This column originally appeared in The Politics Brief, our weekly newsletter on the people, power and policies that shape New Yorkers’ lives.<\/p>\n
Sign up<\/a> to get the full version where you can ask questions, share news tips and weigh in on the conversation. Hits inboxes on Wednesdays.<\/p>\n Hit-and-run drivers have killed four New Yorkers over the last week, and now street safety advocates are questioning Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s commitment to the Vision Zero goal of eliminating traffic deaths across the five boroughs.<\/p>\n The number of people killed in car crashes \u2014 which in many years exceeds the number of people killed by gunshots \u2014 has been a key performance indicator for 21st-century New York City mayors. But advocates fear Mamdani isn\u2019t taking the dramatic measures they say are necessary to address the problem, like redesigning streets and reducing speed limits across the city.<\/p>\n \u201cWe know what to do,\u201d said Mary Beth Kelly, one of the founding members of Families for Safe Streets. \u201cIt’s always been the political will that got in the way.\u201d<\/p>\n On Wednesday, Families for Safe Streets and Transportation Alternatives plan to stage a \u201cdie-in\u201d outside City Hall to highlight the growing problem. It\u2019s the first such demonstration since 2019, when around 1,000 New Yorkers<\/a> gathered in Washington Square Park to protest then-Mayor Bill de Blasio after a spike in cyclist fatalities.<\/p>\n Three cyclists were killed last week in separate hit-and-run incidents. A 22-year-old woman was also killed in a hit-and-run as she crossed the street in the West Village on Saturday morning. At least 18 cyclists have died so far this year, up from 10 deaths the city transportation department reported over the same period of 2025. Pedestrian deaths are down, though, with 58 so far this year compared to 70 at this point last year, NYPD data shows.<\/p>\n Mamdani has staked much of his agenda on transportation policies. Since taking office, he has revived bus lane<\/a> and bike lane<\/a> projects, focused on faster (if not free) buses<\/a> and regularly rides a bike to get around town<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cHe’s spoken very eloquently about the need to make our streets the envy of the world, and in order to have streets that are the envy of the world, they need to be free of fear, safe, and full of life,\u201d said Ben Furnas, the executive director of Transportation Alternatives. \u201cWe’d like to see him embrace those ambitions.\u201d<\/p>\n But in a sign that advocates were losing patience, Furnas last month released a statement<\/a> asking, \u201cWhere is Mayor Mamdani\u2019s Vision Zero Plan?\u201d The mayor has yet to release a comprehensive street safety strategy, he said.<\/p>\n Advocates have long argued that the city should expand two measures that have been successfully used in European cities: reducing speed limits and \u201cdaylighting.\u201d The latter bans parking near intersections to improve visibility for both pedestrians and drivers.<\/p>\n Mamdani has taken steps to slow drivers around schools. City Hall earlier this year announced a plan to lower speed limits to 15 mph in hundreds of school zones<\/a> equipped with automated speed cameras thanks to a new state law.<\/p>\n But after backing universal daylighting on the campaign trail, Mamdani has deferred to city transportation department officials who have questioned<\/a> the measure\u2019s efficacy, saying that reducing parking near corners actually makes them less safe. Earlier this year, officials said the city would implement daylighting at around 500<\/a> out of 40,000 intersections.<\/p>\n New York City mayors have long been accused of prioritizing the interests of drivers over other road users. Despite introducing Vision Zero, de Blasio was criticized<\/a> for moving too slowly on safety improvements. His successor Eric Adams oversaw a record low in traffic fatalities last year<\/a>, but his mayoralty was marked by 31 cyclist deaths in 2023, a modern-day record. Street safety advocates felt betrayed by his repeated decisions to scale back or nix street redesign projects.<\/p>\n Asked this week about the recent spate of cyclist deaths, Mamdani said he remains committed to Vision Zero. \u201cWhether you’re a pedestrian, a cyclist, a driver, a public transit rider, you should be entitled to the same level of safety,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The city\u2019s annual traffic death toll has seen promising periods of decline since Vision Zero\u2019s launch in 2014, but it has stayed above 200 for more than a decade.<\/p>\n Kelly, whose husband died in 2006 after he was hit by an NYPD tow truck, blamed mayors for bowing to political pressure. \u201cEvery one of them fell down on the job in terms of really having that vision for what this city could be if we weren’t in this chokehold of the automobile,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n We want to hear from you<\/p>\n Does DSA-NYC co-chair Gustavo Gordillo’s $1.5 million residence undermine his socialist message?<\/p>\n We’ll share responses in next week’s newsletter. (Sign up<\/a>!)<\/p>\n This week in New York politics<\/p>\n Mayor Mamdani plans to fix BQE. City officials say they need to erect a temporary highway next to Brooklyn Bridge Park in order to rebuild a half-mile section of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway that\u2019s been crumbling for years<\/a>. But the plan is raising some concerns<\/a>.<\/p>\n Homes hidden behind LLCs complicate pied-\u00e0-terre tax rollout. New York\u2019s opaque corporate ownership rules are complicating Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s new tax on luxury second homes as officials struggle to determine exactly who owns and lives in posh pads potentially subject to the surcharge<\/a>.<\/p>\n At an anarchist bookstore, news of NYC socialist leader\u2019s $1.5M home met with a shrug. Williamsburg\u2019s anarchist bookstore is called \u201cProperty Is Theft.\u201d But in a city with skyrocketing costs, patrons said having the co-chair of the local Democratic Socialists of America chapter live in a $1.5 million home in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, bought by his parents is relatable<\/a>.<\/p>\n New Jersey progressives are recruiting for 2027. Even as most political observers focus on this year\u2019s midterm congressional elections, recruitment for left-leaning outsider candidates for 2027 is already underway<\/a>.<\/p>\n New York counties resisting law limiting cooperation with ICE hit with subpoenas. New York Attorney General Letitia James sent subpoenas<\/a> to several counties she says haven\u2019t complied with a new state immigration law limiting cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Republicans oppose the law, and at least one GOP official says he won\u2019t comply with it<\/a>.<\/p>\n New York City street vendors to receive new permits. 21,500 legal permits will be distributed to street vendors after the City Council voted to approve the new food and merchandise vendor licenses in January<\/a>.<\/p>\n Democratic socialists’ plan to curb Jersey City police funding falls flat. A pair of Jersey City councilmembers endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America pushed a plan to trim $3 million from police overtime and salaries, but instead police are slated to get a $7 million increase even as municipal leaders grapple with a historic financial crisis<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This column originally appeared in The Politics Brief, our weekly newsletter on the people, power and policies that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":330598,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[75,84,83,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-330597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330597","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=330597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/330598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}