Wednesday’s Headlines: 2nd-Most Important Job Edition

Streetsblog provides high-quality journalism and analysis for free — which is something to be celebrated in an era of paywalls. Once a year, we ask for your tax-deductible donations to support our reporters and editors as they advance the movement to end car dependency in our communities.

If you already support our work, thank you! If not, can we ask for your help? This year’s fundraiser includes a special gift for our biggest supporters. Don’t miss out.

Together, we can create a more livable, walkable, bikeable, equitable and enjoyable city for all. Happy holidays from the Streetsblog team!

Tomorrow, Zohran Mamdani will become mayor — and it appears that he’ll do so without having appointed his own Department of Transportation commissioner.

We were getting anxious, so we sent Dave Colon to Mamdani’s press conference on Tuesday to ask why he had not yet announced a nominee for the city’s second-most-important job. Mamdani didn’t reveal anything new … but wisely deflected our question with praise for Streetsblog.

“When we speak about bus riders, we’re speaking about more than a million New Yorkers who are riding the slowest buses in the country,” he said. “There is an opportunity in the way in which we approach that, not only to honor the commitments and proposals that have been put forward in prior years, which Streetsblog broke the news of at a press conference not too long ago, but also frankly, to think about how do we make this city an example for the world in the ways to get around efficiently and reliably.”

We think Mamdani was referring to our recent story about his promise to finish many bus- and bike-lane projects that Mayor Adams abandoned, but we won’t be distracted by flattery.

In fact, Mamdani’s failure to appoint a top-flight DOT commissioner is a major disappointment for the livable streets movement, which has been yearning for the kind of change that Mamdani appears to be ushering in elsewhere in city government. He obviously can’t stick with Ydanis Rodriguez if he wants to accomplish all the things he says he wants to accomplish, given that Rodriguez’s four years in the job were marked by failure to achieve the even the legal requirements for bus and bike infrastructure.

As such, we’ve decided to track how long Mamdani can go without disappointing the movement — with the kind of “Days Without A Lost Time Accident” sign you’d see outside a factory (right). Like those count-up clocks, we hope the sign eventually reaches into the thousands of days … but for now, we’re prepared on Jan. 2 to put up a zero — and keep it there — if we don’t have a suitable DOT commissioner.

Instead, Mamdani is expected today, his last full day as a non-mayor, to announce his Schools Chancellor (which is maybe the third-most-important job in the city). The Daily News and Times played it straight, but the Post, of course, had a negative take on incoming headmaster Kamar Samuels.

In other news:

• As everyone knows, during our December Donation Drive, we like to start by honoring those of you who contributed in the previous day. And what a day it was, so thanks, Michael! Thanks, Tim! Thanks, Kerry! Thanks, Steve! Thanks, Christopher! Thanks, Bernard! Thanks, Louis! Thanks, Jon! Anyone else want to give? Click here. And thank you!
• So how did Zohran Mamdani become mayor? NY Magazine does the deep dive. Also interesting: The mayor-elect’s inner circle are talking about why some officials get city-owned cars. That’s a discussion worth having!
• Also a discussion worth having: How bad a mayor Eric Adams was. (NY Post)
• We like to criticize the Post for how much of Rupert Murdoch’s opinions end up in the news pages, but on the ugliness of the 2026 novelty eyeglass frames, the Paper of Wreckage is 100 percent correct.
• We mentioned the Citi Bike fare hike yesterday, but the Post got a second day of outrage over it.
• Oonee founder Shabazz Stuart has again gone public with his outrage that DOT selected a different bike parking company than his. But he also tells a longer, two-hanky story about his motivation for starting the company. (Medium)
• Mayor Adams — bitter to the very last. (NY Post)
• An SUV driver killed a moped rider in Queens. (amNY)
• Have you voted for Loser of the Year? Polls are still open!
• LIRR fares are going up. (News12)
• A group of people mourned the coming death of the MetroCard…

• … But if Phish leader Trey Anastasio can give up the MetroCard, so can you: