To hear Buffalo Common Council members tell it, their compromise with the Brown administration to limit the hours of the city’s school speed zones isn’t half bad.
They’re wrong: It is half bad.
While it offers the potential of imposing the zones only during the times they’re needed most, instead of all day long, it does nothing about the other half of the problem: the ridiculous 15 mph limit.
New enforcement hours for Buffalo's School Speed Zone Program are official now, ending a nearly yearlong dispute between the Brown administration and city lawmakers.
Do city leaders actually realize how snail-like 15 mph is? My car won’t even go that slow, even in “park.”
Buffalo’s limit, announced with flashing yellow beacons, stands in contrast to the school-zone speed restrictions in some other communities.
On Main Street outside of Williamsville South High School, for instance, motorists can go 25 mph when the restrictions are in effect.
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Ditto on Como Park Boulevard outside of Cayuga Heights Elementary School in Depew.
And on Transit Road outside of Hillview Elementary School in Lancaster, the limit is 35 mph on school days.
Do these suburbanites care any less about their kids’ safety than Buffalonians? I doubt it. But they’ve struck a more appropriate balance between the need to protect children and the need to get around efficiently.
Only in the City of Buffalo, where there’s practically a school on every other block – more than 80, when you add in the private and parochial schools – would they come up with such a ridiculous limit.
They’re starting with just 20 schools, but don’t think for a minute it will stop there. This is just the beginning as proponents will soon argue, “Why should students at some schools be safer than at others?”
When in-person learning resumes and the flashing amber lights warn of the folly ahead, the entire city will eventually become a yellow zone – and I’m not talking about Covid-19.
And spare me the tripe about “If it saves just one life ….” If we really want to save lives, we can go back to the horse and buggy – although they also go faster than 15 mph.
Yet raising that figure barely even came up in Buffalo’s discussions. All of the debate was about better signage and whether the lower limit should be in effect all day – as the mayor, school officials, teachers and parents wanted – or just when kids are arriving or leaving.
The compromise approved Tuesday puts the limit in effect at arrival and dismissal times while allowing a school to appeal to the district Council member to impose the limit during special events, like sports contests or field trips. One Council member already promised to approve all such requests.
If this is some nefarious scheme to force people to spend more time in the city, in the hope that by driving so slowly they’re more apt to notice stores and shops, it won’t work. All it will do is further encourage the rush to the Thruway. I’m sure I’m not the only one who already plans shopping trips based on how close a store is to an expressway. This will just accelerate that trend.
And I don’t trust for a minute the claim that they will fine only those people going 26 mph or faster. Who’s going to take that chance?
But if that’s true, make the limit 25 mph like other communities and then strictly enforce it so drivers won’t have to wonder.
But 15 mph? It’s hard not to agree with the critics who see this as nothing more than a money grab disguised as public safety – particularly when one legislator noted the plan, which uses cameras to nab offenders, could generate up to $30 million a year in fines when fully implemented.
During the Council’s discussion, one online commenter summed it up:
“Why doesn’t Mayor Brown just put credit and debit card machines alongside the road and have people swipe while they pass?”
But come to think of it, that wouldn’t work, because even drive-thru banking is faster than 15 mph.
