NYC considering lowering speed limit to as low as 10 mph on some streets

Mayor Eric Adams said this week he backs lowering New York City’s speed limit — currently 25 mph unless otherwise posted — following a change to state law passed last month granting the city permission to reduce the limit.

Adams didn’t set a time frame for changing the limit or say how low he believes it should go, but said, “I do support a lower speed limit.”

“I think we drive too fast in this city,” Adams said Tuesday at his weekly City Hall news conference. He added: “I do believe, as New Yorkers, we have to slow down, we need to stop speeding in school zones, we need to stop passing school buses, we need to stop being reckless when we’re making turns at corners.”

As early as June 19, the city can start the process of changing the limit on most of the city’s 6,000 miles of streets to as low as 20 mph from 25 mph, and to as low as 10 mph from 15 mph in special “slow zones,” roads with so-called traffic-calming measures such as speed bumps and mini-roundabouts, according to Scott Sieber, a spokesman for legislation co-sponsor State Sen. John Liu (D-Flushing). Roads outside Manhattan with at least three lanes in a single direction will stay at 25 mph, Sieber said.

Lowered under de Blasio

The city last lowered its limit — reducing the default to 25 mph from 30 mph unless otherwise posted — under then-Mayor Bill de Blasio.

In signing that law, which he pushed Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo to authorize, de Blasio cited a statistic that pedestrians struck by a car being driven 25 mph are half as likely to die as those struck at 30 mph.

The latest legislation, Sammy’s Law, is named for 12-year-old Sammy Cohen Eckstein, who was killed in 2013 by a driver in Brooklyn traveling at least 30 mph in a busy residential neighborhood to make a traffic light.

The boy’s mother, Amy Cohen, had pushed for years to pass the eponymous law, which was signed April 20 by Gov. Kathy Hochul as part of the state budget.

Meera Joshi, Adams’ deputy for operations, said at the news conference that what’s greenlit by the change in the law “has been a long time coming.”

“This is not a problem that goes away on its own, and it doesn’t necessarily go away with education,” she said, noting traffic deaths are higher than in the past few years. “We actually have to redesign our streets and reformulate the laws that apply to people that drive in our city.”

Different communities, different needs

Adams said he expects there will be different speed limits for various parts of the city.

“Different communities need different needs, and there should be a minimum that everyone should be down to," Adams said, "but then there may be a desire based on what the community represents, based on the neighborhood, that it may be decreased even more." 

Jacob deCastro, a spokesman for the group Transportation Alternatives, which had lobbied to pass Sammy’s Law, said the city should also increase the number of bus-only lanes and bicycle lanes and ban parking closest to intersections, the current law outside the city, so that drivers can better see pedestrians.

“Lowering the speed limit isn’t enough,” he said, “but paired with a bunch of other safety interventions, it would make a huge difference.”

City Councilman Bob Holden said he doesn’t support reducing the speed limit lower than the current 25 mph. Of the latest law, he said, “it’s almost like an anti-car conspiracy,” on top of taking away parking, adding more bicycle infrastructure, and 24/7 speed cameras, all of which he said adversely harm outer borough neighborhoods like his district in Queens that lack sufficient mass transit options.

“If you went 5 miles an hour, very few people would get killed,” Holden said after driving onto the City Hall grounds. “So there’s gotta be a balance, there’s gotta be common sense here.”

Next steps

Once the law takes effect, the city’s Department of Transportation can lower the speed limit on a street-by-street basis but it would take a City Council bill to do a citywide reduction, according to council spokesperson Mara Davis. Although there isn’t a bill yet to lower the limit, the council last year did pass a so-called home-rule message asking the state to pass Sammy’s Law.

Under the law, no speed limit changes can be made before a 60-day public comment period.

New York City wouldn’t be the only jurisdiction to go from 25 mph to 20 mph.

On April 1, 2018, Portland, Oregon, put that reduction into effect for residential streets — accompanied by a “20 Is Plenty” awareness campaign.

A study published in October 2020 for Portland's Bureau of Transportation found that while the average speed actually increased negligibly — to 21.70 mph from 21.63 mph — the number of drivers significantly speeding went down: Those going over 25 mph decreased by 0.53% (from 24.13% to 23.60%), over 30 mph, by 1.66% (from 6.49% to 4.83%), over 35 mph, by 0.52% (from 1.11% to 0.59%).

Sirisha Kothuri, one of the researchers, said as the speed limit came down, even speeders tended to go slower.

“Internally, maybe you say 'maybe, 5 miles per hour over is maybe not that bad,' but then 10 miles per hour, you start thinking about, 'will I get caught, and what happens if I get caught, and is it safe to go that speed?' "