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Is Mamdani New York City's first real 'bike mayor?'
By
Elizabeth Kim
Published May 7, 2026
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Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office
By
Elizabeth Kim
Published May 7, 2026
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This column originally appeared in The Politics Brief, our weekly newsletter on the people, power and policies that shape New Yorkers' lives.
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When Mayor Zohran Mamdani was asked whether he planned to ride the entire 40-mile route of the Five Boro Bike Tour, he seemed almost offended.
“Come on now,” he told Gothamist reporter Liam Quigley, who pedaled over to interview him on Sunday. “Can you imagine?”
Mamdani finished the ride, becoming the first New York City mayor to participate in the nearly 50-year-old annual event featuring more than 32,000 cyclists riding on car-free roads across the city. He was joined by many other cycling politicians, including Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, state Sen. John Liu, and former city Comptroller Brad Lander, who’s in a competitive congressional race.
For the first time, New York City has a mayor who has made riding a bike a seemingly genuine part of his political identity. On the campaign trail, the 34-year-old democratic socialist famously corrected a heckler who called him a communist by grabbing a Citi Bike and saying, “It’s pronounced cyclist.”
“I think it's taken a long time, but I think the politics have really caught up with the people,” said Janette Sadik-Khan, the transportation commissioner under former Mayor Michael Bloomberg. “Not so long ago, a lot of these ideas seemed like they were crazy, and today, a mayor who rides a bike for fun and for transportation is just another part of New York.”
She said she recently spotted Mamdani, who has racked up over 3,000 miles on Citi Bike, “riding his bike like no one was watching.”
“He's riding everywhere every day, and even when people aren't looking,” she said.
Even the most hardened drivers concede that the streetscape now belongs to cyclists, too.
“They can pry my steering wheel from my cold dead hands, but even I have to admit that there is now an unavoidable proliferation of bike lanes,” said Joe Borelli, a former city councilmember from Staten Island. “Where it makes sense, it’s great. We just need to be thoughtful to the trade-offs, and there are always trade-offs.”
For years, mayors seemed convinced that the trade-offs for drivers were too great. In 1980, then-Mayor Ed Koch ripped out his own newly installed Midtown bike lanes after public outcry. Koch later tried to ban bikes in parts of Manhattan, triggering a backlash that unified cyclists and mobilized advocacy groups.
Bloomberg — not a cyclist but a helicopter-flying billionaire — took the first steps toward creating the current streetscape. Over his three terms, the city built more than 400 miles of bike lanes and introduced Citi Bike, the largest bike share program in the country. Mayor Bill de Blasio faced criticism for only moving quickly on street safety improvements after someone was killed. Mayor Eric Adams took office calling himself the “bike mayor,” but then slow-walked or reversed an array of projects.
Although cycling makes up a small piece of the city’s transportation pie, the addition of new bike-friendly infrastructure has led to a boom in its popularity. More than 28,000 daily bike trips were taken across the East River bridges last year, up from roughly 3,000 a day 25 years ago.
Randy Mastro, the former first deputy mayor under Adams, defended Adams’ decisions and said the administration expanded the number of bike lanes “by a lot.” According to Transportation Alternatives, Adams built more than 100 miles of protected bike lanes, far less than the 250 miles required under law.
“It’s a false construct to talk about who's pro-bike lane and who isn't,” Mastro argued.
He dismissed the new mayor’s bike riding as “Kabuki theater,” adding, “As if that means you're more committed to bikes than people who you know don't ride bikes.” (For the record, Mastro does not ride a bike, but he said he takes the bus every day. “Does that make me pro-bus or anti-bus?” he asked, smirking.)
Mamdani’s cycling bona fides will be tested as he weighs calls to expand the city’s network of protected bike lanes while contending with more and more e-bikes and scooters.
Five months into his administration, Mamdani has revived a protected bike lane along a stretch of McGuinness Boulevard in Greenpoint, Brooklyn that prosecutors say had been tabled due to a bribery scandal in the Adams administration.
Several other redesign announcements from the Mamdani administration might be catnip for street safety types, but lack key details. The administration hasn’t said when it will begin work on the redesign of Grand Army Plaza. The start date for an overhaul of Park Avenue also hasn’t been disclosed (city officials said they’re still picking a final design). On Wednesday Mamdani hopped on a bike with kids on the way to school on Bergen Street to announce it will be upgraded into a “bike boulevard.” But plans aren’t coming until later this year, so it’s unclear what that redesign will actually look like.
Jon Orcutt, a former policy director for the city’s Department of Transportation and longtime biking advocate, said Mamdani needs to put bike lanes in places “where he has to actually put some political capital into it.”
For longtime city cyclists, the holy grail is Bedford Avenue, which winds through the Hasidic Jewish section of Williamsburg in Brooklyn. Last year, Adams removed protected bike lanes on Bedford after residents voiced safety concerns. It was political déjà vu: Bloomberg reversed course on a stretch of Bedford Avenue in 2009.
“We have a mayor who's a great communicator,” Orcutt said. “So let's use that on the hard problems, not the easy ones.”
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Elizabeth Kim
Elizabeth Kim is a reporter on the People and Power desk who covers mayoral power. She previously covered the pandemic, housing, redevelopment and public spaces. A native of Queens, she speaks fluent Mandarin. Got a tip? Email [email protected]
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