Activists Call on Albany to Renew NYC School Zone Speed Cameras

Worried that Albany will not continue — let alone expand — New York City's school zone speed camera program,  activists and city officials rallied in Brooklyn on Wednesday to call for state legislators to return to Albany for a special session and turn the cameras back on.

Victor Calise is the Commissioner of the Mayor's Office for People with Disabilities. Addressing the Brooklyn rally, he said the city needed the cameras "for one simple reason. They save lives. Children's lives."

The state law authorizing the cameras expired in July after the state Senate failed to extend the program. The cameras send a ticket to vehicles traveling more than 10 mph above the speed limit. According to Janette Sadik Khan, a former commissioner of New York City's Department of Transporation, speeding has declined by more than 60 percent near schools with the cameras.

Activist Edith M. Prentiss, 66, who lives in Washington Heights, said the cameras aren't just about protecting children, but also seniors and the disabled. "People with wheelchairs know that the safe side of the street is the school, where the cameras are," she says, "because people slow down." Often, large cars and trucks can't see her in her wheelchair — slower speeds allow them to stop in time, before they hit her, she said.

A spokesman for Gov. Andrew Cuomo's office previously told WNYC that a special session would be meaningless if the Assembly and Senate don't have any intention to vote on the bill.