{"id":304625,"date":"2026-07-24T11:42:23","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T11:42:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/304625\/"},"modified":"2026-07-24T11:42:23","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T11:42:23","slug":"biking-with-aoc-in-her-queens-district","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/304625\/","title":{"rendered":"Biking With AOC in Her Queens District"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A lot of people want Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to run for president in 2028, but she\u2019s still the congresswoman representing the Bronx and Queens. And how does AOC get around her sprawling outer borough district? By bike, of course.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Streetsblog got wind of Ocasio-Cortez\u2019s new cycling kick earlier this year when she did an entire Instagram Live while navigating her East Elmhurst and Jackson Heights neighborhood on two wheels. Members of Congress are rarely seen riding bikes in big cities.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We immediately knew we had to see AOC biking IRL \u2014 and find out how navigating around cars parked in unprotected New York City bike lanes shapes her perspective on transportation policy.\u00a0So last month, the week before the June Democratic primary (she won 90 percent of the vote), <a rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=s1-jM1SuZR0\">she took us on a ride<\/a> around the Queens part of her district.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Despite all the attention on Ocasio-Cortez\u2019s political rise, little is ever said about its bike lane origins: When she first ran for Congress in 2018, Sunnyside and Woodside were embroiled in a contentious battle over the 43rd Avenue and Skillman Avenue protected bike lanes. The incumbent, Rep. Joe Crowley, opposed the project through his proxies on the local community board, while the upstart DSA challenger Ocasio-Cortez supported it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">She won, and a few weeks later, then-Mayor Bill de Blasio shrugged off Crowley\u2019s opposition and advanced the redesign.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Eight years later, Queens has a\u00a0lot\u00a0more bike lanes and pedestrian infrastructure than it did when Ocasio-Cortez first got elected. The crown jewel is probably the 34th Avenue Open Street \u2014 which the congresswoman described to us as quintessentially American.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe freedom of movement is something that is so core to just being a person and being an American. But also, our freedom to move is also our freedom to connect with each other, \u201d she said. \u201cYou can see [how] this one Open Street brought people together. \u2026 Being able to be brought out with each other is part of what helps us fight for one another. The more we fight for infrastructure like this, the better we get at raising our wages, the better we get at fighting for each others\u2019 rights, and the better we get at seeing past our differences and fighting for everyone\u2019s ability to live a dignified life.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Watch Ocasio-Cortez pedaling around with our own Managing Editor David Meyer below:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A lot of people want Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to run for president in 2028, but she\u2019s still the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":304626,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,63,52479,134,136,135],"class_list":["post-304625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-promoted","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304625","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=304625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304625\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}