Not sure how many people follow Miser but he’s been a big influence on pushing for change in the NYC area. Apparently Mamdani asked him to come up with a plan to make the city’s streets better and this is what he came up with. Pretty incredible work and I hope it can be implemented!
But I’d like to see people pushing for this in every city, not just NYC. If you haven’t already connected with local urbanist activists, I highly encourage it. I’ve been surprised how few people it takes to make an impact. If you’re not sure where to start, check to see if your area has a local strong towns chapter.
I’m not sure I agree this is the worse option. If the vehicle lane is away from the curb, they will have to cross into the cycle lane to park, which will be dangerous. As a frequent cyclist, I’d rather have control of entering the vehicle lane when it’s safe rather than having inattentive vehicle drivers entering my lane all the time. Additionally, drivers are far more used to watching out when turning left than right, so having cyclists to the left may be safer at intersections.
Long-term it will be best to have raised cycle paths at sidewalk level but this may not be within the budget for the time being.
Regarding Mamdani I kind of doubt he’ll implement this but the more publicity and pressure in favor of it, the more likely that will be. A lot of leftists seem very naive in believing politicians can do anything they want, but in reality they are at best merely negotiating concessions from the existing powers. This means they will have to choose some reforms to give up on. But public campaigns both push them to and empower them to make bigger changes, so this is the best lever of influence we have–even stronger than voting, imo.
The NYPD is very politically powerful so my assumption is he decided that was not a fight he could win and other priorities were more important. But who knows, we’ll have to see how he governs to draw firmer conclusions about this.