A major decision facing Mayor-elect Mamdani will be to select a new Department of Transportation Commissioner. The scope of the assignment is vast as is its impact. Transportation is an issue confronted by every New Yorker, every day - and we are all experts. Every Mayor since Mike Bloomberg has been engaged in the mission to reimagine how we move people to reduce our dependence on private cars and to focus instead on public transit, bikes and walking, and under Mayor de Blasio, a similar effort began to reimagine how we move freight - both to and within the city - to reduce our embarrassing over-dependence on large trucks and instead to use our original highways, the waterways, as well as rail and small, environmentally friendly vehicles.
While New York City's "Vision Zero" initiative has made cycling safer through expanded bike lanes, improved intersection designs, and enhanced traffic enforcement, accidents still occur. With over 762,000 regular cyclists navigating Brooklyn's streets, understanding your rights and knowing what to do after an accident is crucial. The Reality of Brooklyn's Bike Scene Brooklyn boasts some of NYC's busiest bike routes, with the Williamsburg Bridge area seeing over 7,000 daily cyclists. But with this volume comes risk-there were about eight accidents per mile of available cycling paths in 2025. Common Accident Scenarios Most-but not all-bicycle accidents stem from driver negligence: Intersection collisions due to drivers failing to spot cyclists "Dooring" incidents when parked cars open doors without checking Right hook and left cross collisions from failure to yield Side-swipe accidents from distracted driving Rear-end collisions Hazardous road conditions like potholes and debris
It's no secret that the United States has a fatal love affair with speed. And our overly permissive relationship directly leads to over 11,000 deadly crashes on our roads every year. Hit by a vehicle going 20 mph, a pedestrian has an 18% chance of death or serious injury. Yet, hit at 40 mph, that same pedestrian suffers a 77% likelihood of death or serious injury. Every mile per hour counts when it comes to saving lives.
At the time, the city had 13 projects under construction, totaling 135 miles, at an average cost of just $224 million per mile (adjusted for purchasing power parity and inflation). The Transit Costs Project, a global comparative study of urban rail construction costs, found that U.S. projects are often five to ten times more expensive than those in countries like Italy, Sweden, and Türkiye due to factors such as station design, lack of standardization, inefficient management of labor, procurement practices, and soft costs.
NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch's fact-free crackdown on e-bikes continues - and the agency has finally released some of the numbers to amNY (believe me, we've been asking). No surprise: The Upper East Side, where Tisch's mother has made her opinion well known, leads in enforcement. The amNY editorial board obviously read Streetsblog, commissioning an op-ed from two Council members and a city labor leader to support a Council bill to rein in Amazon that we wrote about last month.
DOT has stressed that removing the protected bike lane will not eliminate cyclists; rather, it will compromise the safety of all street users. This represents a clear breach of the Vision Zero initiative's goals, putting the city at legal risk for knowingly reducing safety on crucial corridors.
To commemorate the 10-year anniversary of Portland's Vision Zero commitment, Councilor Tiffany Koyama Lane is bringing a resolution to double down on the city's pledge to end traffic fatalities.
