In Albany last session, more than 30 bills were introduced to allow lower speed limits in communities ranging from Hempstead, L.I. to Genoa, Cayuga County. For the past five years Rochester has introduced legislation to permit 15 mph speed limits, but with no success. According to John Thomas, Rochester's chief engineer, “More and more neighborhoods are identifying traffic as a top concern and we must have the appropriate tools to help solve the problem.”

Rochester, like cities and towns all over New York, is bound by a state law which requires a 30 mph minimum on local streets. The blanket rule has slowed efforts in NYC and elsewhere to use traffic calming designs to improve pedestrian safety and neighborhood quality of life.

This legislative session, instead of advocating a NYC-only law, T.A. is enlisting the support of municipalities and counties statewide to win passage of a bill which will allow local authorities to use traffic calming designs which slow motorists to pedestrian-friendly speeds. T.A.'s legislation is carefully crafted to assure that slower speed limits can only be used where there is traffic calming engineering. This provision should address paranoia about speed traps and the dreaded “patchwork” of local speed limits: a plague that apparently gives legislators and DOT officials nightmares.

T.A.'s traffic calming bill is sensible and gives local officials design flexibility to best meet their communities' needs. In contrast, the current state law arbitrarily establishes 30 mph as the minimum speed for communities ranging from 200-year-old Greenwich Village to new sprawling auto-only suburbs. Will right and reason win over inertia? Stay tuned.