City Is Driving the Speed Limit Down for Lower Manhattan Motorists

Roadways below Canal Street will be the first among five Regional Slow Zones around the city with speed limits reduced to 20 miles an hour. Photo: Carl Glassman/Tribeca Trib

Slow down, Downtown.

That’s the Department of Transportation’s message to Lower Manhattan motorists. The city agency plans to create what it calls a Regional Slow Zone for roadways below Canal Street that will reduce the speed limit by 5 miles an hour to 20 miles an hour. It will be the first of five such zones, one for each borough, and is expected to take effect late this year or early next year.

It is unclear whether West Street, the FDR Drive or other thoroughfares below Canal Street will be exempt from the limit, or what will be the precise area to be included in the zone. “We will have more information on the exact geography as we proceed with the normal notification process,” a DOT spokesman said in an email.

Last month, the transportation agency announced the Regional Slow Zone as part of a wider plan that includes 250 other speed limit reductions around the city and prioritizes certain locations such as schools. The speed limit will be reduced to 10 miles an hour on all current and future streets where pedestrians, cyclists, and motorists share the right of way. The 10-mile-an-hour limit also will apply to Open Streets that have had “substantial design upgrades,” the DOT said.

The DOT said it will begin implementing its plan in September following a 60-day period of comment from the public, including Lower Manhattan’s Community Board 1.

“Speeding ruins lives, and reducing vehicle speeds by even a few miles per hour could be the difference between life or death in a traffic crash,” DOT Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez said in a statement.  He especially credited the speed limit reduction to the advocacy of Families for Safe Streets and to Amy Cohen, whose 12-year-old son Sammy Cohen Eckstein was killed by a speeding driver in 2013. The lower zones are made possible by state legislation known as “Sammy’s Law [1],” signed by Gov. Hochul in May.

Ten years ago the city reduced the speed limit from 30 to 25 miles an hour, unless otherwise posted. Currently, Lower Manhattan has 25- and 30-mile-an-hour areas, with some 20 mile-an-hour school zones.