Two years ago this week I was in Manhattan covering the Vision Zero Cities Conference hosted by New York City-based nonprofit Transportation Alternatives. At a panel discussion titled, Supersized SUVs, Mega Trucks, and Regulatory Failure, one of the speakers made me sit up and take notice: He railed against feckless leadership that failed improve bus service, called for higher taxes on large vehicles that are more prone to kill people, and spoke about traffic victims and transportation policy with the candor, clarity and conviction you’d expect from an activist.
But this wasn’t an activist. It was an elected official. He was a member of the state assembly named Zohran Mamdani. Yes, the same Mamdani who might very well be New York City’s next mayor.
Mamdani’s approach to road safety and his ability to communicate his ideas made such an impression on me that I made his comments the focal point of my recap of that event. And ever since his rise in the NYC mayoral race, I’ve been wanting to go back and re-listen to my audio recording of that panel and pull out anything else that was interesting.
I finally got around to doing that. And turns out, there was a lot more worth sharing.
“Politicize every death to make it very clear to politicians and the political ecosystem that these people are not just killed by drivers; these people are killed by the way in which our streets are designed, by the decisions that are being made, by the policies that are being upheld.”
– Zohran Mamdani at 2023 Vision Zero Cities Conference
From his legislation that would have taxed purchases of oversized trucks and SUVs, his passion for safer streets, his nuanced understanding of car culture and the strategic political lens needed in road safety conversations — it’s crystal clear to me that Mamdani brings a lot to the table when it comes to transportation policy. In this single panel discussion, he touches on many of the key arguments and issues we talk about often in advocacy circles.
In this episode, I share highlights from that 2023 panel discussion. You’ll hear mostly from Mamdani, but when I felt context was necessary, I’ve also included questions and/or comments from either the moderator (former Transportation Alternatives Executive Director Danny Harris), other panelists, or audience members.
Keep in mind as you listen that it’s not the greatest audio I’ve ever collected because I only recorded it for my own notes and never expected to share it like this. If you have any problem making out a word, I’ve also created a very accurate transcript and will share key excerpts below.
I’ll start us out with Moderator Danny Harris asking Mamdani about the legislation he was working on at the state capitol in Albany which would have implemented a new weight-based tax on motor vehicles:
“The idea behind it is that the federal government is, in so many ways, a government of inaction when it comes to these crises, and has refused to step up and step in. And what we have seen from localities like Washington DC is there is a model whereby a municipality can step forward and disincentivize the purchase of vehicles that have a direct link to the higher likelihood of killing children and people on the streets. And so it’s up to us to make it clear to New Yorkers that when they go and they purchase a vehicle of a certain size and a certain weight, that that comes with an additional cost, and that cost should be a fiscal cost, not just a moral cost — and that fiscal cost is one that we should create to ensure that New Yorkers understand what they are doing when they are buying that car at the dealership, and that they start to buy smaller and smaller cars.
Because what we have is an industry that is almost entirely unregulated, that is pushing larger and larger vehicles, tying it to notions of masculinity — vehicles that can’t even fit inside parking spots — and yet, for some reason, they continue to be allowed to be sold. We have to make it clear to New Yorkers that there is a cost when you purchase such a vehicle.”
Mamdani then pivoted to why he’s so passionate about regulating vehicle size:
“… We have to be very clear about that fact that the way this whole ecosystem works — where families have loved ones killed, and then they have to testify again and again and again as to how their loved one was killed. And we’re seeing it now. We’re seeing it in Albany [the state capital]. It’s disgusting, and we have a system where I know the highest likelihood of change in my neighborhood is right after someone gets killed — that’s when I can get the stop line, that’s when I can get the daylighting, that’s when I can get the speed bumps. How is that an acceptable way for government to work? … We have to make it clear that there is a political consequence for people who understand this as optional, because people are being killed, and it is design that is killing them. I mean, it’s ridiculous… and who does that responsibility lie with? It’s not with you. It’s with the mayor, and it’s with the governor.”
