Our friends at Families For Safe Streets have been working on Sammy’s law for the last 5 years; Governor Hochul finally passed it in the 2025 state budget. It allows New York City to set its speed limit at 20mph, except for avenues with three traffic lanes going in one direction. It also permits the city to establish lower limits on specific streets where it deems it necessary.
This is great news as more street designs like shared streets, open streets and school streets need such limits and proper enforcement to be truly safe and usable.
Sammy was Amy Cohen’s son who got killed by a speeding driver. Their campaign is an example of the extraordinary actions it takes to get reasonable measures passed, including a hunger strike and multiple arrests while surrounding an elected official home. It should not be that hard, but no progress would be accomplished without her and many advocates’ exceptional and relentless dedication over multiple years.
Our Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal and Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal, both representing the west side, sponsored the legislation and continued to work on it diligently year after year, in spite of rebukes from their democratic colleagues. We are very fortunate to be represented by elected officials who do not budge when the going gets rough.
Many many lives will be saved thanks to the new law and we owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Amy.