MESSAGE
| DATE | 2025-11-29 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
|
| SUBJECT | Subject: [Hangout - NYLXS] Mamdani Wars continue - War on Private
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Zohran Mamdani hires car-hating activist Ben Furnas for NYC
transportation team: 'War on drivers'
Gabrielle Fahmy
6–7 minutes
Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani could make driving in the Big Apple hell on
wheels.
Car-hating Transportation Alternatives boss Ben Furnas has been
appointed to Mayor-elect Mamdani’s transition team for transportation,
climate and infrastructure — and his agenda is a nightmare for the
city’s drivers.
Furnas was named to the post this week, but his group already had its
“full transportation agenda” for the incoming administration ready to
go, having released it earlier this month.
Ben Furnas speaking at a press conference about a proposed speed limiter
law.
Transportation Alternatives Executive Director Ben Furnas has been named
to Mamdani’s transportation committee. Stephen Yang
Among the plan’s more than 80 demands is a bizarre proposal to build
playgrounds smack in the middle of city streets that would then be
redesigned into cul-de-sacs — a move the group claims will solve the
city’s “playground desert problem.”
The plan fails to mention how traffic would be rerouted.
The group also wants to create “school streets” by closing streets to
traffic near every New York City school. Currently 72 of the Big Apple’s
nearly 3,000 schools have done so.
Transportation Alternatives is pushing to build busways on every major
city route — similar to the controversial plans to ban cars on 34th
Street that even bus riders have opposed.
At a community meeting earlier this year, Murray Hill residents voiced
concerns that after first banning cars on 14th Street, and now 34th
Street, the anti-car lobby had its eyes on 42nd Street next.
Transportation Alternatives’ blueprint confirms such a fear by pushing
for busways on “every high-priority bus route, as measured by factors
including highest ridership and slowest speeds.”
“I’m so sick and tired of reading ‘oh, New York City busses are the
slowest,'” slammed Stacey Rauch, a Murray Hill resident who takes the
bus every day and argues the problem is the lack of busses – not the
fact they’re slowed down by cars.
A playground in the middle of St. Marks Avenue, off Kingston Avenue, in
Crown Heights.
The group calls for building playgrounds in the middle of streets, like
here on St. Marks Avenue in Crown Heights. Helayne Seidman
A car-free street with children drawing with chalk, riding bikes, and
walking with adults.
The group wants to close streets to traffic by every NYC school. The
city has nearly 3,000 of them. 880cities
“It’s like a cult — ‘cars are bad,'” she added. “Be a little bit
reasonable and understand that sometimes some people can’t live your
puritanical, cultish indulgence of either always walking or biking,” she
said, arguing Furnas’ plans will hurt seniors and people with reduced
mobility.
“He may think he’s doing good. I bet you if he went to his grandma, she
wouldn’t be too happy.”
Furnas’ group also calls to slash parking spots all over the five
boroughs — with plans to “repurpose” the space on blocks close to subway
stations with “amenities” like wider sidewalks, larger bus shelters,
bike parking, benches, so-called “micro forests” and even public restrooms.
Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani speaking at a press conference.
Mamdani has made free buses a cornerstone of his campaign, but
Transportation Alternative’s agenda goes much further. Luiz C. Ribeiro
for New York Post
City Council Member Robert Holden (D-Queens) slammed the plans, saying
the DOT’s “handlers” at Transportation Alternatives have long ignored
the needs of families, seniors, workers and small businesses.
“If the Mamdani administration lets them continue to turn our
neighborhoods into playgrounds in the middle of streets and wage war on
drivers, it will be a disaster for public safety, quality of life and
basic common sense,” he told The Post.
“The fact that the worst DOT commissioner of all time, Ydanis Rodriguez,
is apparently in line for a job in the Mamdani administration shows
exactly how bad things could get.
M14D Select Bus Service vehicle driving along the 14th Street Busway.
Furnas’ group wants to replicate the 14th Street model – where cars were
banned in favor of buses – all over Gotham. Taidgh Barron/NY Post
Busy street in Manhattan with yellow cabs, an ambulance, and other
vehicles, with a "SPRING ST" sign visible.
Critics say Furnas’ plans would create traffic nightmare for drivers.
dantada – stock.adobe.com
The polarizing rat-riddled street dining shacks could also come back in
full force — with Transportation Alternatives calling to “ensure the
program is year-round, permits enclosed structures and is less onerous
for small businesses.”
The powerful anti-car group, which indirectly lobbies for Uber and Lyft,
has long wielded power with lefty city officials through a relationship
critics have described as incestuous.
But Furnas’ appointment gives Transportation Alternatives power to go
even further and stack Mamdani’s Department of Transportation chock-full
of like-minded zealots, critics said.
“I’m furious,” slammed Rauch. “I voted for Mamdani — he didn’t take PAC
money. Why is he favoring special interest groups?”
Garbage piled next to an outdoor dining shed for 122 Franklin Deli Corp.
in Brooklyn, NY.
The pandemic-era dining shacks many have called an eyesore could make a
full fledged comeback under the group’s plans. Gregory P. Mango
Ben Furnas, Executive Director of Transportation Alternatives, holding a
"City Cyclist" sign promoting more space for pedestrians and cyclists on
the Queensboro Bridge.
Furnas tried to sell his group’s plans as a win for drivers. Brigitte
Stelzer
Among Furnas’ key allies appointed to the transition team are Sara Lind
from Open Plans and Betsy Plum from the Riders Alliance.
Furnas tried to sell his group’s agenda as a win for drivers.
“When it’s easier and cheaper for more New Yorkers to get around by bus
or bike, the reduction in traffic will make it quicker and safer for
everyone who still has to drive,” he told The Post.
“Look at how successful congestion pricing has been for drivers: traffic
is reliably flowing smoothly in Manhattan for the first time in our
lifetimes. New Yorkers are saving valuable minutes every day on their
commutes. Don’t you want some more time back?” he added.
Mamdani’s team did not return The Post’s request for comment.
--
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that Brooklyn, like Atlantis, reaches mythological
proportions in the mind of the world - RI Safir 1998
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