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Council hears bills on speed humps near parks and special open‑streets activations; DOT favors flexible, data‑driven approaches
Summary
Intro 262 would require installation of speed humps on roadways adjacent to parks one acre or larger; DOT said mandating a single treatment citywide is inadvisable and described its data‑driven traffic calming toolbox. Intro 270, allowing special Open Streets activations on holidays and high‑pedestrian days, received DOT support.
Council Member Rita Joseph’s testimony introduced two safety and public‑space measures: Intro 262, which would require speed humps on roadways adjacent to parks of one acre or greater, and Intro 270, which would allow special activations of the Open Streets program on certain holidays and high‑pedestrian periods.
“Intro 2 6 2 is a local law to amend the administrative code of the city of New York, requiring the installation of speed humps on roadways adjacent to parks that are 1 acre or larger,” Council Member Rita Joseph said while submitting testimony for the record. She framed the bills as responses to resident safety concerns and requested that DOT support communities’ ability to celebrate cultural holidays by easing temporary Open Streets approvals.
DOT told the committee it uses a variety of traffic‑calming interventions and that mandating a single treatment across thousands of segments would be inadvisable. “We strongly believe that mandating a specific treatment in specific locations is inadvisable as the Agency utilizes a data driven approach as well as engineering judgment to target locations most in need of safety interventions,” DOT testified. The agency described speed humps as one of several tools — along with speed cushions, road diets, bike lanes, curb extensions, pedestrian refuge islands, and signal timing changes — and said it completed significant speed reducer work in recent years.
On Open Streets, DOT said it already offers programming on holidays — citing examples like Trick or Streets and expanded Summer Streets — and welcomed the concept of special activations for holidays including Memorial Day, Juneteenth, July 4, Labor Day, and Halloween, provided applications follow the existing review process.
Council members and community representatives asked how DOT assesses locations for speed humps versus other interventions. DOT said it uses speed data thresholds (for example, looking at the 85th percentile speeds and a pattern of vehicles exceeding the limit) and engineering judgment to determine the most appropriate treatment.
Ending — Next steps: DOT offered to work with Council members to identify candidate locations and to provide technical guidance about the range of traffic calming options; no formal committee vote was taken on either bill.
