NEW YORK (WABC) — New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced a major change at improving pedestrian safety on Monday by lowering the speed limit in city school zones.<\/p>\n
On most New York City streets, the speed limit is 25 mph, enforced by hundreds of speed cameras, most of them in school zones.<\/p>\n
But critics have insisted that limit is still too high. On Monday afternoon, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said the critics are right.<\/p>\n
“NYPD data shows this, that speeding causes 25% of all traffic fatalities. It is one of the primary causes of pedestrian death in New York City,” Mamdani said.<\/p>\n
The mayor announced that the speed limit in school zones will be immediately reduced to 15 mph in 700 school zones across the city.<\/p>\n
The move comes more than a decade after the death of 12 year-old Sammy Cohen Eckstein, who was struck and killed by a speeding car in Brooklyn in 2013. State lawmakers enacted Sammy’s Law, which allowed the city of New York to set its own speed limits.<\/p>\n
But in the months that followed, the city has been slow to reduce speed limits at school zones.<\/p>\n
“A law is only as effective as the will to implement it. We have seen the absence of that will reflected in the fact that only 100 locations across the city have seen their speed limits reduced in the months following the legislation’s passage,” Mamdani said.<\/p>\n
In the coming months, the city will lower a third of school zones to 15 mph, with the remainder to be lowered within four years. Julaine Williams lost her daughter, Doniqueca Cook, to a speeding, reckless driver.<\/p>\n
“Our kids need to be safe. Taking that child takes the whole family — the grandkids, the aunts, the nieces, the uncle. It’s devastating. I live this every day,” Williams said.<\/p>\n
The new limits are expected to go into effect after a mandatory 60-day public comment period.<\/p>\n
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