State Grants Long Beach Authority to Reduce Speed Limits

State lawmakers last week passed legislation that grants the City of Long Beach the authority to reduce speed limits on residential roads on the President Streets to below 30 miles per hour.

The legislation allows city officials to pass a local law to set speed limits on Cleveland, Harding, Mitchell, Belmont, Atlantic, Coolidge, Wilson and Taft avenues. Gov. Andrew Cuomo still must sign the legislation that also grants the Town of Hempstead the same abilities for 17 residential streets from Lido Beach to Point Lookout.

Assemblyman Harvey Weisenberg, D-Long Beach, and Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos. Dean Skelos, R-Rockville Centre, worked jointly on the legislation.

“We need to give local officials the ability to make our roadways safer for local families,” Weisenberg said in a statement in which he highlighted the recent accident of a 14-year-old boy who was riding his skateboard on Lido Boulevard and was struck by a car and seriously injured.

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The statute also provides that a majority of Lido Beach residents may petition the Hempstead Town Board to lower the speed limit to less than 30 miles per hour on additional streets, similar to an authority already provided to residents of Point Lookout, according to the Long Beach Herald.

Scott Rief, a spokesman for Skelos, said:

“By passing this legislation, we have taken steps to enhance the safety of pedestrians, motorists and the residents of Long Beach.”

Last year, hundreds of President Streets residents signed a petition that supported the legislation to reduce the maximum speed limit on their narrow, one-way streets from 30 miles per hour, but the bill died in Albany.

In February 2012, the City Council approved a home rule request to have the state senate and assembly re-introduce and enact legislation to reduce the maximum speed limit to 15 miles per hour.