NYC can reduce speed limits this summer, but is Mayor Adams ready?

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New York City can finally lower the speed limits within the five boroughs, and lawmakers want to be sure Mayor Eric Adams has a plan ready the day the measure goes into effect.

The state budget passed last month included a measure allowing the city Department of Transportation to lower its speed limit from 25 mph to 20 mph starting June 19 on any road that has two lanes or less in either direction.

To lower the speed limit citywide, the law requires the City Council to first vote in favor of the move. That would initiate a six-month period where speeding drivers would get a warning rather than a ticket.

But another aspect of the bill, which hasn’t been widely reported, allows the transportation department to lower the speed limit on specific streets without Council approval. All that’s required is a 60-day notice to the local community board, followed by the same six-month warning period for drivers.

Queens Assemblymember Jessica Gonzalez-Rojas said it’s critical that the transportation department initiates the process of lowering the speed limit citywide the moment the law goes into effect.

“I think the urgency is now we pushed really, really hard to get this in the budget so we can move this forward as quickly as possible,” said Rojas, who was hit by a driver while she was walking in a crosswalk in January.

Bayron Palomino Arroyo, 8, was killed by a pickup truck driver in Rojas' district while crossing the street in a crosswalk in March. Arroyo’s 10-year-old brother was injured.

“They should be ready, as they anticipated this bill getting passed,” Rojas said.

Advocates had pushed for the measure, known as Sammy’s Law, for years. The first three months of this year have been the deadliest since the 2014 launch of the Vision Zero initiative, which aims to eliminate traffic deaths. Advocates counted 60 traffic deaths between January and March.

"I am firmly committed to doing everything I can to help get this passed in the City Council as quickly as possible," Brooklyn City Councilmember Lincoln Restler told Gothamist.

Rachael Fauss, policy director at the good government group Reinvent Albany, was skeptical that the transportation department would immediately begin lowering the speed limit, noting Mayor Eric Adams’ slow-walking of numerous street safety projects.

“Unfortunately we've seen far too much political interference with changes to our city's streets, ” Fauss wrote.

Advocates for safe streets at Transportation Alternatives argue that lowering the speed limit citywide is the most effective way to reduce traffic deaths.

“Fighting street by street is really not how we're going to reach zero [traffic deaths], whereas having a citywide comprehensive plan is just a much better approach,” said Alexa Sledge, a spokesperson for the group.

The transportation department wouldn’t say whether it was considering immediate reductions to the speed limit on select streets, or favoring the citywide approach.

“No family should have to suffer through the loss of a loved one due to traffic violence, and the Adams administration is grateful for Gov. Hochul and legislative leaders providing New York City with another tool to keep everyone safe on our streets. We look forward to sharing plans as Sammy’s Law goes into effect on June 19,” DOT spokesperson Nick Benson wrote in a statement.

This week in New York City transit news

Listen here:

• The MTA plans to turn on congestion pricing tolls June 30. But the program to toll drivers below 60th Street comes with a big caveat: pending lawsuits against congestion pricing that could scramble the MTA's timeline. Read more.
• As a way to incentivize mass transit use when congestion pricing takes effect, the MTA plans to give fare discounts on Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North trips that start and end within the five boroughs. Read more.
• The Sixth Avenue bike lane in Manhattan currently runs from Franklin Street to Canal Street and then disappears before starting again on West Eighth Street, where it continues through West 59th Street. Elected officials in Manhattan are asking the transportation department to fix the gap. Read more.
• Buried in the new state budget is one sentence with major implications for the future of MTA fare enforcement: a ban on the use of facial recognition technology. Read more.
• The MTA this week inked a $141 million contract to install cameras on thousands of buses that automatically ticket drivers illegally parked along bus routes. Read more.
• New York City will begin distributing fliers discouraging migrant families from allowing their children to sell candy on the streets and the subway. Read more.
• Auto industry experts and electric vehicle drivers in New Jersey say the state needs to do far more to build out its charging infrastructure if buyers are going to get over their “range anxiety.” Read more.
• City Councilmembers Justin Brannan and Kamillah Hanks are asking the city to restore a ferry line running between St. George on Staten Island and the 69th Street Pier in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Read more.

Curious Commuter

Question from Andy Chen in Brooklyn:
Is there a way to return (subway token) booth transactions, because the MetroCard vending machines are highly unreliable and often do not take cash when they break down?

Answer:

Cash is no longer king in New York City’s subways. The MTA ended all hand-to-hand transactions in 2020 in an effort to keep booth attendants safe from COVID. But as the pandemic restrictions came and went, cash money never returned to the booths. The MTA’s new tap-to-pay OMNY system will eventually replace the MetroCard. The MTA has faced delays in the rollout of new OMNY vending machines to replace the ones that sell magnetic strip cards.

But for now, you’re out of luck if you try to pay with cash at a station and the MetroCard vending machine is out of order.

“Given that more than half of all subway riders are using the convenience of OMNY to tap and go, and that the role of the station agent has been reimagined with customer service agents providing assistance throughout stations, cash transactions at booths will not return,” said MTA spokesperson Joana Flores.