Senate version of New York City speed-limit bill creates community input process
State Senate Co-Leader Jeff Klein (D-Bronx/Westchester) on Monday introduced a Senate version of the New York City speed limit bill, which would allow the city’s Department of Transportation to uniformly reduce the speed limit to 25 miles per hour on all roadways where no signs are posted. The bill received broad support from local community
boards.
Klein’s bill (S.7892) calls for community boards to offer advisory opinions to the city’s Department of Transportation in cases where the agency proposes a speed limit change in excess of five miles per hour.
“I believe in Mayor de Blasio’s Vision Zero plan as a comprehensive approach to ensuring our streets are safe. This legislation supports his life-saving vision and is aimed at reducing the high number of traffic related injuries and deaths each year. Our community boards are on the front lines of local concerns each and everyday and know their streets best, which is why they deserve to have a voice in this process,” said state Senator Klein.
Statistics show that lowering the speed limit to 25 miles per hour dramatically reduces the chance of fatality to 1 in 10 if a pedestrian is struck by a car. It also increases a motorist’s ability to stop and avoid a tragic collision. Earlier this year, Senator Klein delivered an additional 120 speed cameras to New York City’s school zones, also in line with the Mayor’s Vision Zero plan, to keep children and their families safe.
The Klein sponsored bill would allow the city’s Department of Transportation to unilaterally reduce the speed limit to 25 miles per hour on roadways where the speed limit is currently 30 miles per hour and is similar to the Assembly version of the bill (A.9731), with the exception of the community board input amendment.
Editors Note: We applaud Senator Klein on this legislation, and other legislation Senator Klein has sponsored to make the streets safer for pedestrians. It is a well known fact however that unless there are enough real police officers to deter and catch offenders the situation will not get better. That is what we have seen over the past years when attrition took police officers off traffic duty and placed them elsewhere in the system to replace retiring personal, and to shrink the police force to its current level.
We agree with the city council that 'more' police officers are needed on the streets and on the roads.
