Thursday’s Headlines: Mayor on a Bus Edition
Lots of reporters rode the bus with the future mayor. Plus other news.
12:01 AM EDT on October 9, 2025
The big story on a slow news day yesterday was that lots of reporters rode the bus with the future mayor.
The Daily News focused on the Zohran Mamdani’s vow to ride transit and use a bike when he takes office. The Times and amNY played it straight (and both featured our own Dave Colon in a photo).
Most important, we focused on how the Queens Assemblyman is promising to take on the bureaucracy at DOT and challenge his own supporters to get on the street safety train. After Mamdani vowed to bring his own anti-safety endorsers into line, Colon reached out to Rep. Adriano Espaillat, a longtime foe of busways, and suddenly the Congressman professed his support for better buses on Fordham Road.
That’s the Mamdani Effect!
In other news:
- Speaking of the “Mamdani Effect,” it’s now even influencing NY1 legend Pat Kiernan for this primer on mayoral control of the subway. (Facebook)
- Cool pavement is cool. (NY Post)
- The Post followed our story on illegal parking in Downtown Brooklyn.
- Brian Lehrer did a segment on e-bikes and everyone agreed (as we all do) that there are regulations that need to be enforced and that no one should be riding a bike that goes more than 25 miles per hour because it’s illegal. (WNYC)
- Remember that story we did last week about Hoboken’s effort to clear illegal parking from its main shopping strip? Well, it’s working. (Hudson County View)
- The haters are out for the Court Street bike lane (as predicted). (News12)
- But school streets are popular in any language. (El Diario)
Tabloid legend Gersh Kuntzman has been with New York newspapers since 1989, including stints at the New York Daily News, the Post, the Brooklyn Paper and even a cup of coffee with the Times. He's also the writer and producer of "Murder at the Food Coop," which was a hit at the NYC Fringe Festival in 2016, and “SUV: The Musical” in 2007. He also writes the Cycle of Rage column, which is archived here.
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