STATE OF NEW YORK
________________________________________________________________________
6711
2025-2026 Regular Sessions
IN SENATE
March 20, 2025
___________
Introduced by Sen. WEBER -- read twice and ordered printed, and when
printed to be committed to the Committee on Transportation
AN ACT to amend the vehicle and traffic law, in relation to authorizing
local school districts and municipalities to determine and establish
school speed limits
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem-bly, do enact as follows:
1 Section 1. Subdivision (a) of section 1620 of the vehicle and traffic
2 law, as amended by chapter 563 of the laws of 2002, is amended to read
3 as follows:
4 (a) The department of transportation with respect to state highways
5 maintained by the state outside of cities having a population in excess
6 of one million, and highways on Indian reservations, may by order, rule
7 or regulation establish higher or lower maximum speed limits at which
8 vehicles may proceed on or along such highways than the fifty-five miles
9 per hour statutory maximum speed limit. No such maximum speed limit
10 shall be established at less than twenty-five miles per hour, except
11 that school speed limits may be established at not less than fifteen
12 miles per hour, for a distance not to exceed one thousand three hundred
13 twenty feet, on a highway passing a school building, entrance or exit of
14 a school abutting on the highway. The local school district and munici-
15 pality within which a school is located shall determine and establish
16 the maximum speed at which vehicles may proceed on a highway located in
17 a school zone. Absence of signs installed pursuant to this section shall
18 be presumptive evidence that the department of transportation has not
19 established a higher maximum speed limit than the fifty-five miles per
20 hour statutory limit.
21 § 2. Subdivision 1 of section 1622 of the vehicle and traffic law, as
22 amended by chapter 563 of the laws of 2002, is amended to read as
23 follows:
EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
[] is old law to be omitted.
LBD04046-01-5
S. 6711 2
1 1. Establish maximum speed limits at which vehicles may proceed on or
2 along such highways higher or lower than the fifty-five miles per hour
3 statutory maximum speed limit. No such limit shall be established at
4 less than twenty-five miles per hour, except that school speed limits
5 may be established at not less than fifteen miles per hour, for a
6 distance not to exceed one thousand three hundred twenty feet, on a
7 highway passing a school building, entrance or exit of a school abutting
8 on the highway. The local school district and municipality within which
9 a school is located shall determine and establish the maximum speed at
10 which vehicles may proceed on a highway located in a school zone.
11 § 3. This act shall take effect immediately.
