Thursday’s Headlines: Electric Horseman Edition

Today, New York says “neigh” to the horse-carriage industry.

At Streetsblog, we haven’t had much of a dog in this horse fight — we’re not an animal-cruelty publication, nor do we cover why tourists do what they do, nor have we really gotten into TWU head John Samuelsen’s anti-bike deflection — but our interest in today’s Council ban on the clop-clop may soon change if pols persist in the bizarre notion that horse carriages should be replaced by old-timey-looking electric cars.

One of those pols, Council Member Vickie Paladino (R-Queens), rallied at City Hall yesterday in support of bringing cars, albeit cute electric ones, back to the park. Now, we’ve long quarreled with Paladino (and her son!) over her revanchist take on road safety, but we won’t criticize her for wanting to find “a fair transition for horse-drawn carriage owners,” as her statement put it.

Our problem is with what she wants carriage owners to transition to: “Vintage-style electric horseless carriages … to provide tourists with a vintage Central Park experience,” the statement said.

Chin, meet floor: “Vintage-style electric horseless carriages”?! But before you make a Danny Kaye-style spit take, remember that this proposal has been around since Bill de Blasio got elected in 2013 with some big help from well-financed horse carriage opponents.

At the time, those foes rolled out — literally! — their vision for a post-horse world: an electric buggy that looked like a Model T on lasix (yes, that’s a reference to a performance-enhancing drug for thoroughbreds):

Now, I respect craftsmanship, and the model above is certainly cool, if you’re into the whole car fetish thing. I certainly didn’t want to dismiss Paladino out of hand, so I called Jason Wenig, the owner of the Florida-based auto restoration company The Creative Workshop that made the old-timey horseless e-carriage that de Blasio’s allies drove around more than a decade ago.

Fortunately, Wenig has a memory as good as the one purported to be possessed by the symbol of Paladino’s party. He remembered making the prototype and showing it off. And he also remembered the hassles.

“When this went down, no one ever thought any of this out,” he told me, referring to the logistical problems of introducing an entirely new motor vehicle in New York City: the legality of such vehicles under state vehicle law; setting up geofencing so they can’t exceed 5 or 7 miles per hour in the park; making sure it’s easy for passengers to get in and out; making sure the battery has good range; figuring out the charging infrastructure; getting someone to pay for them (they’re not cheap); figuring out who will repair them and where; and setting up an insurance protocol.

Worse, no one has called Wenig this time around.

“I build and deliver cars at the highest level, but no one has had any discussions with me,” he said. “If someone is truly serious about the electric car trade, I am interested.”

Wenig isn’t the only gearhead who electrifies Phaetons, but it’s a surprisingly small industry. Besides one other legit company I found on the internet, all I found was fake websites hawking sketchy wares from China. (And Paladino was no help; her office didn’t get back to me.)

But let’s be clear: If the goal is to replace horses with really big electric cars, count us out. I mean, people hate the existing pedicabs, so get a load of how big Wenig’s machines are compared to those things:

Yes, Wenig is a reputable master craftsman (and a former New Yorker!), but when it comes to cars and Central Park, we don’t want them in our back yard.

In other news:

• Speaking of Samuelsen, his union will sue to stop the horse carriage ban. (Chelsea News)
• The union representing people who park illegally all over key civic centers across the city has endorsed Republican Bruce Blakeman for governor. (Law360 via X.com)
• The amNY editorial board came out in support of a state bill to require plates and registration for legal electric bikes, citing a vague “public safety problem” that the writers didn’t bother to actually demonstrate.
• Memo to the Mayor: Don’t just rebuild the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway! (Arch Paper)
• Everyone was talking about automating the Interboro Express — everyone except John Samuelsen. (Streetsblog, amNY)
• Cops say they arrested the hit-and-run driver who killed Judith Byron in Sunset Park in 2025. (News12)
• Speaking of Sunset Park, residents are still angry that the city won’t make Third Avenue safer already. (Bk Reader)
• Link NYC has been a failure. (Vital City)
• What should we do with a drunken officer? What should we do with a drunken officer? What should we do with a drunken officer? (BoroPark24)
• What did Mayor Beame tell his 2026 counterpart? Lies about the environment, for one thing. (Staten Island Advance)
• A hit-and-run driver critically injured a delivery worker in Brooklyn. (amNY)
• Finally, we knew that our Summer Specialist Poppy Wilkinson’s “50 States of Fraud” story would be a talker for months, but now NYC Bike lanes is offering a challenge: