Streetsblog New York City

It’s no joke — Jeff Klein is taking up the cause of NYC speed cameras in the State Senate.

Photo: Daily News

The Daily News reports that Klein, the Bronx Democrat who leads the Senate along with Republican Dean Skelos, will make the proposed speed camera demonstration program a priority in the remaining weeks of the current legislative session, which ends in June.

“I think this is a very smart approach to alleviate speeding,” Klein said of speed enforcement cameras.

“Our police do an incredible job fighting crime in the city, but they can’t be everywhere at once,” he added. “Let’s get these speed cameras in place so our city’s Finest can continue fighting crime and not writing traffic tickets.”

Authorization for a small number of speed cameras was included in the Assembly budget, but the program was opposed by Senator Marty Golden and the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association. Golden has since indicated that he is open to automated enforcement if “the technology is proven.”

Dozens of studies by corporate and public interest groups have shown that speed cameras reduce crashes, injuries, and fatalities. Motorist speed was the leading single factor in city traffic deaths in 2012, contributing to 81 fatal crashes, according to NYC DOT.

Given Klein’s stature in Albany, his support should provide a significant boost to what would be NYC’s first-ever speed camera program.

“New Yorkers will applaud Senator Klein for working to bring New York City the speed cameras we need,” said Michael Murphy, spokesperson for Transportation Alternatives. “It’s time for the last few holdouts in Albany to stop standing in the way of these life-saving enforcement tools and join Senator Klein to allow speed cameras in New York City.”

State Senator Marty Golden, a former police officer and prominent Brooklyn Republican, has joined forces with the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association and AAA New York to oppose speed cameras. Now that Golden has succeeded in keeping them out of the state budget, he says he might be open to the idea, after all.

Sen. Marty Golden says speed cams must be "proven" to reduce speeds and injuries for the bill to pass. Luckily for him, there's some research on that. Photo: NY Senate

“If the technology is proven, if speeding is reduced and fatalities are reduced, that would be a strong reason this bill should get done,” he told the Post.

It’s unclear what Golden means by “proven,” notes Dana Rubinstein in Capital New York. Maybe a 2012 peer-reviewed meta-analysis conducted by a non-profit health research organization would be enough to convince the senator from Bay Ridge. Rubinstein explains:

After reviewing 35 studies “to assess whether the use of speed cameras reduces the incidence of speeding, road traffic crashes, injuries and deaths,” the researchers concluded that “speed cameras are a worthwhile intervention for reducing the number of road traffic injuries and deaths.”

More precisely, of the 28 studies that investigated speed cameras’ effect on crashes, “all 28 studies found a lower number of crashes in the speed camera areas after implementation of the program.”

An analysis of the speed camera program in Montgomery County, Maryland, by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety showed that speed cams had a “halo effect,” convincing drivers to ease off the gas everywhere, not just where the cameras were installed:

Relative to comparison sites in Virginia, the proportion of drivers traveling more than 10 mph above posted speed limits declined by about 70 percent at Montgomery County locations with both warning signs and speed camera enforcement, 39 percent at locations with warning signs but no speed cameras, and 16 percent on residential streets with neither warning signs nor speed cameras.

Streetsblog has asked Sen. Golden’s office what it would take for this life-saving technology to be sufficiently “proven.” We’ll let you know if we get a reply. Previous requests for comment on speed cameras have not been returned.

Senate Co-Leader Jeff Klein told Gotham Gazette that, despite not being included in the budget, speed cams will come back for debate. ”This is an issue that will come up later in the year,” he said.

Electeds and advocates have until June to push speed camera legislation through Albany, as the proposed NYC demonstration program was not part of this year’s state budget deal.

NYC's largest police union must be awfully pleased that Marty Golden has managed to block life-saving speed cameras, for now.

Speed cameras were included in the State Assembly budget. The program has the endorsement of Mayor Bloomberg, the City Council, and NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly. But despite overwhelming support from city government, State Senator Marty Golden joined the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association in lobbying against the cameras, saying that speed enforcement should be the exclusive province of police officers.

Said Golden to the Daily News: “What we need are the actual police officers on the street. Cops on the street are what slows people down.”

In reality, traffic cameras are highly effective at reducing speeding, red light-running, and crashes. In D.C., speed cameras led to an 82 percent reduction in drivers exceeding the speed limit by 10 mph or more, according to Richard Retting, the director of safety and research at Sam Schwartz Engineering.

Regardless, as one of three Republicans in the Senate who represent the city, Golden has the power to head off whatever NYC-related legislation he doesn’t like, for whatever reason.

“The Senate was not supposed to be a problem, because so many of them aren’t from the city,” says Juan Martinez, general counsel for Transportation Alternatives. “The Assembly was supposed to be the issue.”

Though speed cameras now have the support of the Assembly, as of now there is no bill to move the program along this session. Martinez believes there’s still “a solid shot” that it will happen.

“Marty Golden does not know how to conquer speeding better than Ray Kelly does,” Martinez says. “That’s not a bad position to be in. Between now and the end of June, we just have to hustle harder.”

Speeding was the leading factor in fatal NYC crashes last year, according to NYC DOT. A 2009 TA study found that a NYC motorist could speed every day and get a ticket once every 35 years. Crash data compiled by Streetsblog show that since January 2012 at least five pedestrians have been killed by motorists in the precincts encompassed by Golden’s Senate district.

Multiple queries to Golden’s office have not been returned.

After efforts to enable speed cameras in New York City stalled in Albany the past few years, a new speed cam bill in the Assembly now has more than 30 sponsors, and introduction of a State Senate bill is expected soon.

Automated speeding enforcement could help prevent crashes like the one that killed the Glauber family. Photo: Shimon Gifter via AP

The death of Raizel and Nachman Glauber in Williamsburg this week has also brought new attention to the need for stepped-up speeding enforcement. In an opinion piece published in the Daily News today, Paul White of Transportation Alternatives and Veronica Vanterpool of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign point out that the driver who killed the Glaubers was speeding at twice the legal limit.

The bill would enable “a demonstration speed camera program” in New York City. The program would have strict limits, allowing no more than 20 cameras in operation at any given time, with a cap of 40 cameras deployed citywide. Fines would not exceed $50 for driving 10-30 mph over the speed limit, and not more than $100 for speeding more than 30 mph over the limit.

Momentum in Albany appears to be building. This week, Assembly Members Micah Kellner of Manhattan and Carmen Arroyo of the Bronx signed on to the Assembly bill.

Juan Martinez, legislative director for Transportation Alternatives, is confident that support will continue to grow among the 65 Assembly members representing New York City. “I can count the number of members of the New York City delegation who said they would vote ‘no’ on one hand,” he said, “and still have fingers left over.”

A companion bill in the Senate is expected soon from State Senator Andrew Lanza of Staten Island, who sponsored speed cam legislation last year. There is also a possibility that speed cameras could be included in the budget, an alternative route to enacting a stand-alone bill.

TA is asking supporters to contact public officials, including Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, urging them to sign on to speed cameras.

On Tuesday the District Attorneys Association of the State of New York released its agenda for cleaning up and toughening state and federal gun laws. Manhattan DA Cy Vance, named to a one-year term as DAASNY president last summer, announced that the organization had sent a letter to Governor Cuomo and legislative leaders with a host of proposals, ranging from restrictions on high capacity magazines to stiffer penalties for gun crimes and changes to mental health laws.

Cy Vance. Photo: Getty via Politicker

Said Vance in a statement:

Week after week, innocent victims are gunned down while trying to go about their daily lives. We in government must do more for ordinary citizens, in New York and around the country. New York has long been a leader in sound gun control policy while respecting the Second Amendment. The proposals we support would strengthen our ability to protect New Yorkers against senseless gun violence by keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of criminals and emotionally disturbed individuals.

In New York City, where people in cars kill roughly as many victims as do people with guns, survivors and advocates have long called for legislative action to advance the cause of traffic justice. While it’s too early for specifics, vehicular crimes law is also on this year’s DAASNY agenda, according to Vance’s office.

“The DAASNY legislative affairs committee, which creates the legislative agenda with input and consensus of members, has a subcommittee on vehicular crime,” said Vance spokesperson Erin Duggan, in an email to Streetsblog. “The bipartisan, upstate/downstate DAASNY gun agreement shows that sensible fixes to the laws are possible. There are a number of areas DAASNY will weigh in on this year, as consensus is reached with the 62 members.”

There are plenty of fixes to be made.

Vehicular laws in New York State are weak and rife with loopholes. Criminally negligent homicide is a Class E felony, the least severe of all felony categories, with a minimum sentence of probation. The state’s vulnerable user law has been interpreted by NYPD to exclude offenses that are not witnessed by a police officer. In the aftermath of a serious crash, motorists suspected of DWI can delay the collection of blood evidence at will. To get a hit-and-run conviction, prosecutors must practically convince a jury that they can read a defendant’s mind, giving rise to the highly successful “I didn’t see her” defense. Compounding the obstacles presented by labyrinthine statutes, the state’s highest court has repeatedly undermined prosecutions, betraying a bias against vehicular crimes cases.

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When New Yorkers go to the polls less than a year from now, they’ll definitely be voting for a new mayor, and they might also be voting for billions in state-backed transportation funding, if a measure put forward by Assembly Member James Brennan clears Albany.