To understand why Mamdani believes government regulation can influence free markets, he used the example of how New York’s affordable housing bureau created policies around how large refrigerators could be in public housing buildings and the market responded by creating a wider range of mini-fridges. Here’s more from Mamdani on the role regulation can play in car design:
“If the state puts additional costs on certain sizes of vehicles, then I think that it creates an opening for there to be smaller vehicles. Your question initially is: what do we do if the industry keeps going one way and the city keeps going another way? I believe in a clash between the market and the state that I think the state can and should win, and we cannot allow ourselves to try and respond to the way the market goes, we must try and influence the market itself. Because the market is driven only by profit, and it is a sad fact, but you make a lot of money making cars that can kill people. It is what is making money. And so we cannot hope that they change. We have to force them to do so.”
Mamdani’s approach to governing is very intersectional. He often takes a policy idea and connects it to the bigger picture:
“The fight to tax heavier vehicles is not just a safety fight. It’s also an infrastructure fight. These heavier vehicles are ruining roads and highways. I can’t say that I stay up late at night thinking about those roads and highways, but this is an important infrastructure piece for New York to understand that there are many of my colleagues who are often hearing from their constituents about how these roads are degrading more and more and more. Our legislation would take the money that is raised to this additional sticker price and would push that towards two things: One is the redevelopment of streets with safety in mind, putting money behind that vision; and the other is the maintenance of the infrastructure.”
Then Mamdani shared a critique of the popular ‘war on cars’ framing and pivoted into how race factors into road safety conversations.
“I think that there’s a ceiling if all of these fights are framed as the ‘war on cars.’ I think that there’s a lot more possibility in where the fight for safety can go if it is framed through the lens of safety predominantly.
What I’ve seen is the understanding of this through a racial lens. And I’ve seen the understanding of street safety and car safety and cyclist safety as a white issue, as a wealthier white issue. This is how it’s framed to me when I bring it up, this is how it’s framed by the mayor. This is framed by many people who will oppose this right? But if we have to get into this racial framing, I think we also have to make it clear that this is also a class and racial justice issue. The people who are on the streets the most are the low-wage, immigrant men who are delivering the food to people are ordering to their apartments. That’s what happened when Alfredo Cabrera Liconia was killed on Crescent street bike lane and a few months after myself and a few others sent a letter [NYC] DOT, saying, ‘The protected bike lane is not sufficiently protected. We need jersey barriers!’ We didn’t get them. He was killed by a truck turning onto that street. I had to go to his wake. I made a video of myself stomping on a flex delineator, and I got a call from the mayor’s office being like, ‘Please calm down. [NYC DOT Director] Polly Trottenberg is being considered for a national position.’ This is how it all works.
And so I think that one of the possibilities that lies in front of us is making clear who these gaps in our design are actually impacting. It’s the poorest among us who are often out there, and that is what our political leaders must understand — that every time they say no to this, what they’re saying is yes to another Alfredo, yes to another [traffic victim], yes to another Tamara, yes to another [traffic victim], yes to another Jaden — these were all my constituents. I shouldn’t have so many names to say. I’ve only been there for two and a half years.”
Asked about how advocates might be able to more effectively communicate with people who reflexively oppose bicycling and transit projects, Mamdani shared an experience from working with taxi drivers.
“There’s very little we can do about the other side. We can do a lot about how we frame this… there are many people for whom a car represents something else. One of the first major battles of my political career was around fighting for debt relief for taxi drivers. That car was supposed to symbolize their ticket to the middle class and stability in this country. And I think if we frame it around a car and what a car means and what a car is — versus if we frame it around safety, I think that we have different levels of possibilities there. There are a number of my constituents who I connect with on different issues, who vehemently disagree with me on this, and they disagree with me on this because they see this as yet another way in which the government is looking to influence their lives and kind of come in and tell them what they should do and what they shouldn’t do. And I think the problem is that there isn’t a widespread enough understanding that this status quo is untenable, that this is actually something we have to pull back from. And in American politics, sacrifice is not a popular idea. We always try and frame our ideas as everyone’s going to win, now we’re just going to have other winners. But with things like this, if you like that bigger, larger car, our vision is actually that you will not have that bigger, larger car, so that person will have to pare back their their relationship to that vehicle, in the sense of ownership, but also in an emotional sense… people feel this in their bones.”
