You are reading

Astoria Assembly Member Calls for Cameras to Keep Motorists Out of Bike Lanes

Protected bike lane Skillman Ave. and 48th St. Sunnyside (Photo: QueensPost)

June 6, 2022 By Alexandra Adelina Nita

Queens Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani is calling for the installation of enforcement cameras to keep motorists out of protected bicycle lanes.

The Astoria assembly member introduced a bill last month that would see motorists who drive on protected bike lanes ticketed. The fine would be $50 for each infraction, and it would be sent to the registered owner of the vehicle.

Failure to pay the ticket by the date listed would result in an additional $25 fine.

The bill aims to deter motor vehicles from encroaching on protected bicycle lanes. The bill would see 50 cameras go up across the city as part of a pilot program.

The legislative session in Albany is now over for the year—and Mamdani aims to gain momentum for the bill and reintroduce it in 2023.

Mamdani’s bill has been prompted by an increase in traffic deaths in New York City, including a jump in cyclist fatalities.

In 2021, 273 people were killed on New York City streets, a 33 percent increase over 2018, the safest year in recent history. Crashes last year, according to city data, killed 124 pedestrians, 50 motorcyclists, 19 cyclists and 15 people on mopeds and e-bikes.

“Every day across NYC, cyclists like myself go head to head with cars in bike lanes — an incredibly scary & dangerous experience,” Mamdani tweeted.


Mamdani’s tweet included a photo of a car on top of a concrete barrier used to protect a bike lane. The tweet also includes video of a woman being spat on by a driver after she took footage of him being in a protected bike lane.

The bill is modeled after the New York City Department of Transportation’s speed camera program, which Mamdani says is effective. Mamdani cited a DOT report that said speeding dropped an average of 72 percent in areas where cameras are installed.

Mamdani’s bill has support in the state senate. Brad Hoylman, from Manhattan, is sponsoring the legislation in the upper chamber. Both bills did not get out of committee this year.

The bill would need the support of the city council, which is likely to back it.

email the author: news@queenspost.com
No comments yet

Leave a Comment
Reply to this Comment

All comments are subject to moderation before being posted.

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Recent News

Flushing man arrested for impersonating ICE agent in visa fraud scheme: Feds

An alleged Flushing con artist was arrested by FBI agents in Brooklyn Friday morning after a federal grand jury indicted him for perpetrating a visa fraud scheme by pretending to be an ICE agent.

Tommy Aijie Da Silva Weng, 49, was arraigned in Brooklyn federal court on Friday afternoon on an indictment charging him with wire fraud, mail fraud, and impersonating a federal law enforcement agent in connection to a scam to defraud an unidentified Chinese citizen who resides in the United States by claiming he could help her in obtaining a green card through an EB-5 Immigrant Investor Visa Program if she invested $500,000 with him for a project to build hotels in California.

Woman’s body pulled from East River near Fort Totten identified as Whitestone resident: NYPD

The NYPD identified the woman whose lifeless body was pulled from the chilly waters off Little Bay Park near Fort Totten on Sunday morning.

Police from the 109th Precinct in Flushing responded to a 911 call from a local fisherman who spotted an unconscious body floating in Little Bay along the East River at 11:15 a.m. An NYPD harbor unit brought the body to shore near the Cross Island Parkway and Totten Road, and EMS pronounced her dead at the scene.

Op-ed: The link between belonging and achievement 

Mar. 24, 2025 By Christopher Herman

No one can argue that it feels good to belong and we’ve all had that unpleasant experience of being the outsider. In recent years, research into the impact of belonging on achievement has drawn clear links between how included we feel and our academic performance. This is an under-acknowledged factor in schools when looking at why some students have stronger outcomes than others.