ALBANY — Some politicians apparently just want their constituents to be unsafe.
The state Senate and the Assembly both voted by overwhelming margins to reauthorize New York City’s highly successful, school zone speed camera program, but there were outliers.
On June 13, the Senate the measure passed by a vote of 38-21 — with three of those "nay" votes coming from districts in New York City: Stephen Chan, Republican of Bensonhurst, Andrew Lanza, Republican of Staten Island, and Jessica Scarcella-Spanton, Democrat of Staten Island.
Their reasoning is bizarre: Chan bragged in a floor speech that he made more than 5,000 traffic stops in his career as an NYPD cop. In a floor debate on a different bill, he gave a confusing speech that concluded that "slowing down the vehicle is not the answer."
Loyal Streetsblog readers will recall that Scarcella-Spanton introduced a bill (with Assembly Member Stacey Pheffer-Amato, more on her later) to exempt NYPD officers from the congestion pricing toll even when they're off-duty.
In the Assembly, the bill passed by a 110-31 vote on June 17 — with nine of those "no" votes from city lawmakers whose constituents have directly benefitted from the documented safety benefits of speed cameras. They are:
- Alec Brook-Krasny (R-Coney Island)
- Lester Chang (R-Boro Park)
- Simcha Eichenstein (D-Midwood)
- Michael Novakhov (R-Gravesend)
- Stacey Pheffer Amato (D-Rockaways)
- Sam Pirozzolo (R-Staten Island)
- Michael Reilly (R-Staten Island)
- David Weprin (D-Jamaica Estates)
- Kalman Yeger (D-Sheepshead Bay)
Assembly members don't often explain their votes — especially when they're all rushing out of town at the end of the session. But several of these elected officials have discussed speed cameras before:
Most famously, Novakhov attended the funeral for a mother and two daughters who were killed by a recidivist speeder in his district, and told Streetsblog that there are “too many” speed cameras and that it’s normal to race around the kid-filled neighborhood at 11 miles per hour over the speed limit. He disputed that getting six speed-camera-issued tickets in a 12-month period is a lot.
Brook-Krasny was in the Assembly in the last decade ... until he was arrested for his alleged role in a $6.3-million illegal narcotics scheme in 2017. The case ended in a hung jury and he later regained his seat.
It's worth noting that a car that Brook-Krasny is frequently seen driving has been slapped with 18 speed- and red-light camera tickets since August 2021.
In an interview with the Queens Chronicle last year, Pheffer Amato described herself as a moderate, but said she has always voted "no" on speed cameras because they are part of a “radical socialist agenda.”
Mid-Island Republican Pirozzolo told the SI Advance in 2023, "Speed cameras, increased tolls, fines, all dig into the bottom line of Staten Island families who already bear an unjustifiable cost of living." He did not say that speed cameras do not dig into the bottom line of any driver who observes the speed limit.
In the same story, Reilly, who represents the South Shore, said that "chief" among his problems with that year's budget was Gov. Hochul's expansion of the school zone speed camera program.
"This is something that I have long rallied against, because I do not believe that this program, nor others like it, have anything to do with traffic safety," he said. "This program has everything to do with revenue generation. This is just another tax on working families living in car-reliant communities like Staten Island."
Weprin is most famous for his years of crusading against congestion pricing. But he once famously told the Times that after the pandemic, "People will need their cars more than ever."