How can we win the culture war around car use? Mamdani said governments should offer pragmatic framing and he shared an idea for a PSA:
“I think we have to really reach more regular public people to make any sort of change. Like, what if our city government just did an advertising campaign? It’s like: ‘How long it would take you to find parking if your vehicle is this big? Versus how long would it take to find parking if your vehicle is this big? And people would be like, ‘Fuck! I don’t have the time! I just need to get the smaller car.’ I think time is money, and especially in New York, and as opposed to being like, you know, a moral choice or political information is just like: ‘Do you have time? Do you not have time?’ It’s like, ‘Yeah, I want that car but I just don’t have time so I’m going to get this sedan.'”
An audience member then pushed Mamdani to go back to the strong sense of identity many Americans attach to their cars. She wanted to know how to respond to that emotion:
“I think that one thing I’ve found is that for many car owners, the car is their place of sanctuary. That’s how they understand the car. The world is chaos. The car is sanctuary. We hear constantly how everything is crumbling around us, but if I get in my car and have my temperature at the right amount and my music playing, and I have my windows up, I’m in control. And everywhere else in the world, I’m not in control. And I don’t think I can get the MTA to play certain music on the bus, but I think… part of this is kind of re-understanding what is it that actually draws people to cars? Because I think sometimes we we see it as if they understand our views and they just hate us; but I think sometimes they’re just in a completely different conversation about this. And then we have the bus going up and down Steinway [a street in his district] goes eight miles an hour because New York City has some of the slowest busses in America. And we have a mayor who promised 150 miles of bus lanes. I think we’re at eight maybe. Like, these are all interconnected, because the more busses we get on the street, bus drivers are actually the safest drivers of that safest drivers of any car. This is all the same fight.”
When someone brought up how terrible many drivers have become since the pandemic, Mamdani used it as a way to bring up automated enforcement:
“[Drivers are] such an ever present danger. I ride my bike pretty much every day and I just don’t ride on certain streets that are actually more convenient, because I’m terrified of being hit by a car, and the level of rage in those interactions is also just terrifying. There’s another piece of legislation that I introduced in Albany that would give the city authorization to create automated enforcement of bike lanes, where you would have cameras that would be permitted to take photos of license plates that drive into bike lanes. I think that there is a need for automated enforcement. I have a real criticism of the idea that we should empower the NYPD to any other extent, and that the NYPD should be responsible for traffic enforcement in general… We did pass automated bus lane enforcement this year in Albany, which gives the MTA the authority to issue a ticket for a car that is blocking two consecutive busses in a period of time, because we sadly see so many of those cars idling in the way, delaying our busses. But I think that there has to be a real reckoning with the fact that driver behavior has really gone south since the onset of the pandemic, and even if you think about the crosswalk as a sanctity, it’s now you just inch, inch, inch, inch, and you’re like, a quarter of the way into the crosswalk and that’s acceptable. For me I think one of the answers is to ensure that we start to create an actual model here of ticketing for these offenses, because when I’ve seen it with speed cameras it does work in the sense of how many of the first offenders do not become second offenders and do not become third offenders. We should have that with bike lanes and bus lanes.”
At the end of the discussion, moderator Danny Harris gave each panelist a chance to share one last thought. Here’s what Mamdani said:
“I would say to politicize every failure of the street and traffic and car design that we have in this city. Politicize every death to make it very clear to politicians and the political ecosystem that these people are not just killed by drivers; these people are killed by the way in which our streets are designed, by the decisions that are being made, by the policies that are being upheld. And that it is clear that the responsibility lies with those who lead the city. And in our case, that’s Mayor Adams.
There is an inextricable connection between decisions about bus lanes, decisions about bike lanes, decisions about how we treat pedestrians, and the fight for street safety. And then what happens to the crossing guard? What happens to the delivery worker? What happens to the recreational cyclists? These are all interconnected, and we have to connect those dots so that people understand that these are active decisions, and not just passive products of the way New York City is created.”
Pretty amazing to think this guy has a real shot to be the next mayor of the largest and most influential city in America.
Listen to audio from the panel in the player above or wherever you get your podcasts.
Thanks for reading.
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Earnest, knowledgeable, smart, and hot. Crushing hard.
I listened and was very impressed by Mamdani. That so many mainline Dems took so long to endorse him speaks volumes.
Do you support Free Bus service in Portland and would you support Grocery stores run by the City of Portland?
I like Mamdani but there are certainly reservations about some positions.
