Thursday, December 19, 2013

Challenger Park Gives City Excuse For Speed Cameras Outside Target And On Irving Park

You can't see Challenger Park from the 1100 block of Irving Park or the 4400 block of Broadway, but the speed cameras that were recently installed at those locations have their lenses fixed on you.

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If you're driving over 30mph, be prepared to see flashes of light as you pass, then to get a warning notice.  After that, get ready for a speeding ticket in the mail.

The city's new speed camera program says it exists to protect the children who play in Challenger Park, not to plunder your paycheck.  If children's safety is paramount, we think it might have been a wiser move not to turn half of the park into a parking lot, but ... oh well.  We all know why the cameras are there.

Challenger Park is only a couple blocks long and a few car lengths wide.  Many residents probably aren't even aware of its existence.  It encompasses the area between the L tracks and the back wall of Graceland Cemetery, between Buena and Montrose.

Challenger Park was originally supposed to have soccer fields, wildflowers, ice rinks, and native grasses.  Instead, it got divided in half -- one part, a parking lot leased to the Cubs for 25 years; and the other, a narrow two-block-long park with a dog-friendly area that residents work hard to improve and maintain.  To reach the park from Irving, it's necessary to walk through a two-block-long parking lot.  That's probably more dangerous for kids than a car going 33mph a couple blocks away.

The new money machines, er, speed cameras are located: (1) facing Clark at 1142 Irving Park Road (about a block west of the parking lot entrance); and (2) outside the Broadway entrance to Target, at Sunnyside, facing Montrose.  You can see them merrily flashing away at cars that exceed 30mph between the hours of 6am and 11:59pm.  (A reader points out that kids aren't exactly walking to the park at those hours.  And that the parks close at 11pm.)

The cameras officially went active on Friday, December 6th.  This is what CDOT has to say about their trial period, and fines for cars exceeding 30mph:
  • "For the first 30 days after cameras are activated in a safety zone, only warnings will be issued for speeding violations.  There is a two-week period between warnings and the issuance of the first tickets in order to ensure that motorists receive their warnings before being ticketed.
  • The first time a vehicle owner is eligible to receive an enforceable violation, they will instead receive a final warning.   Fines for violations are $35 for vehicles traveling 6-10 miles per hour over the posted speed limit while in a safety zone, and $100 for vehicles traveling 11 or more miles over the posted speed limit.
  • The City will start enforcement by only issuing tickets for speeders going 10 or more miles per hour over the posted speed limit.  That ticket threshold will gradually be lowered going forward."
You've been warned.  Take it easy on the gas pedal on Broadway between Montrose and Sunnyside, and on Irving between Clark and the L tracks.  With apologies to Johnny Cochran:  When the cameras flash, you'll lose some cash.

UU Note:  All three of Uptown's aldermen -- James Cappleman, Ameya Pawar, and Harry Osterman -- voted "no" on the issue of speed cameras around parks and schools.  However, the measure passed through the City Council by a margin of 33-14.

20 comments:

  1. If Challenger Park is a park, then so are highway medians.

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    1. Give it time. They'll be adding cameras to medians as well.

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  2. The old torch and pitchfork days seem kind of reasonable when stuff like this happens.

    Believe it or not, this isn't the most egregious abuse of the speed camera sham. In Chicago's East Side neighborhood, there is a fictional "Park 499" (3925 E. 104th St). Technically there is a park, somewhere, but it doesn't appear on any maps and you can Google Street View all day long and you'll never find it. Likely it's a tiny parcel of land the city owns (the address points to a parking lot) and called a park just so they could put speed cameras on Indianapolis Blvd, a major thoroughfare.

    So what can people *actually* do about this? Simply calling the Alderman isn't close to enough here.

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  3. 25 year lease? That lease probably started around 1991. Time to start thinking about what will happen here in a few years. Although, I suspect the rebuilding of the Red Line may mean the CTA has their eyes on the property.

    For those of you interested you can google the phrases "challenger park" and "helen shiller" for a cornucopia or perhaps even a plethora of wondermonious stories and glorious reads.

    I do remember that section behind the EL tracks in the eighties though. Even though the community got rooked by Shiller and the Tribune/Cubs it's still a whole lot better than it was then.

    Check out the movie "The Hunter" from 1980 with Steve McQueen to get an idea. There were some scenes filmed right there and on Kenmore. I actually was an extra in the film. I played the little redheaded girl on the train crying for my mommy. I still remember the wig I had to wear. It was the beginning of my cross dressing period.

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  4. The future of chicago is at best dubious with hies taxes and large corp. moving to the south, this is another way to fleece the locals . Wait until you have to license bicycles like cars and pay to park in your oun driveway.

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  5. "So what can people *actually* do about this?" Driving the posted speed limit might be a particularly effective form of protest.

