{"id":304350,"date":"2026-07-24T00:31:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T00:31:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/304350\/"},"modified":"2026-07-24T00:31:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T00:31:12","slug":"mamdani-backed-charter-amendment-would-strip-bike-lane-opponents-of-legal-leverage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/304350\/","title":{"rendered":"Mamdani-backed charter amendment would strip bike lane opponents of legal leverage"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Mamdani administration wants to give the Department of Transportation sweeping new power to approve new bike and bus lanes, claiming it\u2019ll speed up such projects by 33% \u2014 deepening an\u00a0already bitter fight<\/a>\u00a0over the city\u2019s streets.<\/p>\n

The Commission on Government Efficiency, or COGE, was set to formally adopt five proposed amendments to the City Charter, which would be put to voters on the November election ballot.<\/p>\n

One of the proposals, \u201cQuestion 3,\u201d would get rid of inter-agency consultation requirements that critics \u2014 including\u00a0firefighters<\/a>,\u00a0disabled residents<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0neighborhood coalitions<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 have used to delay or halt recent bike lane projects.<\/p>\n

Council Member Joann Ariola called the amendment a dangerous overreach. Paul Martinka for NY Post<\/p>\n

Under the amendment, the DOT would also no longer have to complete community board presentations before beginning construction. The transportation commissioner could declare an \u201cimmediate need\u201d and build first.<\/p>\n

Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s office, in a press release detailing the five ballot questions, touted that the proposal would \u201cSpeed up street safety projects, including bike lanes, by at least 33%.\u201d<\/p>\n

New York City has more than 1,316 miles of cycling lanes, including more than 140 miles of on-street protected bike lanes, according to DOT.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The agency installed 27.9 miles of new protected bike lanes in fiscal year 2025 and DOT Commissioner Mike Flynn told the City Council in early March that the agency expected to outperform that in 2026, but didn\u2019t give a target.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Councilwoman Joann Ariola, a Queens Republican, called the proposed amendment \u201can extremely dangerous precedent.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis mayor is truly showing the totalitarian colors that so many of us warned about,\u201d Ariola said.\u00a0\u201cWhat he\u2019s doing is effectively using a handpicked charter commission to create a carefully engineered question meant to eliminate a law that he doesn\u2019t agree with.\u201d<\/p>\n

A cyclist drives the wrong way in a protected bike lane on 8th Avenue. Robert Miller for NY Post<\/p>\n

A cyclist rides the wrong way in a protected bike lane on 8th Avenue. Robert Miller for NY Post<\/p>\n

Ariola sponsored a 2025 law requiring DOT to consult with local firehouses about safety before implementing bike lanes and other major street redesigns.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Question 3 would let DOT skip those consultations.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday it is Local Law 6. Tomorrow, it might be any other law that the administration finds inconvenient,\u201d Ariola said.<\/p>\n

Opponents had relied on that law when suing<\/a> over the safety of a bike lane in Queens that they warned would keep firefighter\u2019s ladder trucks from reaching upper floors<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Janet Schroeder, director of the NYC E-Vehicle Safety Alliance, said the amendment would leave pedestrians more exposed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a pedestrian city first. Bike lanes do not protect pedestrians from an e-vehicle speeding, running lights or leaving the scene of a crash,\u201d Schroeder said. \u201cThis is an authoritarian-like street take over and we at NYC EVSA represent the majority opinion and will not allow this.\u201d<\/p>\n

But a spokesperson for the mayor\u2019s office framed the amendment as \u201ccommon sense.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis commonsense change will help the City deliver safer streets, more reliable bus service, and a better-connected bike-lane network more quickly, while ensuring safety and accessibility remain central to every street redesign,\u201d the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

Cyclists ride outside the bike lane in the cross walk on 8th Avenue. Robert Miller for NY Post<\/p>\n

If commissioners approve the amendment as drafted and certified to the Board of Elections by early August it would be placed before voters on the November 3 ballot.<\/p>\n

The bike-loving mayor\u2019s first budget put about $23 million toward a new bike network development program through 2031 and more than $11 million next year for 45 new cycling-focused staff at DOT.<\/p>\n

His budget also puts about $272 million toward buses for new bus lanes and bus infrastructure through 2033, including 70 new bus-focused staff at DOT.<\/p>\n

Less than 10% of New Yorkers regularly bike, according to DOT data. <\/p>\n

Schroeder also questioned whether the DOT was working with accurate crash data. The agency relies on NYPD reports to track pedestrian injuries caused by e-vehicles, but many pedestrians who are struck go directly to the hospital and never file a police report, Schroeder said.<\/p>\n

\u201cDOT should not lay down one more bike lane without accurate e-vehicle crash stats considered,\u201d Schroeder said. \u201cThis is dangerously incorrect. There are thousands of serious e-vehicle crashes, with serious injury in New York City every year and growing exponentially.\u201d<\/p>\n

An\u00a0NYU Langone study published in April\u00a0of more than 900 trauma patients at Bellevue Hospital found that \u201cmicromobility\u201d crashes grew from under 10%<\/a> of bike and scooter trauma cases in 2018 to more than half by 2023, and now account for nearly 7% of all trauma admissions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Mamdani administration wants to give the Department of Transportation sweeping new power to approve new bike and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":304351,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[13930,10483,5459,57,9,56,63,65,64,58,82],"class_list":["post-304350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-bike-lanes","tag-bikes","tag-department-of-transportation","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-us-news","tag-zohran-mamdani"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304350","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=304350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304350\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}