish gifts including luxury vacations, golf outings, pricey meals, a Mercedes convertible, a speed boat, even a condominium near Redflex's headquarters in Arizona.

In exchange, prosecutors showed, Bills steered the lucrative city contract to Redflex, sabotaged its competitors, and then oversaw the program's expansion from a pilot project at two intersections to a revenue-generating machine for a cash-strapped city.

Despite his conviction, Bills maintains his innocence. At trial, his defense alleged that the cash did not flow to him, but to a phalanx of well-connected lobbyists with ties to powerful elected officials such as Mayor Richard M. Daley and Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan.

There is a solution, ban the cameras.  They're a toy that's been abused, and when the toy has been abused, you take it away.

[SidS1045]

It involves traffic safety, but otherwise there's nothing here that hasn't gone on in Chicago since the 1940's.  Anyone who has read the late Mike Royko's masterpiece "Boss" will recognize it.

[Jardine]

Corruption in Chicago City Hall ?!?!?!?!


OMFG !!!!

[Rothman]

Corruption in Chicago City Hall ?!?!?!?!


OMFG !!!!

I've got this thing and it's f***in' golden.

[PurdueBill]

They are using pedestrian countdown timers for the express reason of motorists to see them and decide whether they have enough time to stop?  How about using appropriate yellow light times?!?!?  They are going against the meaning of the pedestrian countdown timers.  Then again, CDOT likes to use 5-light towers that mimic doghouse signals but append a sign "left on green arrow only" which should be forbidden but instead I've seen CTA bus drivers lean on their horns for the car in front of them to turn on the circular green at that exact type of signal.  It's like Thunderdome.

FHWA should drop the hammer on them somehow.  I'm not sure how, but there has to be something that the city is doing that the feds could come in and say must be stopped or else the money turns off. 

[Brandon]

It's like Thunderdome.

It's merely how people drive in Chicago.  Two go in, but only one (maybe) comes out.

[paulthemapguy]

Just wanted to say "Thank You" to Brandon for sifting through the article and picking out the important points so that we didn't have to.  I wonder if someday there will ever be an Illinois politician who puts his personal interests aside for one goddamn second and does his job for that single second of time.

[jeffandnicole]

They are using pedestrian countdown timers for the express reason of motorists to see them and decide whether they have enough time to stop?  How about using appropriate yellow light times?!?!?  They are going against the meaning of the pedestrian countdown timers.  Then again, CDOT likes to use 5-light towers that mimic doghouse signals but append a sign "left on green arrow only" which should be forbidden but instead I've seen CTA bus drivers lean on their horns for the car in front of them to turn on the circular green at that exact type of signal.  It's like Thunderdome.

FHWA should drop the hammer on them somehow.  I'm not sure how, but there has to be something that the city is doing that the feds could come in and say must be stopped or else the money turns off. 

Legally, transportation departments aren't allowed to post countdown timers for motorists.  The fact that ped countdown timers can be seen by motorists is irrelevant.  There's no requirement that a countdown timer, when reaching 0, must force the light to turn yellow.  A ped signal, after the countdown has reached 0, is perfectly allowed to stay in a "Don't Walk" state, or revert to a "Walk" signal, without any related action taken by the traffic light for motorists. 

It's similar with stop signs.  Whenever a stop sign is posted in a neighborhood, it's for pedestrian safety.  Officials can't say it's to slow down traffic, because that reasoning is prohibited.  Everyone knows why they're doing it; but the officials have to be careful not to state it.

[PurdueBill]

They are using pedestrian countdown timers for the express reason of motorists to see them and decide whether they have enough time to stop?  How about using appropriate yellow light times?!?!?  They are going against the meaning of the pedestrian countdown timers.  Then again, CDOT likes to use 5-light towers that mimic doghouse signals but append a sign "left on green arrow only" which should be forbidden but instead I've seen CTA bus drivers lean on their horns for the car in front of them to turn on the circular green at that exact type of signal.  It's like Thunderdome.

FHWA should drop the hammer on them somehow.  I'm not sure how, but there has to be something that the city is doing that the feds could come in and say must be stopped or else the money turns off. 

Legally, transportation departments aren't allowed to post countdown timers for motorists.  The fact that ped countdown timers can be seen by motorists is irrelevant.  There's no requirement that a countdown timer, when reaching 0, must force the light to turn yellow.  A ped signal, after the countdown has reached 0, is perfectly allowed to stay in a "Don't Walk" state, or revert to a "Walk" signal, without any related action taken by the traffic light for motorists. 

That's the issue.  The ordinance they passed (to try to placate people) included language that cameras can only be at intersections with pedestrian timers.  Their stated rationale at the time was that drivers could use them to know if they could make it or not.  Flies in the face of all rules and regulations, but they do not care.

[Brandon]

They are using pedestrian countdown timers for the express reason of motorists to see them and decide whether they have enough time to stop?  How about using appropriate yellow light times?!?!?  They are going against the meaning of the pedestrian countdown timers.  Then again, CDOT likes to use 5-light towers that mimic doghouse signals but append a sign "left on green arrow only" which should be forbidden but instead I've seen CTA bus drivers lean on their horns for the car in front of them to turn on the circular green at that exact type of signal.  It's like Thunderdome.

FHWA should drop the hammer on them somehow.  I'm not sure how, but there has to be something that the city is doing that the feds could come in and say must be stopped or else the money turns off. 

Legally, transportation departments aren't allowed to post countdown timers for motorists.  The fact that ped countdown timers can be seen by motorists is irrelevant.  There's no requirement that a countdown timer, when reaching 0, must force the light to turn yellow.  A ped signal, after the countdown has reached 0, is perfectly allowed to stay in a "Don't Walk" state, or revert to a "Walk" signal, without any related action taken by the traffic light for motorists. 

It's similar with stop signs.  Whenever a stop sign is posted in a neighborhood, it's for pedestrian safety.  Officials can't say it's to slow down traffic, because that reasoning is prohibited.  Everyone knows why they're doing it; but the officials have to be careful not to state it.

To paraphrase, "Forget it, Jake, it's Chicago."  They really don't care what federal laws, rules, and regulations are.  They'll use five light lowers with "LEFT TURN ON GREEN ARROW ONLY" signs, they'll use substandard and nonstandard signage, they'll even use the countdown timers for this, knowing full well that they installed the cameras and shortened the yellow light times for revenue, and yes, they'll even try to sell a Senate seat.

"Chicago ain't ready for reform."

[hm insulators]

Just wanted to say "Thank You" to Brandon for sifting through the article and picking out the important points so that we didn't have to.  I wonder if someday there will ever be an American politician who puts his personal interests aside for one goddamn second and does his job for that single second of time.

Just fixed that for you, Paul.