New York needs a transit mayor: City Hall must take a bigger role for subways and buses

"This has been a generational mistake. Transit makes it possible to capture the benefits of density - a diversified economy and thriving neighborhoods - while mitigating the bad stuff, namely congestion and its attendant maladies: pollution, car crashes, injuries, fatalities, property damage, noise, road repairs, and more. Any city that hopes to grow its tax base by adding population and jobs without expanding its physical footprint needs a high-capacity transit system that enables anywhere-to-anywhere connectivity without succumbing to density's negative attributes."

"As Election Day approaches, we need to elect a mayor who will champion policies that make using transit faster, easier, and more reliable because that's how we make housing more affordable. Since at least the 1970s, New York's mayors and municipal leaders have tended to block or water down policies designed to speed up buses and have been largely silent when it comes to the subway."

New York City requires mayoral leadership that prioritizes transit investments to make transit faster, easier, and more reliable, which in turn enables greater housing affordability. Housing affordability demands new transit capacity to unlock development in lower-density neighborhoods beyond subway reach. Historical municipal resistance since the 1970s has blocked or weakened bus-speed policies and left subways largely unaddressed. High-capacity, anywhere-to-anywhere transit allows cities to add population and jobs without expanding physical footprint while mitigating congestion, pollution, crashes, and infrastructure damage. The MTA is controlled by the state, with the governor and Legislature shaping transit priorities and funding, constraining city-level transit leadership.

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