By Ryan Schwach<\/p>\n
Mayor Zohran Mamdani laid out a broad plan to address safety on New York\u2019s streets on Tuesday, featuring some ideas that have been strongly supported and championed by Queens officials for some time.<\/p>\n
Building on the goals of the Bill de Blasio-era Vision Zero platform, Mamdani\u2019s new street safety agenda includes implementing policies already enshrined in state law and promoting other existing initiatives that stem from Queens\u2019 political delegation.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are together today to usher in a new vision of street safety, Vision Zero reimagined,\u201d Mamdani said from Queens on Tuesday, flanked by city transportation officials and Borough President Donovan Richards. \u201cAt its heart, Vision Zero Reimagined holds the same fundamental goal as Vision Zero: to eradicate all traffic deaths in our city.\u201d <\/p>\n
The over 100-page plan released by City Hall laid out a wide-ranging plan to make streets safer and limit vehicle-related deaths and injuries. Mamdani said he hopes it will build on the philosophies set out in the initial Vision Zero with an updated lens for 2026.<\/p>\n
\u201cVision Zero sought to build a city where millions of people live safely side by side, navigate our streets without fear, and where the government uses its power and resources to protect those that it serves,\u201d he said. \u201cMore than a decade later, Vision Zero has helped to bring our city’s traffic fatalities down by more than 30 percent, a significant achievement measured by hundreds of New Yorkers who are still with us, whose families are still whole, whose lives did not end in preventable tragedy.<\/p>\n
\u201cYet, as we mark a dozen years since this great advancement in public safety, we are all here united by the belief that more remains to be done,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n
Much of the plan includes implementing laws that have already been passed, or are currently in the legislative pipeline. Mamdani\u2019s plan highlights cracking down on \u201csuper speeders\u201d and drivers with a history of dangerous driving, further regulations on e-bikes, lowering speed limits and limiting larger vehicles on city streets.<\/p>\n
It also proposes building more pedestrian-only spaces and constructing more safety-centered infrastructure like daylighting, which would limit parking on street corners to increase visibility for people crossing the street.<\/p>\n
Many of these policies have long been backed by Queens officials, some of whom represent neighborhoods with narrow and busy streets prone to street safety issues. <\/p>\n
The Mamdani administration has already begun implementing Sammy\u2019s Law, a state law passed last year that allows the city to lower its speed limits without state approval. It was co-sponsored by Queens Assemblymember and nominee for State Senate Jessica Gonz\u00e1lez-Rojas, and supported by other Queens officials, like Senator Jessica Ramos. <\/p>\n
Earlier this month at a different street safety announcement, Richards and City Councilmember Shekar Krishnan called on the administration to speed up its implementation of the law. <\/p>\n
World Borough legislators are also behind four of the bills the City Council raised earlier this year focused on increased e-bike regulations. <\/p>\n
A bill from Councilmember Lynn Schulman would require delivery services that facilitate or arrange for the delivery of goods in the city to obtain a business license from the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection. Southeast Queens Councilmember Selvena Brooks-Powers, who formerly chaired the Transportation Committee in the Council, is behind three of the bills. One of the bills would establish a task force to study street safety improvements; another would expand the city\u2019s commercial bicycle laws to include e-bikes, mopeds and motorcycles; and the third would require the NYPD to increase its reporting on targeted traffic enforcement. <\/p>\n
Lawmakers in Western Queens, including Gonz\u00e1lez-Rojas, Councilmember Julie Won and Councilmember Tiffany Cab\u00e1n, have long argued for universal daylighting on Queens\u2019 streets. <\/p>\n
The plan also reiterates Mamdani\u2019s support for the Delivery Protection Act, a bill sponsored by Cab\u00e1n, that would regulate the use of third-party delivery services commonly used by companies like Amazon.<\/p>\n
In the new plan, Queens Boulevard, once known as the \u201cBoulevard of Death,\u201d was used as the key example of where Vision Zero safety policies worked to bring down the rate of injuries and deaths. Following a decade of fixes on the roadway, crashes with injuries decreased by 20 percent and pedestrian injuries decreased by 44 percent, according to the plan. <\/p>\n
Richards, who has also been a major proponent of street safety measures in the borough, expressed his support for the plan. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe continue to lose far too many New Yorkers on our roadways here in Queens and across New York City each month, leaving behind grieving families and communities,\u201d the BP said in a statement. \u201cThese action items outlined by the Mamdani Administration today are common sense measures that will undoubtedly save lives and help us realize the original goal of Vision Zero. I look forward to working with my partners in government on identifying dangerous corridors and intersections to prioritize, as well as cracking down on reckless driving.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cOur streets should be safe for all who use them, regardless of how they use them, and this plan will certainly advance that mission,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, Mamdani defended the lack of specificity in the lengthy platform. <\/p>\n
\u201cToday is not a thing that should be celebrated in and of itself,\u201d he said. \u201cIt should be celebrated because of what it will deliver, and its success will be judged by what we deliver, not the vision that we have, but rather what we can use that vision to actually get to New Yorkers.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Ryan Schwach Mayor Zohran Mamdani laid out a broad plan to address safety on New York\u2019s streets…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":349361,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-349360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349360","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=349360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349360\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/349361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=349360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=349360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=349360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}