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The incoming top deputy mayor in the Mamdani administration said on Monday that the new leadership of the Department of Transportation will be "committed to actually achieving" the Streets Master Plan, as well as other Vision Zero strategies for safety as key elements of achieving the incoming mayor's central transportation promise: fast and free buses.
Incoming First Deputy Mayor Dean Fuleihan's answer came in response to a question from former Council Speaker Corey Johnson, who spent much of his last two years in office championing the cause of "breaking the car culture." Though Johnson only asked about achieving "fast and free" buses, Fuleihan addressed Johnson broader efforts:
"To effectuate fast and free buses, we need a department that is actually committed to achieving actually what you put together, when you were speaker, a [Streets Master] plan that said, ‘Here's the roadmap for how New York's streets should be managed and here's how many bike lanes [must be built] and here's things that should be happening for pedestrians,'" Fuleihan said at the Citizens Budget Commission breakfast, in remarks first reported by Nick Garber. "Obviously that should be revisited to make sure there is a commitment to it. Vision Zero and all those things matter on safety … and fast and free buses is a component of ... how New Yorkers will judge how we are delivering day-to-day services … and excellence."
Johnson's Streets Master Plan requires the city to install 50 miles of protected bike lanes and 30 miles of dedicated bus lanes every year after the first year of the Adams administration (when the benchmarks were slightly lower). The current administration has repeatedlyfailed to come close — and those shortcomings have even been documented by DOT. Johnson's successor with the gavel, Adrienne Adams, once said she'd consider suing the Adams administration for its failure to implement the law, but then didn't bother to hold Hizzoner accountable.
On the plus side, partly due to congestion pricing as well as now 12 years of Vision Zero redesigns, crashes and injuries from crashes are down significantly this year.
In the first 11 months of 2024, there were 83,678 reported crashes injuring 49,618 people. Over the same period this year, there were 77,891 reported crashes, injuring 45,440 people. Those are declines of 7 percent and 8 percent, respectively.
Activists were stoked by Fuleihan’s promise.
"It's extremely exciting to see that the mayor-elect's team is already committing to safe streets, more bus and bike lanes, and better spaces for pedestrians,” said Elizabeth Adams of Transportation Alternatives. “We're ready to partner with the incoming administration to reshape our city into one where everyone can get around safely and affordably."
Her counterpart at Open Plans was a bit less optimistic, given so many mayoral promises that have not been kept,
“We have to move beyond Vision Zero — safe streets are just the bare minimum for a livable city,” said Co-Executive Director Lisa Orman. “We deserve so much more. We will look to the incoming Mamdani administration to champion streets that actually add to public life. Prioritizing space for people looks like more Open Streets and School Streets; increased Daylighting; Low Traffic Neighborhoods to reduce cut-through traffic and air pollution; and more connected and protected bike lanes.”
We reached out to DOT for comment on Fuleihan's larger point and will update this story if we hear back.
One last thing: There was a certain irony in having the question posed at this time of year by the former Speaker. After all, his "Streets Master Plan" proposal created the inspiration for a Christmas parody song sung by Streetsblog's "Car Free Carolers" in 2019 (the troupe will be performing this year's songs today on the 34th Avenue open street in Queens). Watch the 2019 holiday classic (lyrics underneath the video if you want to sing along):
Corey Johnson’s Master Plan (to the tune of "Hanukkah o Hanukkah") Corey Johnson’s Master Plan Will make our streets safer The mayor says that he’s on board Or, wait, did we mishear? Breaking the car culture, he says that he wants If you want to drive, you should move to Larchmont
And while we are building More glorious car-free zones Walk as you please, there’s no need for unease And we’ll finally reduce broken bones.
Oh, Corey Johnson has a plan To make roadways calmer Fewer crashes mean that we can fire the embalmer We can fix our city and make it all grand Put away the shovels and mournful armbands.
"European genes do not produce some kind of innate affinity for human-powered mobility — [and] people on any continent will use bike infrastructure if it is safe."
New Council Speaker Julie Menin wants to scrap Adams-era rules that shrunk the program to just 400 approved locations from a pandemic era high of 8,000.
