‘This has to stop’: Queens pols and families call for street safety measures after recent traffic deaths

Elected officials and family members of children lost to traffic violence rallied for street safety laws in Corona on Friday. Eagle photo by Ryan Schwach

By Ryan Schwach

Queens elected officials and families are saying enough is enough when it comes to traffic fatalities as they mourn the recent deaths of two children on Queens streets.

On Friday, Queens officials and family members rallied and marched for street safety measures in Corona Park, loudly calling for street safety improvements to be included in the state budget as Queens reels from several recent pedestrian deaths, including the death of 8-year-old Bayron Palomino Arroyo, who was killed by a driver while crossing the street with his mother and brother two weeks ago.

In the wake of Arroyo’s death and 17 other traffic fatalities in Queens so far this year, officials are calling on the state to pass a bill known as Sammy's Law that would allow New York City to lower the speed limit on city streets, and other street safety legislation.

“We are here today to send a very important and clear message to our governor and our mayor,” said State Senator Jessica Ramos on Friday outside of P.S 110 in Corona. “We demand that Sammy's Law be in the state budget.”

Ramos spoke directly to kids outside the school, many of whom held signs calling for street safety measures or photos of other kids who were killed.

“Today we march for you, we march for our children,” Ramos said.

“We are here because some adults have failed you,” Ramos added. “As you grow, your parents and your community teach you how to cross the street. We ask that you pause at the crosswalk, we ask you to wait to have the light, we ask you to look both ways anyway, and we pray that you're so careful. But even when you do the right thing, there are adults who don't do the right thing.”

Palomino Arroyo has not been the only recent Queens child to be killed by a driver. Three-year-old Quintus Chen was killed by a hit-and-run driver in November, and 7-year-old Dolma Naadhun was killed in Astoria last year, prompting street safety measures in the Western Queens neighborhood.

“There are too many names,” said Queens Borough President Donovan Richards. “They were beautiful children with a bright future and families who loved them. They could have gone anywhere, they could have been anything. They had dreams shattered, all because of reckless drivers.”

“Instead, we're here talking about them in the past tense,” he added. “We're talking about who they were instead of who they are, or who they could be.”

The rally began at the school and then marched through Corona to Junction Playground. Rallygoers said their calls for increased street safety are beginning to feel alarmingly familiar.

“I've stood with so many families that I recognize here today, and cried as I heard their stories and held their photos – this is unacceptable,” said State Assemblymember Jessica González-Rojas, who was herself hit by a car driver earlier this year. “We stand united in fighting for the laws and policies. We want to take this pain and trauma and turn it into policy change so that no one else needs to die.”

Sammy’s Law would give New York City the ability to manage its own speed limits, which are currently determined by the state. Officials say that the more speed is limited, the less likely a traffic collision would be fatal.

“New York City taxpayers should have control of their destiny on our streets,” said Richards. “We should not have people who don't even live in our city dictating the terms of the miles per hour on our streets.”

Officials and advocates also called for other street safety measures on Friday, including an increase in the number of school crossing guards and scrambled cross walks around schools, which would stop all vehicular traffic in both directions and allow pedestrians to cross free of car movement.

Sammy’s Law was included in the State Senate’s budget proposal released last week, but left off of the Assembly’s as the April 1 budget deadline nears.

Although first introduced in 2020, Sammy’s Law has since lagged in Albany, passing last year in the Senate but failing to come to a vote in the Assembly.

“I am exhausted from having to explain to a parent why we haven't passed it in Albany yet when many of us are ready to vote for it,” said Queens Assemblymember Catalina Cruz.

Locals marched the streets calling for Sammy’s Law, a bill that would give New York City the ability to determine its own speed limits. Eagle photo by Ryan Schwach

There have been detractors to the law – named for Sammy Eckstein Cohen, a 12-year-old who was killed by a driver in 2013 in Brooklyn. Sources told Spectrum News last year that Assembly Democrats couldn’t come to a consensus on the bill.

Without mentioning specific names, Ramos blamed “Assemblymembers on the Eastern side of Queens,” who she said “don't feel that this is necessary to make drivers uncomfortable.”