The second time around: Assembly Member James Brennan wants to put a statewide transportation bond on the ballot in November.

Brennan, a Brooklyn Democrat representing Park Slope, Windsor Terrace, and Kensington, is reintroducing his bill for a $4.5 billion statewide transportation bond, evenly split between roads and transit. Starting in January, he’ll be making a push to sign up additional Assembly co-sponsors (there are now 16, all Democrats), and to find a sponsor for a Senate companion bill, with an eye toward recruiting Republican support.

“When we put it out there last year, we had no intention of passing it,” Brennan legislative director Lorrie Smith explained, saying that they wanted to begin circulating the issue in Albany before making a push in 2013. ”We’re taking the next step and trying to fashion a proposal that will go before voters in November.”

Some of the bond money is expected to go to the MTA’s next five-year capital program. Although that slate of maintenance and expansion work is still undefined (the current capital program runs through 2014), it’s likely this time around that keeping the system’s existing infrastructure in a state of good repair will be a higher priority than big-ticket projects like the 7-train expansion.

“We’re going to have to find different sources of revenue in order to find the capital necessary to sustain a state of good repair,” MTA Chairman Joe Lhota said earlier this year.

Although advocates welcomed the bill’s reintroduction, they cautioned that it is by no means a complete fix, for either the MTA or the state’s larger transportation system, which both have tens of billions of dollars in unfunded needs.

“We remain a little concerned that this might pass and voters and legislators might think that our funding needs have been resolved when, in fact, they have not,” said Tri-State Transportation Campaign Executive Director Veronica Vanterpool. Separately, both Tri-State and Transportation Alternatives said that Brennan’s proposal should be part of a larger revenue plan. Brennan himself said in April that the bond issue would still leave a hole of at least $6 billion in the capital program, even with federal matching funds taken into account.

While a more ambitious legislative package would address a heftier chunk of the MTA’s funding needs, it would also be tougher to enact.

“Brennan at the moment is the only game in town” because he’s “proposed something other than agency borrowing,” said Gene Russianoff of the Straphangers Campaign. The Brennan bond would be backed by general tax revenues, unlike much of the borrowing for the current capital plan, which is paid for out of the MTA’s operating budget. Moving borrowing from the MTA’s books to the state’s can take pressure off straphangers, who, absent initiative from Albany, are paying for debt service through fare hikes.

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Loopholes in the state's crossover mirror law allow large trucks registered out of state to operate unsafely, and legally, on city streets. Photos: Brad Aaron

Following queries by Streetsblog, two state senators have pledged to address loopholes in a new state law that permit large trucks to be operated without safety mirrors, thereby endangering pedestrians and cyclists, especially children and the elderly, in New York City neighborhoods.

The law requires trucks weighing over 26,000 pounds to be equipped with convex, or “crossover,” mirrors – which allow drivers to see what, or who, is directly in front of them — when driven on NYC streets. But the weight clause exempts trucks that have the same cab configuration, and the same “blind spots,” as heavier trucks. And the law applies only to trucks that are registered in New York State.

The registration loophole lets companies that do business in the city but are based elsewhere forego the mirror mandate. One of those is Haddad’s, a Pennsylvania firm that provides trucks for film and television productions. Haddad’s set up shop in Inwood twice recently, for shoots for two TV shows. Of all the company’s trucks that would be required to have the mirrors if not for their Pennsylvania plates, none did. Haddad’s did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this story.

The mirror requirement took effect in January, after crashes that claimed the lives of Brooklyn school kids Juan Estrada and Victor Flores in 2004 and grandmother Theresa Alonso of Staten Island in 2010. Support for the bill grew after 5-year-old Moshe Englender was killed in May 2011 by the driver of a meat truck as he rode his tricycle on a Williamsburg street.

“All legislation are works in progress,” said State Senator Marty Golden, who sponsored the bill. “We will look at the concerns and see if they can be legislatively addressed.”

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After a fatal crash in her district, a state representative from Queens is again calling on Albany to double fines for speeding, but with NYPD issuing few tickets, lax traffic enforcement continues to be the biggest obstacle to safer streets.

Assembly Member Barbara Clark

Barbara Clark, State Assembly Member from Queens Village, introduced a bill in May that would double speeding fines for violations that occur in “residential neighborhoods.” Clark spoke up for the bill most recently after a November crash that killed a motorist in Cambria Heights.

Clark told the Times Ledger that she introduced the bill after efforts to boost enforcement and the installation of speed humps failed to slow traffic.

“Not only have I pressed each and every commander of the three police precincts that cover the 33rd Assembly District for increased enforcement, but I have also again and again requested each and every commissioner of the Department of Transportation to install speed reducers at countless locations throughout the district,” Clark said.

