Dumb question: which one draws more media attention in Chicago?

In my own experience (not Chicago), the local news is dominated by where the rush-hour crash is today, while national news talks way more about gun deaths.

I’m going to go with the general vibe of Lemmy here and assume you mean that auto deaths need to get more attention in America. To that I would say there is a general cultural attitude that cars are a necessary evil (even among most people who don’t outright love them, which is a huge demographic), and fixing the zoning and infrastructure would take decades and many tens of billions of dollars to restructure a large city around public transit. Besides bumper-sticker-slogan politics (“more public transit!”) there are precious few real, concrete plans for getting from the current situation to the car-free utopia.

Even then, you’d not eliminate cars entirely. Among the more developed western European nations that are known for good public transit, Ireland seems (at a quick glance) to have the fewest cars per person at 536 per 1,000, while the car-happy US has 850/1,000. So best case, you reduce cars by ~35%.

Gun deaths, on the other hand, are easier to imagine as a problem that can be solved relatively quickly and with less disruption. From an advocacy point of view, it’s the lower-hanging fruit.