Fuzzy Math Again

At some point, the bean counters at City Hall are going to base a budget on these supposed estimates:

• As Mayor Rahm Emanuel rolls out his long-delayed speed camera plan, new numbers his office released suggest that drivers who speed in Chicago could rack up way more in fines than a cash-starved City Hall initially projected.
  
  The mayor had hoped to bring in $30 million this year. But results from a monthlong test of the automated camera system indicate the city could reap well into the hundreds of millions of dollars in the program's first year.
  
  City transportation officials argue that estimate is overblown, but the test period statistics the mayor's office released Friday reinvigorated critics who argue that the program is more of a cash grab than the child safety measure Emanuel sold it as.

None of this takes into consideration that people will change their driving habits once the fist wave of fines hits. Look at any of the red-light cameras. An initial surge in cash and then a steep drop off. If the city actually released a cameras-by-camera comparison, the resultant numbers would look like a cliff diver.

That's why so many municipalities are abandoning their red-light cameras. The company gets their fee off the top and at some point, usually under two years, their fee outpaces the revenue generated, because drivers actually learn to obey the law and avoid the painful fines.

Not Chicago though - they'll base a decade worth of budgets on declining revenue sources, then  raise taxes to cover the shortfalls.