GOODER AND HARDER, NEW YORK: Mamdani’s 15 mph speed limit isn’t about safety, it’s a money grab.

At a time when New Yorkers are already struggling with affordability, the mayor’s proposal risks becoming something else entirely: another automated toll on drivers.

Let’s start with the obvious question critics have already raised: Why would school-zone limits apply 24 hours a day?

Kids aren’t walking to school at midnight.

They aren’t crossing streets at 3 a.m.

Yet drivers could still be ticketed in the middle of the night for exceeding the limit in an empty school zone.

That’s not a safety policy. It turns speed cameras into toll booths.

And the money involved isn’t trivial.

New York City already collects hundreds of millions of dollars each year from speed-camera tickets, according to city reports. Expanding enforcement to thousands of locations means dramatically increasing the number of places where those cameras can issue fines.

One way or another, New Yorkers will be made to pay for Mamdani’s schemes.