Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s push for more and harsher “school speed zones” is as naked a robbery as Gov. Kathy Hochul’s “anti-congestion” tolls.
By year’s end, he’ll add 800 more zones to the existing 500 and drop the limit from 20 or 25 miles-per-hour to a glacial 15 mph.
And he means to have 2,300, all at 15 mph, by 2030.
Each zone can include everything within a quarter-mile of a school. With 3,200 city schools (public and private) that’s two-thirds of all city streets, including 87% of Manhattan, 82% of Brooklyn and 74% of The Bronx.
Car-hating progressives have agitated for lower speed limits for years, but doing it citywide “in one fell swoop,” says the mayor, requires City Council approval; the council points out he can do it himself, though it’ll mean more work: Maybe he just wants to spread the blame?
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 “highway work zones”).
The sales pitch: Speed cameras may make the streets safer for kids — but why then did the city make enforcement 24/7?
Not many schoolchildren are ambling home at 2 a.m.
Hint: Speed cams aren’t only about calming traffic: The existing zones bring in about $300 million a year.
Double or triple the area covered, with even lower limits, and City Hall could easily bleed drivers for another billion bucks a year.
Has anyone mentioned that this mayor wants a lot more revenue to spend?
Nobody wants kids to dodge highway traffic, but that has nothing to do with the mayor’s priorities here.
He’s grabbing cash wherever he can — and justifying it by demonizing his targets, in this case, those “selfish” car drivers.
