New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani appointed Ben Furnas, the chairman of Transportation Alternatives, as a member of the city’s transition team last week. Furnas will be responsible for the city’s transportation, climate, and infrastructure matters.
Transportation Alternatives advocates for green cities, bike lanes, and safe speed cameras, and has prepared a comprehensive transportation agenda for the new government before Furnas’s official appointment.
The organization is pushing for dedicated bus lanes on every major city route and hopes to create “school streets” by closing off streets near every school in New York City.
Their plan includes building bus lanes on “every high-priority bus route,” with criteria based on factors like high passenger flow and slow vehicle speeds.
Furnas’s team is urging for a significant reduction in parking spaces within the five boroughs, with plans to repurpose parking spaces near subway stations for widened sidewalks, expanded bus shelters, bike parking, benches, as well as facilities like “micro-forests” and public restrooms.