Chicago’s South Side gets over 3X tickets per red-light cam as North Side
Red-light cameras on Chicago’s South Side issued more than triple the number of tickets per intersection as on the North Side between June 2024 and May 2025. Fines citywide dropped over $12 million from the previous 12 months.
Red-light cameras on Chicago’s South Side issued the most tickets per intersection during the 12 months through May, ticketing 2.6 times more drivers than the citywide average and over triple the number as monitored intersections on the North Side.
Drivers citywide were fined nearly $56.5 million, without accounting for late fees, through 564,708 tickets from June last year through May. That’s 120,709 fewer tickets than during the previous 12 months and a more than $12 million drop in revenue. The drop was $15.4 million from the peak 12 months before that.
Red-light cameras on the South Side issued an average of 9,692 tickets, or about 6,623 more tickets than each camera intersection on the North Side.
Despite the high volume of tickets per intersection on the South Side, drivers on the North Side received 73,309 more tickets, costing North Side drivers $7.3 million more in total than those on the South Side.
North Side drivers were issued more than $14.1 million in red-light tickets. The North Side has 46 of the city’s 151 red-light monitored intersections, while the South Side has seven.
West Side drivers incurred the next-most tickets in total, with red-light cameras at 33 monitored intersections issuing more than $12.9 million in fines.
A minority of the cameras produced a majority of the red-light tickets. More than half of all tickets were issued by just 33 red-light cameras.
Ten of these cameras sent more than $1 million worth of fines to drivers between June 2024 and May 2025, including four which sent over $1.5 million in tickets to drivers.
The most lucrative red-light camera was at Lake Shore Drive and Belmont in Chicago’s Lake View neighborhood. This North Side camera issued $1.79 million worth of tickets to drivers.
These revenue estimates assume all red-light camera fines are paid on time. Incurring a late fee on a red-light ticket in Illinois doubles the cost from $100 to $200.
Chicago is home to more red-light cameras than any other large city in the nation. In total, these cameras generated over $601 million in revenue by issuing red-light tickets between June 2016 and May 2025.
A study from Case Western Reserve University in 2018 suggested while the number of T-bone collisions decreased with the use of red-light cameras, the number of non-angle collisions, such as rear-enders, increased by 18% – leading to more crashes overall.
A Chicago Tribune study also found the Illinois Department of Transportation determined over half of the intersections at which red-light cameras where placed were among the safest in the state prior to installation.
These red-light cameras impact Chicago minority and low-income communities most. A ProPublica study determined Chicago households in Black and Latino ZIP codes received camera tickets at about twice the rate of those in white ZIP codes.
Without any clear safety benefit, red-light cameras are reduced to cash grabs by city governments. When speed camera revenues dropped, Mayor Brandon Johnson broke his campaign promise to eliminate them and instead is adding 50 speed cameras to boost revenue by $11.4 million.
Chicago leaders should look at what the cameras do to their low-income residents and to the city’s reputation. Will they add more of these robo-cops in pursuit of more money or eliminate the red-light and speed cameras that prey on low-income Chicagoans?