The city Department of Transportation (DOT) should lower speed limits to 20 miles per hour across 17 community board districts that have signaled support for the change under Sammy's Law , as well as in the districts with the highest traffic death rates, city Comptroller Mark Levine and several other elected officials urged in a Monday letter.

In Levine's Oct. 19 missive, he and the other signatories urge DOT Commissioner Mike Flynn to quickly pursue " district-wide implementation" of Sammy's Law on eligible streets in each of the 17 community districts whose respective community boards have passed resolutions calling for the change. They also asked Flynn to mandate lower speed limits in the community districts with the highest numbers of deadly crashes.

Furthermore, Levine attached to the letter his office's analysis of traffic crashes and deaths across the 17 community districts since the community boards passed their supportive resolutions.

"Our request builds on growing support from community and elected officials across the city," the letter reads. "Sixty-three elected officials representing our city have called on NYCDOT to expand implementation of Sammy’s Law, including some of the signatories of this letter. Today, we join together in calling for a broader, district-wide implementation."

Those 63 elected officials sent a similar letter to Mamdani last month. Other signatories on the letter include the borough presidents of Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens — Brad Hoylman-Sigal, Antonio Reynoso, and Donovan Richards respectively — as well as City Council Transportation Committee Chair Shaun Abreu of Manhattan.

They requested that Flynn provide a written response with " NYCDOT’s strategy to utilize Sammy’s Law authority to reduce speed limits." Although the city has had the power to implement Sammy's Law more broadly for over a year, it has yet to require 20 mph speed limits on most city streets. The safe streets group Transportation Alternatives has said that the city has lowered speed limits to 20 mph on just 2% of eligible streets.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani earlier this year directed DOT to use the law for lowering speed limits to 15 mph on streets directly adjacent to public schools.

But the signatories argued that while lowering speed limits near schools is an "important step in the right direction," it is " not enough on its own."

Across the 17 community districts that issued resolutions in support of expanding Sammy's Law, there were 22,490 crashes, 60 fatalities, and 11,644 serious injuries last year, according to the analysis. There have been 14 deaths across those districts. Those districts include Manhattan Community Boards 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9; Brooklyn Community Boards 1, 2, 4, 6, and 7; Queens Community Boards 1, 2, and 6; and Bronx Community Board 6.

" We urge the NYCDOT to use this analysis to inform the next phase of implementation and consider prioritizing both communities that have passed supportive resolutions and those with highest crash rates," the letter reads. "This approach would respond to demonstrated community support, while directing safety interventions towards the areas where the need is greatest."

The analysis also points to broad support across community boards for more broadly installing other traffic safety measures, particularly daylighting — the practice of removing parking spaces next to intersections in order to increase visibility for road users. Twenty-three community boards have passed resolutions in support of daylighting more intersections, according to the analysis.

Lowering speed limits on more city streets and daylighting more intersections — at least 1,000 each year — are both policy goals contained in Mamdani's updated plan for the city's Vision Zero program to reduce traffic deaths and serious injuries.

DOT spokesperson Mona Bruno said the agency is reviewing Levine's letter, but pointed to its commitment under Mamdani's Vision Zero plan to use Sammy's Law accross whole neighborhoods.

"The Mamdani administration is committed to reducing speed limits within entire neighborhoods or other defined zones throughout the five boroughs," she said in a statement. "This commitment is in addition to our ongoing work to utilize Sammy’s Law to install 15 MPH school zones at every eligible school, with hundreds already installed and a goal for 800 to be in place by the end of the year."

However, the plan does not specify where or when those expansions will take place. Moreover, the daylighting commitment calls for using hardened daylighting or other “better treatments," so it is unclear how much daylighting will actually be done.