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Gov signs speed camera bill
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Gov. 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.
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By Julianne McShane
Brooklyn Paper
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 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 traffic,”
Gounardes said. “Signing this
bill into law today will slow
traffic and saves lives.”
The legislation, co-sponsored
by Manhattan Assemblywoman
Deborah Glick, allows
officials 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
officials 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 officials
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 officials spent on
traffic 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
traffic 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 officials first 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 immediately
before and after the cameras
were first installed.
The majority of Gounardes’s
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
(D–Midwood) 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 floor 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
signed an executive order to
turn the tech back on in September.
The legislation takes effect
July 11, and will be valid
through June 30, 2022, according
to a spokesman from
the governor’s office.
Kevin P. Coughlin/State of New York
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