Top officials in Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s Department of Transportation (DOT) figure to face sharp questions from members of the City Council’s Transportation Committee on Tuesday over the agency’s struggles under former Mayor Eric Adams to build the number of bus and bike lanes required by the 2019 Streets Master Plan.
Recently-appointed Transportation Committee Chair Shaun Abreu (D-Manhattan) said he called the hearing to “look beneath the hood” of the agency’s failing year after year to meet the plan’s now-expired mandates for constructing new bus and bike lanes.
“They’ve fallen well below the benchmarks that are required by law,” Abreu told amNewYork. “In order to make our buses faster and accessible, we need the administration to provide a full accounting as to why those obligations have not been fulfilled in the last four years.”
During the March 3 hearing, city lawmakers will also discuss Brooklyn Council Member Lincoln Restler’s bill to revamp the city’s outdoor dining program. The legislation would make outdoor dining year-round once again, following a sizable drop-off in restaurants participating in the program after the council under former Speaker Adrienne Adams and the last mayoral administration instituted the seasonal version.
“The Adams administration had decimated outdoor dining as we know it,” Restler said. “So tomorrow, we’re going to be hearing our bill to make outdoor dining year-round once again and to make it far easier for restaurants to participate in the program.”
City Council Speaker Julie Menin supports Restler’s bill, which she outlined as one of her priorities last month.
Adams fell short on Streets Plan targets
Under the Streets Master Plan, passed by the City Council in 2019 under Adams’ predecessor Bill de Blasio, the city was required to build 150 miles of new protected bus lanes and 250 miles of new protected bike lanes over five years.
However, the Adams administration only built about 28 miles of bus lanes and 95 miles of protected bike lanes during that period.
Adams’ City Hall killed, paused, or scaled back several bus and bike lane projects across the Big Apple during his tenure. Those include pausing the project to build center-running bus lanes on the Bronx’s Fordham Road and the McGuinness Boulevard redesign — both of which Mamdani has revived since taking office.
Mamdani, who won the mayor’s race last year on a pledge to make buses faster and fare-free, has declared that he is “bringing the Streets Master Plan back to life.” His DOT is already revisiting several other bus and bike lane projects in addition to Fordham and McGuinness.
Getting more bus lanes and busways would likely help Mamdani reach his goal of speeding up city buses overall.
Nonetheless, Abreu said he plans to press DOT Commissioner Mike Flynn and other top department officials with questions aimed at understanding how they will meet the plan’s requirements over the coming years.
“Also looking forward, how are they going to fulfill the targets that are very much required by law in the next five-year plan? And so, we’re going to be looking at whether the city has a plan and whether or not it has the resources to execute the plan that the Streets Master Plan requires.”
Asked about the hearing, DOT spokesperson Vincent Barone said, “We look forward to testifying tomorrow.”
Mamdani’s preliminary budget, proposed last month, includes an additional $5 million in recurring funding for additional DOT staff over the next four fiscal years. At the time, a senior administration official told reporters that Mamdani intends to invest more in the Streets Plan than what is included in his preliminary budget.
Ben Furnas, executive director of the group Transportation Alternatives, said in a statement to amNewYork that the advocacy organization hopes the mayor, DOT, and City Council “hear New Yorkers’ demands for safe streets and better infrastructure.”
He added that they should, “respond with a clear budget line for the Streets Plan in the mayor’s executive budget, an updated Streets Plan with clear metrics, and a bill out of the City Council that returns pedestrian space requirements to the Streets Plan. New Yorkers are still owed more than 100 miles of protected bike lanes, and we’ll keep pushing until New Yorkers from all walks of life feel comfortable hopping on a bike to get around.”
