 |
| New York needs safer streets. |
The city is full of
adventures. For the last few days, its been teeming with bodies out in the
streets, people enjoying the sunshine, the plazas, the skate parks, riding their bikes and playing outside.
Friday, I joined my
friend Barbara to make our way around town, filming some of these sights.
The best public spaces
are well used public spaces. In New York,
they are used all year long, but
especially when it gets warm out.
So we romped from the
Lower East Side to Chinatown to City Hall for a rally for safer streets. For these spaces
to work, everyone has to look out for each other.
To this end, I joined Families
for Safe Streets and Transportation Alternatives for a Rally at 12 noon on June
9th at City Hall to demand life-saving speed safety cameras in more school
zones throughout New York City!
There advocates were demanding
that State elected officials in Albany act now to keep our school zones safe.
We know that speeding drivers are the leading cause of traffic fatalities in New York City and we know that speed safety cameras reduce speeding violations by over 60%.We need to ensure that critical legislation that would protect more school children than ever pass this session in Albany.
Senate Bill S.6046 and Assembly Bill A. 7798 would:
-Cover more schools by expanding speed safety cameras from 140 school zones to 750 School Zones
-Cover more streets by increasing the distance from a school within which cameras can be placed , from a 1/4 mile stretch of road to a 1/2 mile radius. This will reduce speeding on more wide and dangerous streets near schools.
-Cover more time by expanding the hours cameras can operate. Currently cameras can only operate on school days during school hours. This legislation ensures cameras are operational from 6am to 10pm, 365 days a year to keep kids safe throughout the day all year round.
We need you there on June 9th to demand life-saving speed safety cameras in more places at more times to keep more NYC school children safe. Be there.
***WEAR YELLOW***
Senate Bill S.6046 and Assembly Bill A. 7798 would:
-Cover more schools by expanding speed safety cameras from 140 school zones to 750 School Zones
-Cover more streets by increasing the distance from a school within which cameras can be placed , from a 1/4 mile stretch of road to a 1/2 mile radius. This will reduce speeding on more wide and dangerous streets near schools.
-Cover more time by expanding the hours cameras can operate. Currently cameras can only operate on school days during school hours. This legislation ensures cameras are operational from 6am to 10pm, 365 days a year to keep kids safe throughout the day all year round.
We need you there on June 9th to demand life-saving speed safety cameras in more places at more times to keep more NYC school children safe. Be there.
***WEAR YELLOW***Senate Bill S.6046 and Assembly Bill A. 7798 would:-Cover more schools by expanding speed safety cameras from 140 school zones to 750 School Zones-Cover more streets by increasing the distance from a school within which cameras can be placed , from a 1/4 mile stretch of road to a 1/2 mile radius. This will reduce speeding on more wide and dangerous streets near schools.-Cover more time by expanding the hours cameras can operate. Currently cameras can only operate on school days during school hours. This legislation ensures cameras are operational from 6am to 10pm, 365 days a year to keep kids safe throughout the day all year round.We need you there on June 9th to demand life-saving speed safety cameras in more places at more times to keep more NYC school children safe. Be there.***WEAR YELLOW***
My friend Amy Cohen was at the Rally. Her son Sammy was killed walking out into the street by our kids school. "Give the city the power to target speeding," she argues, recalling her painful story:
I just went through my fourth Mother’s Day without my beautiful son Sammy. He was just 12 years old when a speeding van ended his life. Bright, athletic, kind and caring, he had so much promise. Yet his life was cut short because in an instant because politics has for far too long gotten in the way of protecting our children and is still doing so today.
A speed camera and the threat of a fine might have slowed that van down and saved Sammy, but the current law does not allow the city to have a speed camera where Sammy died. That has to change.
It’s a no-brainer: Speeding kills; speed cameras save lives. A pedestrian struck by a vehicle traveling at 30 mph is twice as likely to be killed as a pedestrian struck by a vehicle traveling at 25 mph....
My son was in middle school. He was killed in a place and time where speed cameras are not currently allowed. For all the Sammys and for all of their mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers, let’s do the right thing and expand the use of speed cameras right away.
 |
| The mayor calling for safer streets. |
No comments:
Post a Comment