City Plans to Reduce Speed Limits in Lower Manhattan
The City’s Department of Transportation is preparing to implement a “regional slow zone” in Lower Manhattan, which will reduce speed limits to a little as ten miles per hour on all local streets. This development comes in the wake of the State legislature passing and Governor Hochul signing, in May, “Sammy’s Law,” named for 12-year-old Sammy Cohen Eckstein, who was killed by a speeding driver when chasing a soccer ball into a Brooklyn street in 2013.
This statute, according to one of its sponsors, State Senator John Liu, authorizes the DOT “to reduce its own speed limits from 25 mph to 20 mph and from 15 mph to 10 mph in special traffic-calming zones, or ‘slow zones.’”
The DOT plans to create one of these zones in each of the five boroughs. For Manhattan, the agency says, “the first location to be considered will be Lower Manhattan south of Canal Street and would be implemented by the end of this year or early next year.”
This timetable may prove to be overly aggressive, as DOT notes, “for all speed limit reductions, NYC must provide notice 60 days in advance and comment opportunity to the local Ccommunity Board.” This matter has not come before Community Board 1, which has jurisdiction over Lower Manhattan, as of that body’s July meetings, and CB1 does not meet in August. This means that the soonest the Board could consider this matter would be in September, leaving only November and December (after the 60 comment period) to implement the plan before the end of the year.
The language of the statute, according to DOT, “allows New York City to lower its speed limit to 20 mph with posted signage, except on roads with three or more motor vehicle travel lanes in the same direction outside of Manhattan.” This could allow a speed limit reduction even on thoroughfares that are specifically intended to keep traffic moving, such as the FDR Drive and West Street.