{"id":166788,"date":"2026-03-17T23:43:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T23:43:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/166788\/"},"modified":"2026-03-17T23:43:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T23:43:07","slug":"mamdanis-nyc-school-safety-scheme-is-just-another-cash-grab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/166788\/","title":{"rendered":"Mamdani’s NYC ‘school safety’ scheme is just another cash grab"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s push for more and harsher \u201cschool speed zones\u201d <\/a>is as naked a robbery as Gov. Kathy Hochul\u2019s \u201canti-congestion\u201d tolls.<\/p>\n

By year\u2019s end, he\u2019ll add 800 more zones to the existing 500 and drop the limit from 20 or 25 miles-per-hour to a glacial 15 mph.<\/a><\/p>\n

And he means to have 2,300, all at 15 mph, by 2030.<\/p>\n

Each zone can include everything within a quarter-mile of a school. With 3,200 city schools (public and private) that\u2019s two-thirds of all city streets, including 87% of Manhattan, 82% of Brooklyn and 74% of The Bronx.<\/p>\n

Car-hating progressives have agitated for lower speed limits for years, but doing it citywide \u201cin one fell swoop,\u201d says the mayor, requires City Council approval; the council points out he can do it himself, though it\u2019ll mean more work: Maybe he just wants to spread the blame?<\/p>\n

Crucially, this opens the door to a massive expansion of the loathed speed-camera automated ticket, which under state law can only be implemented in school speed zones (plus \u201chighway work zones\u201d).<\/p>\n

\t\t\tMore From\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPost Editorial Board<\/p>\n

The sales pitch: Speed cameras may make the streets safer<\/a> for kids \u2014 but why then did the city make enforcement 24\/7?<\/p>\n

Not many schoolchildren are ambling home at 2 a.m.<\/p>\n

Hint: Speed cams aren\u2019t only about calming traffic<\/a>: The existing zones bring in about $300 million a year.<\/p>\n

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Double or triple the area covered, with even lower limits, and City Hall could easily bleed drivers for another billion bucks a year. <\/p>\n

Has anyone mentioned that this mayor wants a lot more revenue to spend?<\/p>\n

Nobody wants kids to dodge highway traffic, but that has nothing to do with the mayor\u2019s priorities here. <\/p>\n

He\u2019s grabbing cash wherever he can \u2014 and justifying it by demonizing his targets, in this case, those \u201cselfish\u201d car drivers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s push for more and harsher \u201cschool speed zones\u201d is as naked a robbery as Gov.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":166789,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[13358,304,9,56,63,65,64,299,8018,10780,54177,82],"class_list":["post-166788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-driving","tag-editorial","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-opinion","tag-roads","tag-school","tag-speed-cameras","tag-zohran-mamdani"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166788\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}