It’s their New Year’s resolution.
State lawmakers are eager to return to Albany next year to finally pass a bill that would allow New York City to set its own speed limits – something lawmakers have failed to do for four years in a row.
Last year, despite overwhelming support from Governor Hochul, the State Senate, Mayor Adams and the City Council, as well as an almost unprecedented hunger strike at the State Capitol, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx) refused to allow the lower house to vote on the bill, known as Sammy’s Law.
But even after this stinging defeat, supporters of the bill are coming back stronger – especially after one of the deadliest years for traffic violence in the Vision Zero era.
“We’re not giving up,” Upper West Side Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal, who carried the bill in the lower chamber, said at a rally outside Heastie’s Manhattan office on Friday. “Last year, 257 people were killed on New York City streets by reckless and speeding drivers. … Every one of those deaths was preventable. This appalling statistic demonstrates the urgent need to pass Sammy’s Law.
Rosenthal was flanked by half a dozen of her colleagues from both houses, city officials, advocates and grieving parents – including Amy Cohen, whose 12-year-old son, Sammy Cohen Eckstein, was killed just steps from his Brooklyn home in 2013 and in whose memory the bill was written. All those present called for the bill to be given another chance in January, when the session in Albany resumes.
“We can’t wait any longer. People like Sammy and so many others are dying on our streets. This is not Sammy’s law, this is also Giovanni’s law, and Kevin’s law, and the law for all children who die in traffic violence, for seniors, for people’s spouses and loved ones,” Cohen said, referring to 9-year-old Giovanni Ampuero, who was killed by a hit-and-run driver in Queens in 2018, and 13-year-old Kevin Flores, who was riding his bike when he was killed by an oil tanker in Brooklyn the same year. “We cannot let this continue.”
Hochul had signalled her support for Sammy’s Law during her State of the State address last year, but it failed to advance in the budget. Lawmakers had another chance to pass it in the more traditional “how a bill becomes a law” way, but that didn’t work either, thanks to Heastie, even though the bill had enough sponsors to earn passage – if, of course, those sponsors actually supported the bill.
It was only the latest failure. In 2022, when the Senate was poised to pass Sammy’s Law, the New York City Council failed to support it in the form of a ‘home rule memo’, which is required for bills that affect specific municipalities. And the year before, the Senate passed the bill, but the Assembly left town for the summer before voting on the measure.
Lower speed limit saves lives, say supporters. After the city got permission to lower its speed limits from 30 miles per hour to 25 mph (and 20 mph in school zones) in 2014, there was a 36 percent drop in pedestrian deaths, advocates say. The bill now on the table would not automatically change the speed limit, but would only allow the city to do so.
Rosenthal declined to name the opponents of the bill, but said she and her colleagues were working to win their support.
“There were people from different areas of the city that are heavily car-dependent. They feel they need to protect the rights of some car owners,” said Rosenthal, who also hinted at some minor changes to the legislation, such as adding an educational campaign component. “We are tinkering with it and will have a more final version soon”.