Sammy’s Law advocates angry after push to give NYC power over its speed limit fails in Assembly

Control of New York City’s speed limits will remain in Albany after a bill to grant the city the authority to lower limits failed in the state Legislature.

Street safety advocates had hoped that the legislation, called Sammy’s Law and approved by the state Senate this month, might pass the Assembly in a two-day overtime session this week. But the Assembly ended the special session on Wednesday without taking up the bill, heading home for the year and leaving advocates steaming.

“It’s infuriating,” said Elizabeth Adams, deputy executive director for public affairs at the Manhattan-based advocacy group Transportation Alternatives. “This is really about keeping everyone safe.”

The legislation would allow the city to set its default speed limit to 20 mph and lower some streets’ limits to 10 mph. Versions of the bill have failed to pass the Legislature for three straight years.

Gov. Hochul and Mayor Adams support the legislation. And the City Council approved a so-called home rule message last month backing the bill.

But the proposal, which passed the Senate by a bipartisan 55 to 7 vote, has faced challenging straits in the Legislature’s lower chamber.

The legislation’s Assembly sponsor, Linda Rosenthal, said before the special session that she thought the bill might have enough votes to get through her 150-seat chamber.

But in the end, she said, it lacked sufficient support.

“We lost valuable time because the budget went over by a month, and I really think that played a role in hampering progress on some important issues,” Rosenthal, an Upper West Side Democrat, said in an interview Thursday.

“We just can’t be deterred,” she said, adding that the proposal had more support than it did a year ago. “This is just a bump in the road.”

The exact sticking points in negotiations were unclear, but outerborough lawmakers from both parties balked at the bill, apparently concerned the measure would be disruptive for their car-driving constituents.

Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, a Bronx Democrat, declined to bring the legislation to a vote.

The bill is named in honor of Sammy Cohen Eckstein, a 12-year-old boy killed by a van as he chased a soccer ball onto Prospect Park West in Park Slope, Brooklyn, a decade ago.

His mother, Amy Cohen, has been a driving force behind the measure.

She said Heastie told her Wednesday that “I am just one vote,” seemingly implying he was powerless to get the legislation over the hump.

“I think we had the votes by far,” a dejected Cohen said by phone Thursday. “I believe that the Assembly had an obligation to force those people to go on the record.”

The Assembly is not scheduled to return before next year.

A spokesman for Heastie, Mike Whyland, said in a statement that each “community is different, and some members have significant concerns with moving forward with Sammy’s Law at this time.”

“They would like a more collaborative discussion with the NYC DOT on how to deal with traffic mitigation and safety issues in their communities,” said the statement, referring to the city Transportation Department.

At least 107 New Yorkers have died and more than 20,000 have been injured in New York City motor vehicle crashes so far this year, according to city data.

The city dropped its default speed limit from 30 mph to 25 mph in 2014, the first citywide reduction in a half-century. The shift was pushed by Mayor Bill de Blasio; the Legislature and Gov. Andrew Cuomo approved the pruning of the limit.

Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal, the Greenwich Village Democrat who sponsored Sammy’s Law in the Senate, said it was “heartbreaking” that the bill foundered in the Assembly, but pledged to keep working to pass it.

“We will fight another day,” he said.