School zone speed limits to dip to 15 mph following Sammy’s Law
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Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced the implementation of Sammy’s Law across the city’s school zones on Monday from a Queens school. Photo by Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office
By Ryan Schwach
Speed limits around schools in Queens and across the city will dip to 15 miles per hour in an effort to make traversing streets safer for New York’s students, the mayor announced from Flushing on Monday.
Speaking at Flushing International High School, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said that the city will begin lowering speed limits to 15 miles per hour in school zones across the city. Mamdani announced that 800 school locations will see speed limits reduced to 15 miles per hour this year, bringing the total to 1,300 by the end of the year.
The plan is to expand the lowered speed to all 2,300 schools across the five boroughs by the end of the mayor’s first term.
The move is an implementation of Sammy’s Law, which was passed in Albany in 2024 following a surge in traffic deaths involving children, a number of which occurred on Queens streets.
Promoted by the mother of Sammy Eckstein Cohen, a 12-year-old who was killed by a driver in 2013, the bill allowed the city to set its own speed limits, rather than follow statewide regulations.
“I want to ensure that our City Hall is using every tool at our disposal to protect New Yorkers on our streets and our sidewalks,” Mamdani said. “We are utilizing every tool we have through this immediate and sweeping executive action.”
“No longer will the lives of pedestrians and children playing outside be treated as an afterthought,” he added.
Implementation of the law began under the Eric Adams administration around highly-congested areas with narrow streets like in Western Queens and Jamaica, but this is the first major citywide use of the law.
“It is the kind of city that Sammy deserved, and is the New York City we are building for every child and family that calls it home,” said Mamdani, who supported the bill while in the legislature.
Sammy’s Law, which allows the city to set its own speed limits, was partially spurred by a slew of traffic related deaths involving children that led up to its passing in 2024. Eagle file photo by Ryan Schwach
The bill had a lot of support in Queens, where narrow, congested streets led to the deaths of several children, partially contributing to the bill’s passing in 2024.
The year prior, 8-year-old Bayron Palomino Arroyo, 3-year-old Quintus Chen and 7-year-old Dolma Naadhun were all killed in Queens crashes.
Raul Ampuero’s 9-year-old son, Giovanni was killed by a driver in Jackson Heights in 2018.
Since then, he has been involved with Families for Safe Streets, a group that championed Sammy’s Law up until its passing.
He told the Eagle the mayor’s announcement on Monday was a long time coming.
“This is something that we were waiting for a while, and it finally went through, and we're extremely happy,” he said. “I think it's something that needed to be done three years ago, not now, and the battle that we went through to try to get this going, it's something that really bothers me a lot, but it finally went through.”
“Hopefully things will be better in a few more years, and things will look better for every pedestrian and everybody else who actually needs the roads, even the vehicles,” he said. “People get used to it. People get upset because they want to rush…People get used to it, and once you get used to it, you adapt.”
Queens officials also championed the legislation.
In early 2024, several officials and Families for Safe Streets held a march around Corona and called for the implementation of Sammy’s Law not long after the death of 8-year-old Arroyo.
“There are too many names,” Queens Borough President Donovan Richards said at the march in 2024. “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.”
On Monday, the BP celebrated City Hall’s move to lower speed limits.
"Sammy's Law is an incredibly effective tool for making the streets near our schools safer for our children and their families,” he said in a statement. “I am thrilled we will be using Sammy's Law to reduce speed limits to 15 miles per hour at so many locations across Queens and the rest of the city. We need to do everything we can to make our schools and the streets around them a safe environment for everyone.”
State Senator Jessica Ramos helped organize the 2024 rally, and commended the mayor’s move on Monday.
“The city’s expansion of 15 MPH School Slow Zones under Sammy’s Law is a critical move to make our streets safer for students, families, and everyone who walks or bikes in our neighborhoods,” she said in a statement on Monday. “I commend Mayor Mamdani and [Department of Transportation] Commissioner [Mike] Flynn for taking bold action, and I will keep fighting to ensure safety is a priority in every corner of New York City.”
While Mamdani’s new measure addresses speed limits around the city’s schools, he is hoping the City Council can step in to help with the rest of New York's streets.
He said that is the assessment of the Law Department that in order to lower the speed limits in “one fell swoop,” rather than piecemeal, would require Council legislation to change the local administrative code.
“We would support the Council taking this action,” he said, calling Monday’s announcement a “significant step” toward the ultimate goal of safer streets citywide.
A Council spokesperson said that street safety is a priority for the Council and Speaker Julie Menin, who supported a resolution in 2023 which called on the state to pass Sammy’s Law.
“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," said the spokesperson.
