Gear out the vote.
A Bushwick screen printing shop launched the ultimate Streetsblog-esque get-out-the-vote effort by handing out posters celebrating the bike-riding street cred of Democratic nominee, Zohran Mamdani.
Jess Moller, the screen processor at Bushwick Print Lab, designed the poster featuring a grinning Mamdani on an electric Citi Bike, quipping, as he did to a random woman who called him a Communist, "It's pronounced cyclist."
"First of all, it was just hilarious. He was so fast with that comeback," Moller said of her inspiration for the poster. "But we [at the shop] all ride bikes and our clients ride bikes. It's just something that's important to our community. Having that infrastructure and that representation shows that this is a viable form of transportation, and it's important to a lot of people."
The small silkscreen print shop and design lab made about 20 of the posters and promised to give them out on a first-come, first-served basis for those who can display their "I Voted!" sticker. The owner, Ray Cross, told Streetsblog that the phones keep ringing.
"People have been calling and writing us all morning, asking if we still have them, because it's sort of still circulating on Instagram," said Cross. "We'll make more if we need to. We have the ink and we have the means of production."
Political hopefuls in New York City have long claimed to be "avid cyclists," but few have proven to rack up the miles like Mamdani on a Citi Bike. Last election, Mayor Adams claimed to ride his bike every single day, telling City and State in 2018 that cycling was a "combination of commute and therapy," while posing with a bike with a backwards front fork.
Adams has since grown into a foe of the cycling community. In his last year in office, he ripped out a protected bike lane on Bedford Avenue, enacted a speed limit just for e-bikes, and initiated a criminal crackdown on those getting around by bike.
"It's great if candidates are actually going to ride, but I think we would have been attracted [to Mamdani] either way. It's nice to see him actually do the thing instead of doing it performatively," said Cross.
The shop's Instagram account usually gets like-counts in the double digits, but the Mamdani bike post has 2,631 likes and counting (as of 1 p.m.). Cross attributed the success to the excitement around today's election and the momentum behind Mamdani.
"It's great to have so much reach," said Cross. "The last couple things we posted got like 15-35 likes. So I guess we beat the algorithm. People are really excited about this election."
