It’s the City That Never Sleeps — on speeding tickets.
The speed limit will be lowered to 15 mph around all the city’s thousands of schools by 2029, Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced Monday – as insiders quietly revealed the slow-as-dirt zones will be enforced 24/7.
The mayor will invoke Sammy’s Law – a 2024 measure allowing city officials to set speed limits below the state minimum – in his executive action to lower the speed limits and fulfill a goal long-sought by street safety advocates.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced at a press conference at Flushing International High School in Queens that the city’s speed limit for school zones will be lowered to 15 mph. James Messerschmidt for the NY Post
The announcement used Sammy’s Law, a 2024 piece of legislation that allows city officials to set speed limits below the state minimum. James Messerschmidt for the NY Post
Mamdani also said he wants to lower the speed limit citywide to 20 mph, although he contended doing so would require action from the City Council – a stance that drew finger-pointing from Speaker Julie Menin.
But, GOP City Council members cried foul on Mamdani’s planned round-the-clock enforcement on school zones.
“If this were really about protecting the children, why would it be 24 hours a day?” said Councilwoman Joann Ariola (R-Queens).
“This is just another attempt at picking the pockets of middle- and working-class residents of the outer boroughs, while making it even more difficult to own a car than it already is. Shame on the mayor for using the safety of our children as a front to cover for yet another money grab.”
New York City’s citywide speed limit is 25 mph, unless posted otherwise.
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But Sammy’s Law – named after Sammy Cohen Eckstein, a 12-year-old boy fatally struck by a car near Prospect Park in October 2013 – gives officials the authority to set speed limits even lower.
City officials had already used Sammy’s Law to lower speed limits at some school zones, Mamdani said.
People who have had family members killed by motorists at the press conference held at Flushing International High School. James Messerschmidt for the NY Post
His new push will lower 20 mph speed limits in roughly 700 school zones, and establish 100 new 15-mph zones by the end of this year.
Altogether, 15 mph speed limits will come to 800 more school zones – or 1,300 citywide – by the end of 2026, officials said.
The new limits will become official after a 60-day public comment period, officials said.
City Department of Transportation officials will eventually expand the lower speed limits to all 2,300 public and private school locations across the city when Mamdani’s first term ends, the mayor said.
“I would say that today is a significant step forward in us ensuring that we are extending this safety to far more school children across our city, and that we will extend it to every single eligible school zone by the end of 2029,” he said during an event in Flushing International High School.
Left unsaid during the event was that the new, lowered speed limits would be enforced 24/7, including hours when kids aren’t in school, sources said.
Mamdani was flanked by advocates, lawmakers and parents who had long pushed for sweeping street safety measures to cut down on traffic fatalities.
A city worker installing the first new school speed limit sign at Flushing International High School. James Messerschmidt for the NY Post
Pedestrians struck by vehicles traveling at 25 mph are more than three times as likely to be seriously injured than those hit at 15 mph, officials and advocates said. There were 205 traffic fatalities recorded last year — the lowest on record since traffic-related deaths were first tracked in 1905, the city previously announced.
Families for Safe Streets – a group founded by Sammy Cohen Eckstein’s mother – joined Mamdani at the event, where he was grilled on whether he’d support lowering the citywide speed limit to 20 mph.
Mamdani said he supported the lower speed limit, but said Sammy’s Law requires a change under the city’s administrative code “beyond what City Hall can do in and of itself.”
“That’s why we would support the council taking this action,” he said.
The attempt to pass the buck prompted a swift response from the City Council, who tried to place responsibility back on Mamdani.
“Street safety is a priority for Speaker Menin and the Council,” a City Council spokesperson said.
“While a bill to lower the citywide speed limit has yet not been introduced, under Sammy’s Law, the NYC Department of Transportation already has the authority to lower the speed limit in specific locations.”
Democratic and Republican city officials going back decades have supported lowering speed limits to 15 mph, including former Mayor Rudy Giuliani in 1999.
But many lawmakers have soured on the changes, especially as bike lanes and other street safety measures – not to mention an explosion of tolls, including $9 congestion pricing fees to enter lower Manhattan – have put the squeeze on motorists.
“Almost everywhere you drive is now in a school zone, so this is essentially lowering the speed limit citywide,” said Councilman David Carr (R-Staten Island.)
The new speed limit will be in effect 24 hours a day. James Messerschmidt for the NY Post
“This is yet another proposal to punish Outer Borough residents who rely on cars to get around and would make living in New York City even more unbearable and more unaffordable.”
Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, an admitted lead foot with dozens of speeding tickets, argued everyone should agree on lowering speed limits in school zones.
“I think inconvenience is better than death,” he said, before arguing the speed limits weren’t about punishing drivers with tickets.
“This is not about ‘gotcha,’ this is about the folks that we have lost.”