Families Call For More Speed Cameras Outside Schools

Transportation advocates and families said they want Albany to allow more speed safety cameras in New York City school zones.

Legislation passed in 2014 allows the cameras in 140 school zones, as part of a pilot program extending until 2018. But advocates said on Sunday there's no reason to wait to expand the program.

They want the city to install speed safety cameras in all 2,000-plus school zones, or as many as it deems necessary, and they pointed to early signs of success.

The advocacy group Transportation Alternatives claimed speeding has dropped an average of 60 percent in school zones with cameras, as measured by tickets.

"Cameras have become an essential Vision Zero tool," said the group's deputy director Caroline Samponaro, referring to Mayor Bill de Blasio's initiative that lowered speed limits to 25 miles per hour.

Being struck by a vehicle is the leading cause of injury-related death for children under 14, according to City Hall. Transportation Alternatives said 29 children have been killed since 2013.

Legislation sponsored by Manhattan Assemblywoman Deborah Glick would give the city the right to install the cameras in all school zones. It would have to consider data including crash history.

A coalition of lawmakers, community groups and parent associations have endorsed Glick's bill. Mayor de Blasio has not taken a position on it yet. However, a spokesman, Austin Finan, released the following statement:

"We are fully committed to keeping our students safe in and outside the classroom. That's why we support an expansion of the successful school speed zone camera enforcement program which, at a minimum, would lift the time and location restrictions at the current 140 locations."

The speed cameras are triggered to take photos of vehicles that exceed the speed limit by more than 10 miles per hour, and tickets are mailed to the car owners. Samponaro said ticket revenue would pay for the cameras before speeding ultimately declined. 

Advocates are headed to Albany on Tuesday to urge for the new legislation.

"Why should there be another family going through what we went through?" said Amy Cohen, co-founder of Families for Safe Streets, which is a project of Transportation Alternatives.

Cohen's 12 year-old son, Sammy, was killed by a car in Park Slope in 2013. The driver wasn't charged but she believed her son would have lived if the car had been going slower.

She said cameras could help save lives.

"If this was an epidemic with a virus and there was a known vaccine we wouldn't be holding off and continuing to pilot it in small doses indefinitely," she said.