Mayoral challengers say they want better transit. You're right to be skeptical
The people challenging Eric Adams are talking the talk about transit. So did Adams, once
It’s no surprise to you as a sharp news consumer that at this point in any campaign, you simply cannot take anyone’s word for anything. If that is news to you, please show us your wallet, it has been recalled and I must take it back to my wallet workshop for repairs immediately. The 2025 mayoral race was already been hugely consequential even before the threat of the Trump clown car of Kirkland-brand Babadooks loomed in the federal government; and now it’s even more so. Mayor Adams squeaked by in the last primary with only a margin of about 7,000 votes, which means basically the equivalent of the attendance of a rain-delayed Mets game in March got us into this mess.
The race to unseat Mayor Eric Adams — a man who has increasingly been reduced to right-wing viral clip bait — ramped up this week with one of the first forums featuring all his would-be Democratic challengers to discuss transit issues. The forum on Monday was hosted by the Riders Alliance and it was good news for anyone who cares about street safety, bus lanes, pedestrianization and Fair Fares. All six candidates at the forum appeared to play to the room and agree on most things: pro-congestion pricing, pro-bus lanes, anti-car dependency, in favor of finding non-NYPD ways to increase safety on the subways. Several were specifically in favor of turning the old headphones store in the Times Square station into a homeless services center.
“I want to be your mayor because I believe that New York city can be a city for everyone and that definitely includes those of us who don’t have a driver's license,” state Sen. Jessica Ramos of Queens said, echoing sentiments of most of the candidates (read all about them in our guide here, we’re not going to list them again). They all seemed eager to jump to the front of the pack as bonafide transit true believers, talking about the buses they took to high school or their vision for dreaming big.
Dave Colon
“I’m not relying on someone else to tell me,” state Sen. Zellnor Myrie of Brooklyn said, recalling showing up to college classes drenched in sweat when the buses ran late. “I’m relying on what I lived.”
(The one exception to the general consensus on a few issues was lawyer Jim Walden, who famously represented clients who tried and failed to get the Prospect Park West bike lane removed in 2011, a case he took pro bono. Walden is also running as an independent so won’t be in the Democratic primary).
For a full breakdown of the candidate’s comments on issues of transit, fare beating, whether they support free buses and more, read Dave’s writeup here.
But the first votes in the ranked-choice primary aren’t until June, and that’s a million years in New York City politics, and who even knows if Eric Adams will last that long or if he will be appointed to head the Trump administration’s Office of Shining Swagger by then.
And the thing is, at this point in the campaign, Adams was also talking the talk about transit and saying the things that advocates wanted to hear. He made pledges about increasing bus service, and in 2022 was even presented with a jacket by the Riders Alliance declaring him “Bus Mayor,” a garment which (NYPD don’t read this) if I ever caught the mayor wearing in the streets, I would have no choice but to physically fight him to obtain it for my own closet.
Only NY would charge $750 for this jacket pic.twitter.com/uRQY4eQ6Ni
— katiehonan.bsky.social (@katie_honan) August 23, 2022
Do we think this batch of candidates is any different?
“Subway and bus riders have every reason to be skeptical of politicians' promises, having been burned so many times, even though we make up a majority of New Yorkers,” Riders Alliance spokesman Danny Pearlstein told The Groove after the forum. “Going forward, we'll do everything we can to hold our leaders accountable. It's why we organize and we're certainly not letting up, even when we like what we hear.”
The crop of candidates are all so far running to the left of Adams (save for Walden), and, as we’ve noted before, so far none of them seem brazenly corrupt, infected with cop brain or indebted to a B-tier foreign government for more leg room on an airplane.
But let’s check in at how Adams looked at this point in the campaign to give it all some perspective. We’re hopping in the blog time machine and going back to December 2020, which by all remembrances was a terrible time. Here’s a breakdown (courtesy of three candidate questionnaires they filled out for Streetsblog, leaving a convenient paper trail for us to follow today):
Pro-open streets
In 2020, Adams said: “The largest quantity of public space in New York City is found on our city streets,” adding that open streets and restaurants in the open streets had been widely popular.
“It’s a shame that it took a pandemic to embrace public space ideas that have become commonplace around the world. We must expand this program to underserved communities and communities that have a dearth of public space options.”
How did that work out?
Bad! The biggest open streets programs have suffered budget cuts and have trimmed their hours; reductions in the program are more common than expansions. Even the throngs of tourists who flood the sidewalks of Fifth Avenue in Manhattan won’t have as many open streets opportunities this year. The last batch of outdoor dining setups went down last week, replaced again with car parking, after the City Council insisted on a compromised, seasonal program.
Bus-ted
Would-be “bus mayor” Adams said in 2020 that he supported “street redesign that vastly improves bus service, makes cycling and pedestrian travel safer, and de-incentivizes private car ownership in our transit-rich communities, both in Manhattan and across the city.” He said that meant expanding bus ways and expanding open streets.
How’d that turn out?
Bad! Adams canceled a promised bus improvement plan for the Bronx and has never come close to meeting the Streets Master Plan law requirement of 30 miles of bus lanes per year. Bus speeds in the city are the slowest in the nation. And unlike the subway, bus lane installation is something the mayor can actually control. The Riders Alliance asked for the Bus Mayor jacket back in 2023. I repeat: give the jacket to me.
Bike superhighways?
Well, you know where this is going. Adams said he would look at 700 miles of elevated bridges, highways and subway lines as unused public space that could be turned into community space and bicycle superhighways. He also advocated for “the creation of bicycle superhighways in every borough” to create “safe routes to parks” that would connect communities to parks with infrastructure and traffic calming.
“We must provide mobility options for all New Yorkers, and create safe street infrastructure where daylighting and/or protected bike lanes are added as a need.”
How’d that turn out?
So bad! There are no superhighways to parks, and even the dinky little few block stretch of Underhill Avenue in Brooklyn that was given traffic calming measures to become sort of a pathway to one park became embroiled in wildly outsized controversy after Adams stepped in saying there needed to be more community input, after the city had already done several rounds of community input. Robert Moses of bikes, he was not.
So all this is to say, you should be paying attention to this campaign, and take every promise with a grain of salt. There will be many more forums where many more promises will be made to many more conflicting interests before the primary in June. All the candidates at Monday’s forum said they coveted the Bus Mayor jacket themselves, but whether they’ll actually wear it — physically or spiritually — is yet to be determined.
Watch the full forum here:
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