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    1. Wow, this is the best idea... Don't go 41 mph in a 30 mph roadway: avoid the ticket.

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    2. Completely missing the point. You've been lied to by your elected officials. Under the guise of protecting children (though nobody can be stupid enough to believe there was an epidemic of children getting hit by cars while playing in a park) the city has developed a completely crooked money grab. How are you okay with that?

      Every single one of the useless, crooked, criminal politicians involved with this need to be out of a job. Ideally, they'd not find another one and they and their entire families would end up homeless and battling rats for food out of dumpsters. That's what these horrible human beings deserve. They're the scum of the earth, and they're robbing the people who put them in power.

      But, sure, don't give a crap. After all, we're "protecting the children" (except no, we're not, because children don't play at these make-believe parks).

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  6. I received a warning ticket from the camera on Foster then I got a $100 ticket from the next camera on foster 5 min later

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  7. I'm surprised that Caring Neighbor hasn't (yet) written that increasing pedestrian and bicycle traffic along Broadway would eliminate speeding cars there...or that Challenger Park should be fenced off because it's too hard for CPD to patrol from their Tahoes, so it's too dangerous for people to walk there.

    Between the Cubs Challenger Park lease coming to an end in the near future and the Cubs trying to get approvals for their Wrigley Field plans, I'm also surprised that these things haven't (apparently) been used as negotiation tools by our neighborhood advocates and the City to get the Cubs to turn the parking lot into a better, safer, and more accessible neighborhood asset. With some minor adjustments, Challenger Park and Kelly Park/Seminary Avenue could easily be a good bicycle route from the end of the soon-to-come protected bike lanes at Broadway and Montrose all the way down to West Sheridan or Grace, cutting back over to the bike lanes on Halsted. Far fewer vehicle conflicts and much safer for bicyclists than on the stretch of Broadway between Montrose and West Sheridan. Maybe Bike Chicago would be interested in looking into it.

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  8. What happens if these speeders do not pay the ticket? Will it lead to a suspension in their license? Or will they end up like ANOV tickets and only receive in 30% payments

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  9. This seems like a stupid idea... but what about driving the speed limit? Is slowing down a little going to make anyone late? It is not like you can go much faster than that anyhow and stop in time for the random Hobo or jaywalker.

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  10. Grindr, that's the point of the article. We've got a speed trap -- two of them, as a matter of fact-- and the only way to beat them is to go slow. Forewarned is forearmed. (And eight-armed is an octopus.)

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  11. Instead of paying almost $40 million to "board up" closed schools, maybe we could use some of that money to stop these ridiculous cameras everywhere. Cigarette taxes, speed cameras, and rising fees for everything. ut

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  12. Two things: first, I walk my dog in Challenger Park about every other day, and I don't remember ever seeing a child playing in that park. Ever. Mostly I see other dog walkers, and I have on occasion seen a couple of guys smoking joints back there. Either way, I have never felt unsafe there.
    Second, I have a huge problem with using police as a revenue stream for the city! We, as taxpayers, are paying you to Protect and Serve, not ticket us for the revenue when people are shooting at each other outside my home during rush hour.

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  13. When do they intend to start ticketing the mass numbers of jaywalkers on Broadway between Montrose & Sunnyside (and further north up through Lawrence?), that would probably be a bigger money-maker for the city. In the 2 years we've lived here, I don't think I've driven that stretch without someone walking in front of me when it's not their right of way.

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    1. You would never collect the money from those people.

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  15. This is what happens when you have one party and its machine running pretty much the whole city and county since 1931! The local politicians and their friends and families have been using the public treasury with little or no oversight for years. The same party, and in many instances, the same families, segregated Chicago and then desegregated it, built the projects, and then tore them down, and then oversaw years of Chicago's decay only to finally implement policies that started to attract people back to the city. After years of no checks and balances and a rubber stamp city council, we are up to our ears in debt created by generations of one party politics that favored a small clique of contractors. They've made the residents of Chicago THE highest taxed citizens in the country because that measly 20% of the citizens of Chicago who actually vote always vote for the same machine politicians. They continue to deploy unpopular programs and tax the spit out of us because their establishment candidate has won for over 80 years despite documented corruption and fiscal incompetence! We'll never be a great city if we continue to operate like Belarus or a Latin American banana republic.

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  16. I actually think that this speed camera violates the law. Under Illinois law, a safety zone may only be designated within 1/8th of a mile of property "used for recreational purposes." (see portions of the IL vehicle code pertaining to automatic speed cameras) I really do not see how a Cubs parking lot qualifies under the letter or spirit of the law. And it sounds like there are other spots similar to this in other parts of the city, I just got a ticket on Irving Park and I am thinking of appealing it all the way up. I hope others will as well. This is BS. And with all the money they must be making -- can't they fix the damn potholes!

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