Ah yes, the Portland Bureau of Groceries (PBOG).
That would be a disaster in Portland. This city has difficulty as it is.
Important to remember that the buses of NYC move more people every day than live in the entire Portland Metro. Personally with how limited transportation funding tends to be here I’d rather spend it on making service better than making it cheaper, but I’ll support anything that increases ridership. I’m definitely in favor of city-run grocery stores, and we have several city council members who have talked about it too. I’d be very curious to see how it goes if NYC does it.
The idea of city-run grocery stores isn’t serious or even feasible. Grocery stores have a tiny profit margin, and there’s no way a city could run them more cheaply (well, groceries could be competitive if a city subsidized operations with tax $, but that defeats the purpose).
Also I don’t think public transportation should be free. Those who can afford to pay for rides should do so.
But the way Mamdani talked about transportation infra and automotive violence IN THE PODCAST was really amazing. I’ve never heard a politician talk about those subjects so thoughtfully or lucidly. If he brings that perspective to NYC infra as mayor, he could spark a cycling revolution and New York could be the new Paris or Copenhagen.
I thought the idea behind a city grocery store is that it only needs to be revenue neutral (if you want to avoid subsidies), so you can cut the margins to 0 and pass the savings on.
I don’t know enough about his proposal to understand what effect these theoretically lower prices will have on non-city-operated stores he anticipates. So I might be way off base here.
“you can cut the margins to 0 and pass the savings on.”
Those margins are already small, but let’s say we cut them to zero as you suggest. If it’s being managed by city employees, paid city wages, with city benefits, and PERS, and city oversight, selling products that are city approved, staffed by people attracted to a city job, and located in places that existing grocery chains have deemed unattractive… How is that going to produce cheaper groceries?
If the stores aren’t subsidized, they’re going to be significantly more expensive than what’s already available.
What is a “small margin” in this context? I know in the bike industry, folks talk about how margins are thin on complete bikes (even $10,000 ones). But no one ever says what the margins actually are.
Does NYC have PERS? I thought we were talking about NYC?
No, good point. They have NYCERS.
Grocery stores have margins of 1%-3%. Here are margins in other industries for comparison.
https://www.nycers.org/
https://smallbusiness.chron.com/profit-margin-supermarket-22467.html
Considering how poorly grocery stores are run by inept and overpaid c-room corporate hacks, I do think not-for-profit grocery orgs/coops could do a better job of meeting our community’s needs. It amazes me that after so much evidence of pervasive fraud, incompetence, greed, and lack of accountability some are still putting corporate leadership on pedestals.
“I do think not-for-profit grocery orgs/coops could do a better job of meeting our community’s needs”
What if instead of city-owned grocery stores, they gave out loans and technical assistance to help folks start co-ops. Every borough could have their own Park Slope Coop.
“Grocery stores have a tiny profit margin”
Yeah except that isn’t true.
There is a wide difference in cost for groceries between Safeway, New Seasons, Costco, and WinCo.
If people need groceries on a budget, they probably need to go to WinCo or Costco. And guess what, those are actually pretty few and far between. We have them, but can you easily bike or ride the bus to them? I never have. But I have three (3) new seasons within about two miles along bike paths.
Furthermore, they’re all still trying to maximize their competitiveness by offering as much as they can, spending what would be profit (read: waste) on having more redundant options.
A focused, carefully selected set of items should be doable for even less than a WinCo with their enormous stores.
So, who knows if the idea has merit (it does), and it’s probably not like a “day 1 top priority” because there is a long list of good ideas that can’t be accomplished in 10 terms of one mayor. But if you’re not caricaturing the idea like a free market libertarian, you need to acknowledge the actual reasons for doing it. You can use a city run grocery store to get good food options where the market doesn’t want to. And yes, you can do it cheaper.
And no, to the trolls, they would not be run personally by the city council, don’t say such obviously wrong things.
Citation, please. I provided one above to support my figure of 1-3% margin. If you have information that contradicts that, please provide it.
Walmart: ~24% margin:
Kroger: ~22% margin
https://www.kgou.org/politics-and-government/2024-09-09/are-greedy-companies-to-blame-for-grocery-inflation-we-looked-at-the-data
It was a good NPR article that is nothing like what your post implicates.
