Chicago Seeks Extended School Zones Hours And Additional Monitoring To Boost Revenue

Mayor Rahm Emanuel's proposal to line the streets of Chicago, Illinois with photo radar vans has run into a speed bump. Enabling legislation for the school zone speed camera program rushed through the statehouse in Springfield at a record pace, taking slightly over a month for the proposal to clear the first committee hurdle after being introduced. The measure became law in February and took effect in July.

As The Expired Meter first reported on Sunday, the effort suffered a small setback as Emanuel's staff failed realize that the lowered 20 MPH school zone speed limits only apply "when children are present" under state law. This has been interpreted over the past four decades to mean the speed limit is 30 MPH absent proof that kids are nearby.

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Agent009 - 9/12/2012 10:38:01 AM

+1 Boost

It appears the proposal defines a school zone with a radius of 1/8 mile, and the speeds apply 365 days a year. That might be OK, since the current state of Chicago schools shows most students can't read and will be in summer school anyway.

Agent009 - 9/12/2012 3:19:13 PM

+1 Boost

You have to admit those teacher have an odd set of issues:

Highest paid teachers in the nation (20K higher than the avg Chicago resident)
Only 15% to 20% of students score at grade level.

Yet they can't understand why they need to be held accountable, and then demand a 30% raise. Oh and all of the teachers that were fired for being bad teachers... yeah we want them hired back too...

My 12 year old read the articles and asked why they shouldn't be held accountable when the kids are?