(WTTW News)

Drivers who zip past Chicago parks and schools monitored by speed cameras traveling between 6 mph and 9 mph above the limit will start getting warning letters in the mail beginning Friday, officials said.

Drivers will get one written warning before they have to pay $35 to resolve the infraction after March 1, when the new law will take full effect, officials said.

Drivers snapped traveling 11 mph over the limit will face a $100 ticket, unchanged from previous years. Drivers cited for going 10 mph over the limit already face the $35 ticket.

City officials expect the new fines to generate millions of dollars to help balance thecity’s 2021 budget, which faced a $1.2 billion shortfall.

Former Mayor Rahm Emanuel launched the speed camera program in 2013, in what he said was an effort to protect children from speeding vehicles, but his critics blasted the program as a cash grab.

After taking office, Mayor Lori Lightfoot pushed through a series of reforms that prohibit the city from suspending driver’s licenses over unpaid parking tickets while reducing penalties and offering debt relief to the city’s poor.

Lightfoot said Chicagoans who choose to speed should be penalized.

Annual traffic fatalities increased 35% in Chicago through the first 11 months of 2020.

Contact Heather Cherone:@HeatherCherone| (773) 569-1863 |[email protected]