City Council Passes Legislation To Reduce Citywide Speed Limit

The New York City Council yesterday passed legislation that reduces the citywide speed limit on residential streets from 30 miles per hour to 25 mph, a move that lawmakers and advocates said would, if properly enforced, dramatically reduce traffic-related injuries and fatalities.

After state legislators voted in June to allow the city to lower the speed limit, the Council approved the bill, sponsored by Councilmember David Greenfield, that aims to slow vehicles on streets where speed limits are not posted – meaning roads overseen by the state Department of Transportation (such as expressways and parkways) will not be affected. The reduction is part of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Vision Zero initiative, which aims to dramatically curb traffic injuries and deaths over the next decade.

“Reducing the default speed limit in New York City is the lynchpin of Vision Zero,” Greenfield said in a statement to the press.

Passage of the bill comes one year after a fatal crash on a local street claimed the life of 12-year-old Park Slope boy Sammy Cohen-Eckstein, whose death after he chased a ball into the street and was hit by a van, spurred neighbors — including his parents, Amy Cohen and Gary Eckstein — into action to help get the speed limit lowered.

“One year ago today, we lost Sammy Cohen-Eckstein — a bright, warm, and promising young man — to a horrible crash on Prospect Park West,” says Councilmember Brad Lander. “While we still miss him terribly, today his memory is a blessing. In large part through the courageous work of his parents Amy and Gary — and of other members of Families for Safe Streets who have lost loved ones — the New York City Council voted this week to reduce the NYC speed limit to 25 mph. We could not save Sammy’s life; but this simple, powerful, overdue act in his memory will save the lives of many others.”

“If the speed limit had been 20 miles an hour, Sammy would probably still be alive,” Cohen said in a video shot earlier this year to advocate for lowering the limit to 20 mph. “The driver acknowledged that he saw the ball, but he couldn’t stop.”

City officials said they plan to launch a three week publicity campaign about the speed reduction on Monday, according to the New York Times, and the new speed limit will go into effect on November 7.

The nonprofit Transportation Alternatives too backed the Council’s move, saying “if properly enforced, the new speed limit could prevent more than 6,500 traffic injuries in the next year and cut the annual number of pedestrian fatalities in half.”

The group urged de Blasio to quickly give his stamp of approval to the bill – which the mayor is expected to do and sent out his own statement praising the Council’s vote – and stressed that the NYPD and city Department of Transportation need “to send a stronger message about the dangers of speeding by continuing to improve traffic enforcement and public information initiatives.”

“Unsafe driver speed is the number one cause of traffic deaths in the city, killing more New Yorkers than drunk driving and cell phone use at the wheel combined,” Transportation Alternatives said in the same statement. “A pedestrian hit by a driver going 25 mph is twice as likely to survive as a person hit at 30mph.”

To see a copy of the bill, you can go here.