As of Monday, the Queens Assembly delegation was practically split down the middle geographically, with most Eastern members not listed as sponsors on Sammy’s Law, and members from Central and Western Queens mostly signed on as sponsors.

The only exceptions are Southeast Queens Assemblymembers Khaleel Anderson and Vivian Cook.

“I can't speak for the entire Assembly, but I think when you have communities that operate very differently, and have been impacted very differently, people feel differently about the issue,” Cruz told the Eagle as she and Jessica González-Rojas marched on Friday.

“Our hope is that with what we're seeing right now, we will get many of our colleagues who perhaps didn't view it as a priority to see it as one this year, we've had too many children dying, too many adults dying, too many people getting hurt,” she added. “We're in a place where it just feels different this year.”

Cruz doubled down on her support of the bill on Friday.

“I can probably speak for [González-Rojas], and I think that we're both ready to go back to Albany and vote on this today,” Cruz said.

“We were ready last year,” González-Rojas added. “The governor wants it, the mayor wants it – it's a no brainer. It's not a radical bill and it just really empowers a community to make these decisions.”

Not a new call

For some, the calls for street safety measures are not new, and no more paramount than they were in the past.

For Raul Ampuero, who’s 9-year-old son Giovanni was killed by a driver in Jackson Heights in 2018, hearing the stories of Arroyo, Chen and Naadhun are all too familiar.

“It's devastating,” he told the Eagle. “We can't be like this anymore.”

Ampuero, through the advocacy organization Families for Safe Streets, has been calling for street safety since his son was killed.

A street safety rally was held on Friday following the death of 8-year-old Bayron Palomino Arroyo who was killed crossing the street with his mother and brother in Queens two weeks ago.  Eagle photo by Ryan Schwach

“We've been doing this for a long time and it keeps happening,” he said at the rally. “We want our kids to be safe, and that's what we asked for for a long, long time. Doesn't matter where you come from, the purpose is to be safe, and this is what a city is supposed to do for us, especially for our children.”

Another parent, Julianne Williams, spoke of her daughter, Niiqua Cooke, a college student who was killed in 2016 on the Horace Harding Expressway service road.

“There's no denying the pain we are all experiencing and encountering daily as the lives of our loved ones and victims are senselessly taken on New York City streets,” she said on Monday. “We cannot escape or distance ourselves from the reality that traffic violence has to end.”

“I appeal to all elected officials, the Department of Transportation, our mayor, our governor, all who are responsible, all organizations and everyone in the capacity to make change to make Sammy’s Law a reality,” she added.

On Friday, Ampuero held up a photo of his son, as well as a photo of Arroyo, two of the 750 people killed in Queens since the Vision Zero program began in 2014.

“This has to stop, look at this kid right here, look at my son Giovanni right here,” he said. “How much? How many? 750 people? Come on, wake up.”

Street safety funding

On Monday, Borough President Richards held a separate rally in East Elmhurst to announce funding for street safety projects and doubled down on his own calls to pass Sammy’s Law.

Richards implored lawmakers who might still be on the fence about the legislation to speak with families who have dealt with the consequences of unsafe streets.

“Some people view us lowering the speed limit as a cash grab for the city, and perhaps you have some people across different constituencies who view it that way,” he said. “It's not about a cash grab for the city. It's about safety.”

“I would urge those who are on the fence to really come and speak to these families who have encountered this violence,” he added. “Because it'd be hard not to have a change of heart.”

Queens Borough President Donovan Richards announced $1.5 million in street safety funding on Monday in East Elmhurst, also doubling down on his support of Sammy’s Law. Eagle photo by Ryan Schwach

On top of his call for Sammy’s Law, Richards announced $1.5 million in street safety improvements to Astoria Boulevard, Utopia Parkway and Beach Channel Drive in Rockaway.

Each project will get $500,000 a piece. The funds will go toward intersection reconfiguring, curb extensions and pedestrian safety measures.

“The combination of poorly designed streets, and unsafe drivers will always threaten our families unless we do something about both,” Richards said.