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MARCH 17, 2019, BROOKLYN WEEKLY
A need for speed cameras
Bay Ridge pol’s new bill would bring hundreds more cameras to city school zones
BY JULIANNE MCSHANE
The number of school-zone speed
cameras across the city could
quintuple if state lawmakers pass
a new bill introduced by a Southern
Brooklyn pol on March 7.
State Sen. Andrew Gounardes’s
(D–Bay Ridge) legislation
would allow local offi cials to
install up to 750 cameras across
the city’s 2,300 school zones,
where the current 140 cameras
in place do not adequately protect
young scholars from reckless
drivers, he said.
“I do not want to be in a position
where I tell people, ‘Your
child’s school is or is not worthy of
having street protection in front
of it.’ This is a proven solution
to the problem of speeding, especially
in school zones,” said Gounardes,
who recently launched a
street-safety task force in his district
, which includes Bay Ridge,
Dyker Heights, Gravesend, Bensonhurst,
Bath Beach, Marine
Park, Manhattan Beach, Gerritsen
Beach, and parts of Sheepshead
Bay, Borough Park, and
Midwood.
In addition to increasing the
amount of cameras — which automatically
photograph the license
plates of cars driving thirty
miles-per-hour or more in school
zones, and send the vehicles’ registered
owners $50 tickets — the
bill would also:
• Lengthen the hours the cameras
are on, extending their current
operating times from an
hour before and after school is
in session to between 6 am and 10
pm on weekdays.
• Broaden 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.
• Require the city to hang signs
in school zones with speed cameras
that warn drivers of the technology’s
presence.
• Mandate local offi cials prioritize
placing the cameras in school
zones with higher rates of speeding
and crashes.
• Require 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
CAMERA READY: A new bill in Albany introduced by state Sen. Andrew Gounardes (right) would more than quintuple the number of city school-zone speed cameras
if passed by the Legislature and Gov. Cuomo. Gov. Cuomo’s offi ce / Brandon Paillere
adequacy of the expanded hours
of operation.”
Data shows that the already
in place speed cameras work. In
the two years 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 report
published by the Department of
Transportation last year.
And the majority of Gounardes’s
constituents support expanding
their presence, according
to a 2018 poll commissioned
by street-safety group Transportation
Alternatives.
The cameras became a hotbutton
issue during last year’s
22nd state Senate District race
between Gounardes and former
eight-term Republican state Sen.
Marty Golden — a known speeder
and long-standing opponent to
the technology, who briefl y reversed
his stance on the issue as
the speed-camera program authorized
in 2013 approached its expiration
date last summer.
Back then, Golden supported
a bill to preserve and expand the
number of cameras to 290. But
his colleague, state Sen. Simcha
Felder (D–Midwood), blocked the
legislation from leaving the Cities
Committee, which he chaired
at the time, for a fl oor vote in the
upper chamber. And the cameras
subsequently switched off in late
July , forcing Council to broker an
emergency deal between Mayor
DeBlasio and Gov. Cuomo , who
signed an executive order to turn
the tech back on before school
started in September.
Cuomo earlier this year included
a proposal in his executive
budget that would reinstate the
speed-camera program without
the need for an executive order,
and up the number of cameras to
290. But reps for the governor did
not immediately reply when asked
if he would sign Gounardes’s bill
into law if it passes in the Legislature.
Manhattan Assemblywoman
Deborah Glick on March 7 also introduced
the lower chamber’s version
of the Brooklyn pol’s bill.
And Gounardes is confi dent
the governor would back his legislation,
he said, adding that 290
is the minimum number of cameras
that local offi cials hope to install
citywide.
“The consensus seemed to be
that the 290 was just a starting
point for discussion, based on
where that discussion had ended
last year,” the pol said. “There did
not seem to be obstacle in my initial
conversation with the governor
to bumping that up. We’ve
been discussing this bill with the
city, with the Council — everyone
seems to be on board.”
Should the bill become law, it
would be valid beginning 30 days
after Cuomo signs it through
June 30, 2022.