Pol 'shut off' speed cams
Parents, safe-streets advocates and politicians all slammed the state Senate on Thursday for putting politics before safety in failing to renew a speed-camera program in the final hours of the legislative session.
Lawmakers tabled a bill to extend a four-year-old pilot program that installed 140 cameras around city schools — and which would have brought the total number of cameras to 290 citywide.
Democrats blamed the Republican-controlled body for refusing to take up the bill unless it included a tacked-on, unrelated measure by GOP-caucusing Democratic state Sen. Simcha Felder of Brooklyn.
Republicans accused Democrats of being unwilling to compromise.
Either way, parents say lawmakers in Albany need to do their job to protect kids.
“We need cameras or a stop sign or something because people just fly down Metropolitan [Avenue]. It’s a tragedy waiting to happen really,” said Wendy Mehmet, 45, as she was picking up her child from PS 132 in Brooklyn on Thursday.
Legislators “absolutely need to keep them in, and they should work on getting more,” PS 132 mom Veronica Rubio, 38, said of the speed cams.
“If I was speeding on Metropolitan and I got a ticket, I would never speed here again because I would be aware.”
Paul Steely White, executive director of Transportation Alternatives, said, “The failure of the state Senate and governor to pass a bill extending and expanding speed safety cameras is a travesty.”
The cameras reduce speeding by 63 percent and pedestrian injuries by 23 percent, according to Comptroller Scott Stringer. The city Department of Transportation would not say whether the cameras will be removed or simply shut off when the program lapses on July 25.
“We are currently reviewing our options for how we would proceed under those circumstances,” said a DOT spokesman, adding the agency supports expansion of the “lifesaving cameras.”
Gov. Cuomo on Thursday threatened to call a special legislative session to push the speeding-camera bill through.
“I will bring them back at any time at a moment’s notice,” he said.
About 30 protesters blocked traffic outside of Cuomo’s Midtown offices on Thursday night, demanding the special session.
Nine of the protesters — including Queens mom Amy Tam-Liao, whose 3-year-old daughter was struck and killed by a car in 2013 — were arrested for disorderly conduct, according to law-enforcement sources.
The failure of the Senate and governor to pass a bill extending and expanding speed safety cameras is a travesty. - Paul Steely White (left), executive director of Transportation Alternatives