Mamdani’s new street safety plan takes cues from Queens legislators
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Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s new street safety plan lays out a broad plan to eliminate vehicle injuries with some ideas already supported and led by Queens officials. Screenshot via Mayor’s Office/Youtube
By Ryan Schwach
Mayor Zohran Mamdani laid out a broad plan to address safety on New York’s streets on Tuesday, featuring some ideas that have been strongly supported and championed by Queens officials for some time.
Building on the goals of the Bill de Blasio-era Vision Zero platform, Mamdani’s new street safety agenda includes implementing policies already enshrined in state law and promoting other existing initiatives that stem from Queens’ political delegation.
“We are together today to usher in a new vision of street safety, Vision Zero reimagined,” Mamdani said from Queens on Tuesday, flanked by city transportation officials and Borough President Donovan Richards. “At its heart, Vision Zero Reimagined holds the same fundamental goal as Vision Zero: to eradicate all traffic deaths in our city.”
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.
“Vision 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,” he said. “More 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.
“Yet, 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,” he added.
Much of the plan includes implementing laws that have already been passed, or are currently in the legislative pipeline. Mamdani’s plan highlights cracking down on “super speeders” and drivers with a history of dangerous driving, further regulations on e-bikes, lowering speed limits and limiting larger vehicles on city streets.
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.
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.
The Mamdani administration has already begun implementing Sammy’s 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 González-Rojas, and supported by other Queens officials, like Senator Jessica Ramos.
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.
World Borough legislators are also behind four of the bills the City Council raised earlier this year focused on increased e-bike regulations.
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’s 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.
Lawmakers in Western Queens, including González-Rojas, Councilmember Julie Won and Councilmember Tiffany Cabán, have long argued for universal daylighting on Queens’ streets.
The plan also reiterates Mamdani’s support for the Delivery Protection Act, a bill sponsored by Cabán, that would regulate the use of third-party delivery services commonly used by companies like Amazon.
In the new plan, Queens Boulevard, once known as the “Boulevard of Death,” 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.
Richards, who has also been a major proponent of street safety measures in the borough, expressed his support for the plan.
“We 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,” the BP said in a statement. “These 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.”
“Our streets should be safe for all who use them, regardless of how they use them, and this plan will certainly advance that mission,” he added.
On Tuesday, Mamdani defended the lack of specificity in the lengthy platform.
“Today is not a thing that should be celebrated in and of itself,” he said. “It 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.”
