How to Change the NYC Speed Limit

At a City Council hearing Wednesday, Transportation Department officials laid out the agency's plans to prepare New Yorkers for a new default speed limit.

First comes the education effort. City workers will fan out to all five boroughs distributing hundreds of thousands of fliers to drivers. They'll post the new speed limit on the back of parking meter receipts, on the website that displays the alternate side calendar, at parking lots, even at the Staten Island Ferry Terminal.

Then, new signs will start going up. First along major roadways and the crossings. But Polly Trottenberg, the city's transportation commissioner, says that effort will take time. "It will be a transition," she said. "I mean, we don't have the ability to put up 700 signs overnight."

Then comes Nov. 7, the day the speed limit officially changes, and the NYPD will start enforcing it. It's that latter part that has City Council member Mark Weprin, who represents part of Queens, a little worried. "There's definitely areas of my district that people are going to go crazy when they hear it's 25 miles an hour," he said.

But other council members were more concerned that there wouldn't be enough enforcement. Council Member Stephen Levin said "I think some gotcha actually is in order."

And even after all the new signs are in, and enforcement has begun, education continues. Like: making sure drivers know not every road will be 25 miles per hour. School zones could be slower, and major roadways like Pelham Parkway and the FDR Drive faster.

The legislation formally changing the city's speed limit will be voted on next week, and is expected to pass overwhelmingly. City officials say culture change, though, needs to start happening now.