Sammy’s Law, daylighting and low traffic neighborhoods

What it allows

Under Sammy’s Law, DOT can lower a street’s limit to 20 mph with posted signs, and to 10 mph where it adds traffic calming, except on roads with three or more travel lanes in each direction outside Manhattan. Before any change the city must give the community board 60 days’ notice and a chance to comment. The Comptroller’s office calls the rest low-cost and quick: new signs, retimed signals and new rules for the speed cameras.

What CB6 asked for

What the Comptroller and the Borough Presidents asked for

On October 14, 2026, Comptroller Mark Levine, Borough Presidents Brad Hoylman-Sigal, Antonio Reynoso and Donovan Richards, and Council Majority Leader Shaun Abreu wrote to DOT Commissioner Mike Flynn to expand Sammy’s Law on eligible streets throughout the 17 community districts that have approved district-wide implementation, and to prioritize the districts with the most crashes next. Their case, in order:

• Lower limits save lives. When the citywide limit went from 30 to 25 mph, total crashes fell 39% on streets with posted signs, and the city halved its fatality rate when crashes occur.
• The demand is already there. 17 boards have passed district-wide resolutions: Manhattan 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9, Bronx 6, Brooklyn 1, 2, 4, 6 and 7, Queens 1, 2 and 6. Four Borough Presidents and 63 city and state legislators had already signed a letter asking for the same.
• The need is measurable. Those 17 districts sustained 22,490 collisions, 60 deaths and 11,644 serious injuries in 2025. Since their resolutions passed, 14 people have been killed in them. In CB6, 315 crashes and no deaths in the 4.7 months after the March vote, as of June 15, 2026.
• School zones are a start, not the plan. The 15 mph zones the Mayor committed to are “an important step in the right direction, but not enough on its own.” Four children were struck and killed by cars in the city this year.
• It is cheap and fast. An email to the board, 60 days, then signs, signal timing and camera rules.

The letter asks DOT for a written strategy for using its Sammy’s Law authority. It also names daylighting and low traffic neighborhoods as the complements to lower speed limits, and notes DOT has the authority to do all three.

Where the city stands

Since the law took effect in 2024, DOT lowered limits at just over 100 locations, including one regional slow zone per borough. On March 16, 2026 Mayor Mamdani and Commissioner Flynn committed to 15 mph School Slow Zones at every eligible school location in the city, 2,300 locations housing 3,200 schools, by the end of the Mayor’s first term, each one after the 60-day board notice. By September 9, 2026 more than 200 had been installed this year, with roughly 800 expected by the end of 2026. A pedestrian struck at 25 mph is more than three times as likely to be seriously injured as one struck at 15 mph. District-wide 20 mph, the thing CB6 and the other 16 boards asked for, has not been announced for any district.

On the map, every street is colored by its posted limit. Search an address, tap the map or tap a row in the list below and the blocks around that pin get speed limit signs: the posted limit today in black, and under it the limit the block would get. The 15 mph school zones layer marks every segment within 150 meters of a school, 623 of them, the streets the city’s school zone commitment covers; their signs show 15 in red. The 20 mph district-wide layer shows CB6’s request on every other street Sammy’s Law allows, 20 in orange; the BQE, the Gowanus Expressway and the Hugh L. Carey Tunnel are left as they are. Speed limits today colors the streets by what is posted now: 25 mph on most, 20 mph on 112 segments, 30 on the Hamilton Avenue Bridge, 40 to 50 on the highways and tunnel.

What CB6 asked for

Three months later, on January 16, 2024, Council Member Shahana Hanif, Borough President Antonio Reynoso, State Senators Andrew Gounardes and Zellnor Myrie and Assembly Members Marcela Mitaynes, Jo Anne Simon and Robert Carroll wrote to DOT citing the CB6 vote and asking for universal daylighting with hardened materials: boulders, planters, bike corrals. Their letter notes that Hoboken, with daylighting at every intersection, saw a 30% drop in pedestrian injuries from vehicles, that Local Law 66 of 2023 directs DOT to daylight 100 intersections a year by 2025, and that the Mayor had announced 1,000 intersections for 2024.

Where it stands

The Comptroller’s letter counts 23 community boards that have passed daylighting resolutions: Manhattan 1 to 9 and 11, Brooklyn 1, 2, 4, 6, 7 and 8, Queens 1, 2, 6 and 13, and Bronx 5, 6 and 11. Those 23 districts sustained 30,502 collisions, 78 deaths and 16,477 serious injuries in 2025. The Mayor’s 2026 Vision Zero Reimagined plan promises hardened daylighting “or better” at a minimum of 1,000 intersections each year; the Council’s universal daylighting bill, which would require hardened daylighting at 1,000 intersections a year by law, has majority support but has not passed, and DOT opposes it. CB6’s own positions since 2023 are on the Vision Zero Reimagined in CB6 page.

On the map, Intersections draws CB6’s 504 intersections with at least one injury crash since 2014, sized by injuries, from the NYPD crash data, and Where people were killed marks the 27 fatal crashes in that time. These are the corners daylighting is for.

What CB6 asked for

Where it stands

The Carroll Street Bridge is now fully pedestrianized. DOT has not announced a low traffic neighborhood pilot in Gowanus. The Comptroller’s letter lists LTNs with daylighting as the “critical complements to speed limit reductions,” says DOT already has the authority to implement all three, and notes that legislation introduced in the Council would support DOT in developing LTN pilot programs. On the map, the Gowanus pilot area is the boundary in the resolution, drawn from the four streets it names, and the Carroll Street Bridge is marked.