A bike-lane offer New Yorkers can’t refuse

At least one of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s charter-reform proposals is just another reminder that City Hall doesn’t want New Yorkers to have a say — it just wants them to obey.
Voters in November absolutely should nix Question 3 from the mayor’s Commission on Government Efficiency: It’s sold as speeding up bike-lane creation by 33% — but does so by cutting public complaints out of the process.
So if you don’t like the bike lane coming to your neighborhood, tough luck.
This ballot measure would amend the City Charter to let the Department of Transportation proceed without public review or criticism if DOT decides a bike lane is an “immediate need.”
As if DOT hadn’t already rammed through hundreds of miles of these lanes without much weighing of local objections — overriding specific complaints from firefighters, business owners, seniors and disabled residents and on and on.
But Team Mamdani loves the hipsters who love their bikes, so its answer to New Yorkers worried about losing parking, curb access or loading space for local businesses is . . . to silence them.
The city has roughly 1,500 miles of these lanes, 900 of them “protected” ones, with 30-plus more projects underway — all to serve just the 10% of residents who bike.
Mamdani promised to spend taxpayer dollars on projects that benefit taxpayers — but some taxpayers are more equal than others.
To a Democratic Socialist, it seems, “democracy” means declaring much of the public a mere nuisance, whose only role is to shut up and obey.