“And while these efforts have led to both temporary periods of increased enforcement and the limited installation of speed bumps, an overarching solution has been hampered by institutional constraints,” she continued. “On the one hand, a sustained enforcement program has fallen prey to a police department lacking the personnel to consistently assign officers to it. On the other hand, the widespread installation of speed reducers has been prevented by a Department of Transportation restricted by its own rules and regulations as to where they can be placed.”

While NYC DOT has in recent years made great strides in engineering for street safety, traffic enforcement continues to be a low priority for NYPD. The 33rd Assembly District is policed by the 103rd, 105th and 113th Precincts. Those three precincts combined issued just 523 speeding tickets in all of 2011, according to NYPD data. With 346 speeding citations logged as of October, the precincts were on track to issue a total of 415 summonses in 2012.

Increasing fines may discourage speeding to some extent, says Juan Martinez of Transportation Alternatives, but a robust automated enforcement program would be more effective.

“A typical speeding ticket is between 100 and 300 bucks,” says Martinez. “Especially once you add in a state surcharge, it’s a hefty sum. And then to double that, that’s a deterrent.”

Though the speed camera program proposed for New York City would levy lower fines — $50 to $100 per violation — and would not attach points to drivers licenses, Martinez says the increased likelihood of receiving a ticket is key to altering behavior. “The real deterrent would be automatic enforcement,” says Martinez, “or at least more pervasive enforcement.”

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Brad Hoylman, who's running unopposed for Tom Duane's Senate seat, supports road pricing to help fund city transit. Photo: DNAinfo

Races for the White House and Congress aren’t the only ones on the ballot tomorrow. Though as usual there aren’t many competitive contests for State Senate and Assembly, voters who are interested in transportation funding and safer streets should check out a candidate survey released over the weekend by the New York Bicycling Coalition, the Straphangers Campaign, Transportation Alternatives and Tri-State Transportation Campaign.

The survey, presented to every Senate and Assembly candidate, sought positions on Tappan Zee transit, MTA funding, MAP-21 allocations, automated traffic enforcement and other issues. The answers are chock full of interesting tidbits.

On the whole, for instance, 29 candidates go on record in support of “new transit funding.” Responding to a general question about upkeep of transit systems, roads and bridges, Queens Senator Tony Avella suggests paying for infrastructure with an expansion of gambling revenue, while Manhattan’s Brad Hoylman, a first-timer running to replace the retiring Senator Tom Duane, supports congestion pricing and bridge tolls.

Forty-one candidates say bus service should be improved along the Tappan Zee Bridge corridor, and 29 are in favor of some type of automated traffic enforcement.

Also interesting is what isn’t said. Out of 212 Senate and Assembly races, just 43 candidates returned the survey. While tomorrow’s vote isn’t as momentous as a primary with seats in play, the questionnaire offers a window into who stands for what, and can be a tool to hold electeds accountable for stated positions.

All candidate responses are posted on Mobilizing the Region. Share your observations in the comments.

Theresa Sautter's daughter, 15-year-old Marylee Otto, was killed by a hit-and-run driver in Philadelphia in 2008. Photo: Philadelphia Inquirer

Legislators in Pennsylvania this year did what Albany lawmakers could not: addressed a loophole in state law that gives hit-and-run drivers an incentive to leave the scene of a serious crash. But the arduous task of getting a bill to the desk of Governor Tom Corbett exemplifies the difficulty in holding reckless motorists accountable, even when they take lives.

House Bill 208 elevates the crime of leaving the scene of a fatal hit-and-run in Pennsylvania to a second degree felony, placing it on the same level as a fatal DUI. However, a compromise weakened the legislation, ensuring that the minimum sentence for a fatal hit-and-run will still not match that of a fatal DUI crash, which in Pennsylvania carries a prison term of three to 10 years. Though the new law gives judges latitude to add to the mandatory minimum one-year hit-and-run sentence, advocates are understandably measured in their praise.

“Drivers who are responsible for killing cyclists or pedestrians shouldn’t feel that it is in their best interest to flee the scene because the penalty for doing so is less than being caught DUI,” wrote Sarah Clark Stuart, campaign director for the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia, in an e-mail to Streetsblog. “The incentive to do so has now been reduced because each offense has the same penalty, but unfortunately, the loophole is not completely closed because the difference in mandatory sentences remains.”

“We wish that the Legislature had made each offense have the same three year mandatory sentence. Nevertheless, HB 208 is significant because now, in Pennsylvania, a hit-and-run driver faces stiffer consequences than before, which is good news for pedestrians and cyclists.”

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