‘We have lost too many people’
Cuomo signs bill to add more than 600 new speed cameras throughout city
BILL BECOMES A LAW: Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed into law on Sunday a bill, co-sponsored by state Sen. Andrew Gounardes, that will more than
quintuple the city’s existing 140 speed cameras and dramatically expand the hours that they will be in use. Kevin P. Coughlin/State of New York
COURIER L M BR B G IFE, MAY 17–23, 2019 3
BY JULIANNE MCSHANE
Say cheese!
The city will see the addition
of more than 600 new speed cameras
next month after Gov. Andrew
Cuomo signed into law on
Sunday legislation co-sponsored
by state Sen. Andrew Gounardes
(D–Bay Ridge) authorizing a
massive expansion of the current
140 cameras and extending
the hours they operate.
The local pol thanked the governor
for signing the bill and said
it amounted to a victory for street
safety advocates.
“No parent, senior, or pedestrian
of any age should live in
fear of crossing the street because
of speeding traffi c,” Gounardes
said. “Signing this bill
into law today will slow traffi c
and saves lives.”
The legislation, co-sponsored
by Manhattan Assemblywoman
Deborah Glick, allows offi cials
to install up to 610 cameras —
which automatically photograph
the license plates of cars driving
30 miles-per hour or more
in school zones, and send those
vehicles’ registered owners $50
tickets — across the city’s 2,300
school zones. The bill also:
• Lengthens the hours the
cameras are on, extending their
current operating times from an
hour before and after school is in
session to between 6 a.m. and 10
p.m. on weekdays, including during
the summer.
• Broadens the areas where
the cameras operate, allowing
offi cials to install them within a
quarter-mile radius of schools,
not just within a quarter-mile
stretch of the same street a given
school is on as current law allows.
• Requires the city to hang
signs in school zones with speed
cameras that warn drivers of the
technology’s presence.
• Mandates local offi cials prioritize
placing the cameras in
school zones with higher rates of
speeding and crashes.
• Requires the city to submit
annual reports to the governor
and leadership of both chambers
of the Legislature with data including
the total amount of ticket
revenue that local offi cials spent
on traffi c and pedestrian safety
measures, as well as “the effectiveness
and adequacy of the expanded
hours of operation.”
The governor said the expansion
offered an obvious way to
protect pedestrians — especially
youngsters en route to school —
from speeding and reckless drivers.
“Something as simple as
walking to and from school can
be the most dangerous part of
the day, especially in this city
with this complexity and this
density,” Cuomo said. “We have
learned it the hard way. We have
lost too many people.”
During the Mother’s Day signing
of the bill, the pol thanked
Park Slope resident Amy Cohen
— whose 12-year-old son, Sammy
Cohen Eckstein, was killed by a
speeding driver near his Prospect
Park West home in 2013 —
for her advocacy to preserve and
expand the cameras.
Cohen said the passage of the
legislation signaled a shift in
street safety for today’s youngsters.
“We are protecting the next
generation of children — creating
a safe passage to school,
changing the culture of reckless
driving so that other mothers
will get to raise their children,
so that children can grow into
adults themselves and outlive
their parents,” she said.
Mayor Bill de Blasio said the
existing cameras have already
proven to reduce collisions and
fatalities, and added that the expansion
will keep more youngsters
safe.
“Speed cameras are keeping
our kids safe and saving lives,”
the mayor said. “We needed
to protect more kids at more
schools, and now we have the
power to do it.”
There have been 70 citywide
traffi c fatalities so far this year,
41 of which have involved pedestrians,
according to Department
of Transportation spokesman
Brian Zumhagen, who added 13
of the 23 fatal collisions that have
occurred in Kings County so far
this year involved pedestrians.
Data shows that
the cameras already in place
have reduced the number of
both speeding drivers and fatalities;
in the year and a half after
offi cials fi rst installed them in
2014, there were 60 percent fewer
daily violations in school zones
with speed cameras, according
to a 2017 report published by the
DOT, which added that fatalities
reduced by an average of 55 percent
in school zones with speed
cameras in the
three years
imme d i -
ately before
and
a f t e r
t h e
cameras
were fi rst installed.
The majority of Gounardes’
constituents also supported adding
more cameras, according
to a 2018 poll commissioned by
street-safety group Transportation
Alternatives. But the path to
passing the bill was fraught with
controversy.
State Sen. Simcha Felder (DMidwood)
blocked legislation
preserving and expanding the
program from leaving the Cities
Committee — which he chaired
at the time, in the then-Republican
controlled Senate — for
a fl oor vote in the upper chamber
before it dispersed in June,
prompting the 140 speed cameras
to temporarily shut off last July.
Members of the council then
stepped in to broker an emergency
deal between de Blasio
and Cuomo, who ultimately
signed an executive order to turn
the tech back on before school
started in September.
The legislation takes effect
July 11, and will be valid through
June 30, 2022, according to a
spokesman from the governor’s
offi ce.
Reps from the governor’s offi
ce did not immediately reply to
inquiries about when the cameras
would turn on, if the 610 new
ones have already been installed,
and how many of the total cameras
are in Kings County.
LIFE’S WORK: Park Slope resident Amy Cohen advocated for the preservation
and expansion of the city’s speed camera program — which Gov.
Cuomo signed into law on Sunday — in memory of her son, 12-year-old
Sammy Cohen Eckstein, who was hit and killed by a speeding driver near
his Prospect Park West home in 2013. Kevin P. Coughlin/State of New York