--- title: Kirsten Gillibrand Has a Simple Idea to Stop the Next Attack description: Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York introduced the STOP Act, similar to a House bill designed to keep pedestrians safe from from terrorists canonical: https://time.com/5006196/new-york-city-attack-kirsten-gillibrand-bollards/ author: Maya Rhodan article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-11-01T20:57:27.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T18:04:50.668Z article:section: Politics og:title: Kirsten Gillibrand Has a Simple Idea to Stop the Next Terror Attack og:description: It would cost $50 million. og:url: https://time.com/5006196/new-york-city-attack-kirsten-gillibrand-bollards/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt31e46d40f0642afe/6988e439096a94df2c6a03e0/terror-attack-new-york.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Police continue investigating terror attack site in New York City, USA - 01 Nov 2017 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Kirsten Gillibrand Has a Simple Idea to Stop the Next Terror Attack twitter:description: It would cost $50 million. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt31e46d40f0642afe/6988e439096a94df2c6a03e0/terror-attack-new-york.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Kirsten Gillibrand Has a Simple Idea to Stop the Next Terror Attack by [Maya Rhodan](https://time.com/author/maya-rhodan/) ## Maya Rhodan Nov 1, 2017 8:57 PM UTC  Investigators work at the scene of yesterday's attack where a man driving a truck killed eight people and injured 11 in New York City on Nov. 1, 2017. Investigators work at the scene of yesterday's attack where a man driving a truck killed eight people and injured 11 in New York City on Nov. 1, 2017.Justin Lane—EPA/EFE/REX/Shutterstock by [Maya Rhodan](https://time.com/author/maya-rhodan/) ## Maya Rhodan Nov 1, 2017 8:57 PM UTC A day after a man [driving a rented pickup truck killed eight and wounded 12](http://time.com/5004500/new-york-city-lower-manhattan-attack/?xid=homepage) on a bike path in lower Manhattan, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York introduced a bill with a simple fix to stop the next attack: concrete planters. On Wednesday, the New York Democrat [introduced the Stopping Threats on Pedestrians Act](https://www.gillibrand.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/STOP%20Act1.pdf), or the STOP Act, in the U.S. Senate, which would establish a Department of Transportation grant program to fund the installation of local traffic barriers like bollards and planters designed to protect pedestrians and cyclists. The bill would authorize $50 million in spending on such projects over the next decade. In a statement, the Senator pitched the bill as a way to prevent ISIS’s current preferred method of inflicting terror — turning vehicles into weapons of mass destruction by using them to plow through groups of people. A vehicle was also used to kill an anti-racism protester during a neo Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Va., this year. “Providing adequate funding to install traffic barriers throughout cities across the country is a commonsense bipartisan measure that would help protect pedestrians and bicyclists from these kinds of hateful acts,” Gillibrand’s said in a statement. A[ similar bill was introduced](https://espaillat.house.gov/media/press-releases/reps-adriano-espaillat-and-daniel-donovan-introduce-bipartisan-pedestrian) by a bipartisan group of New York Congressmen earlier this month. Democratic Rep. Adriano Espaillat and Republican Rep. Daniel Donovan, both from New York, introduced their version of the STOP Act on Oct. 12\. In response to Tuesday’s terror attack, Rep. Espaillat pushed the bill in a tweet. > [](https://twitter.com/RepEspaillat/status/925460489827704834) In introducing that bill, Donovan pointed to vertical steel posts, or bollards, in place in Times Square. Those posts were credited with stopping a driver who sped through the high-traffic tourist attraction last May. Though [Richard Rojas still killed one person and injured several](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/13/nyregion/driver-in-deadly-times-square-crash-is-charged-with-murder.html), without the bollards many have said the death toll [could have been much worse](https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2017/05/why-more-people-didnt-get-hurt-in-times-square/527253/). Cities and urban planners have been embracing bollards as a method of keeping pedestrians safe from vehicular threats for some time. Washington’s [WAMU](https://wamu.org/story/13/03/22/how%5Fdid%5Fdc%5Fbecome%5Fa%5Fcity%5Fof%5Fbollards/) has described D.C. as a “[city of bollards](https://wamu.org/story/13/03/22/how%5Fdid%5Fdc%5Fbecome%5Fa%5Fcity%5Fof%5Fbollards/),” which the radio station says began being installed after the Oklahoma City bombings in 1995\. After Sept. 11, aesthetically pleasing bollards were erected in New York’s[ Financial District](http://www.chicagotribune.com/chi-090806wallstreet-story-story.html) as a method of keeping vehicles, especially those containing bombs, from passing through the area. As Justin Davidson wrote for [_New York_ magazine](http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/11/how-nyc-could-have-protected-those-cyclists-and-pedestrians.html) on Wednesday: “We can’t crazy-proof all of New York, but the city could do a far more thorough job of safeguarding places where cyclists and pedestrians cluster.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5006196/new-york-city-attack-kirsten-gillibrand-bollards/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5006196/new-york-city-attack-kirsten-gillibrand-bollards/"},"headline":"Kirsten Gillibrand Has a Simple Idea to Stop the Next Terror Attack","datePublished":"2017-11-01T20:57:27.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T18:04:50.668Z","description":"It would cost $50 million","url":"https://time.com/5006196/new-york-city-attack-kirsten-gillibrand-bollards/","keywords":["Congress","Senate","New York","Terrorism","kirsten gillibrand","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt31e46d40f0642afe/6988e439096a94df2c6a03e0/terror-attack-new-york.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Maya Rhodan","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/maya-rhodan/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt31e46d40f0642afe/6988e439096a94df2c6a03e0/terror-attack-new-york.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Police continue investigating terror attack site in New York City, USA - 01 Nov 2017","caption":"Police continue investigating terror attack site in New York City, USA - 01 Nov 2017","creditText":"Justin Lane—EPA/EFE/REX/Shutterstock","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/congress/","name":"Congress"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5006196/new-york-city-attack-kirsten-gillibrand-bollards/","name":"Kirsten Gillibrand Has a Simple Idea to Stop the Next Terror Attack"}}]}] ```