{"id":153183,"date":"2026-03-05T00:53:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T00:53:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/153183\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T00:53:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T00:53:12","slug":"under-oath-mayor-mamdanis-dot-chief-declines-to-commit-to-bus-and-bike-lane-mandates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/153183\/","title":{"rendered":"Under oath, Mayor Mamdani’s DOT chief declines to commit to bus and bike lane mandates"},"content":{"rendered":"

New York City Transportation Commissioner Mike Flynn<\/a> waffled on Tuesday when asked whether he\u2019d make good on Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s promise to aggressively add more bike and bus lanes across the five boroughs.<\/p>\n

During a City Council hearing, Transportation Chair Shaun Abreu pressed Flynn on his commitment to the \u201cstreets master plan,\u201d a law passed in 2019 that mandates the DOT install 30 miles of new bus lanes and 50 miles of new protected bike lanes each year.<\/p>\n

The DOT under previous Mayor Eric Adams ignored the law<\/a>. Mamdani vowed to follow the measure during his campaign, and last month even declared he would bring \u201cthe streets master plan back to life.\u201d<\/p>\n

But under oath before the Council, Flynn wasn\u2019t so sure.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe mayor’s been clear that we can and must do better, and that safe and livable streets are a priority for this administration,\u201d Flynn said after Abreu asked him about whether he\u2019d meet the requirements laid out in the streets master plan.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’re committed to delivering more transformative and ambitious street redesign projects going forward,\u201d he continued. \u201cWe are doing everything to make 2026 a great year and expect to significantly outperform the last couple of years while also building significant internal capacity to aim much higher and be bigger and bolder in the years ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n

Councilmember Lincoln Restler, not satisfied, told him he wanted specific numbers and plans.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don’t want to be coming back to you in six or nine or 12 months with failures again, on not building enough bike lanes, not building enough bus lanes, not building the pedestrian space,\u201d Restler said.<\/p>\n

Flynn still did not provide those specifics.<\/p>\n

Speaking with reporters after the hearing, Flynn admitted the DOT is still working on a plan to build more bus and bike lanes, as well as pedestrian plazas. He said he\u2019d release the plan later this year \u2014 but again declined to commit to hitting the goals laid out in the law.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u200aWe’re still developing the plan and we’re going to pull out all the stops to, increase our output both in terms of quantitative things or the the actual lane miles or square footage, but also in terms of the quality, we want to look at both,\u201d Flynn said.<\/p>\n

Adding dozens of miles of new bus lanes each year would be a key way for Mamdani to make good on his signature campaign promise to make the city’s buses both \u201cfast and free.\u201d Eliminating fares from buses would require funding and approval from Gov. Kathy Hochul and the state-run MTA, who have both criticized<\/a> the idea.<\/p>\n

Advocates like Sarah Lind with the advocacy group Open Plans want the city to take even further steps to redesign the city\u2019s streets. Lind called for the removal of cars from more intersections and the creation of \u201clow traffic neighborhoods,\u201d where streets in residential areas are redesigned to prevent drivers from using them as bypass routes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York City Transportation Commissioner Mike Flynn waffled on Tuesday when asked whether he\u2019d make good on Mayor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":153184,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9,56,63,65,64],"class_list":{"0":"post-153183","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-ny","10":"tag-nyc","11":"tag-nyc-headlines","12":"tag-nyc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153183\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}