The only numbers in the article were Gross profits which is literally nothing like the end profit margins.
A complete misrepresentation of a fine article that is very nuanced as to what rising groceries costs are about.
It does require some basic reading comprehension…..
Here… I’ll try to say it without the personal attack: Gross margin is not net margin, which is what’s important in this context, so those numbers do not substantiate John’s claim that grocery stores have large margins.
They don’t, and there are dozens of sources that can confirm that.
You miss the point, as is so often the case.
I don’t need to provide evidence that stuff is more expensive at New Seasons or whole foods. They even have the nickname “whole paycheck”. It’s expensive. Other places are vastly cheaper, with good quality, but fewer locations.
A city grocery store could absolutely be good for every day people. That doesn’t mean it’s the top priority thing. As mentioned, lots of good ideas can be the top priority.
You keep saying that but provide no evidence it’s true. Your repeated assertions in the face of contrary facts are not convincing.
It is very unlikely that a city-run grocery store would be cheaper than existing grocery stores without being subsidized, and the data about net margin demonstrates that. The city has no particular expertise in running a grocery business, its overhead costs are higher, and it operates under a level of scrutiny and oversight and political interference that existing stores do not. It would not be able to make purchases in the volumes needed to get the best prices.
I don’t know if Whole Foods is more expensive because they’re taking a bigger cut, or because they sell expensive products, but either way, that’s not a reasonable comparison — the people who would benefit from a city grocery store are not for the most part Whole Foods customers. Compare to Food4Less.
No, a city-run grocery store would not benefit consumers unless it were subsidized. That is the point.
They would be run by our city manager Jordan.
Feel better now? You do love and defend the status quo a Lot in this city so I am sure you would love city run grocery stores that exist Nowhere else for some reason.
They won’t exist in NYC either.
Making up stuff while shaking fists at clouds…again…
Who else would run city grocery stores except the city manager? Nice try , who is making anything up?
Is there someone else who runs the city except the Mayor, the council and the City manager?
Who or what are you shaking your fists at? Fantasies?
The city manager would run the store in the same sense the Starbucks CEO runs your nearest Starbucks. That is, not really. They delegate.
This doesn’t take a whole lot of leaps in logic to understand.
Aw yes, the City manager would hire someone to run the grocery stores (like any other business), and this would totally make them operate cheaper than a regular grocery store, except the employees would be city workers of course (unless you want to hire minimum wage people which even Fred Meyer pays more), which is a completely capitalist thing to do which you would not do of course. Somehow the city could do exactly what Fred Meyer does but cheaper.
You seriously brought up the word Logic?
Enjoy shopping at
your local Fred MeyerKROGERS where the items you need are locked away in the locked-security zone and a glowing HAL-like AI algorithm monitors your every movement as you self-check because C-suite executives don’t want to pay union wages.And a year later your
your local Fred MeyerKROGERS closes leaving you stranded in a food desert (or if you live in inner PDX your only choices are now Whole Paycheck, New Sneezeons, or Market of No-choice).BB:
But…but…but…corporations and their “job creators” do such a better job than non-profit/coops…
Food front co-op which closed in Portland because it lost too much money is still looking for a buyer.
Feel free to join and revive it.
Food Front spent a lot of money on a second store, and unfortunately it sunk them. People’s almost did the same, and it would have sunk them. The Brooklyn co-op appears never to have achieved critical mass, and quietly disappeared this past year. The Montavilla co-op hasn’t yet gotten off the ground, and may never do so.
Co-ops are not immune to business forces, and are not necessarily more efficient, but they do return their profits to their customers who own the business. Therefore, there is less pressure to earn more by raising prices or implementing anti-consumer policies. Many also offer opportunities for people to work a few hours in exchange for reduced prices
Sheridan’s is planning to rework their store in the coming months. Still family owed, I believe.
Our city councilors at present can barely hold a zoom meeting, You think they could run a Fred Meyer?
They can’t even begin to address our transportation issues, our housing issues, our trash pick-up, etc., etc.
I have heard Mamdani speak and interviewed numerous times and not one member of the present council could carry his briefcase…
He will discard these positions in the first day he is in office.
I think he is way too smart to get bogged down with unworkable positions like these. He will move to the much bigger issues in NYC.
About 38% of all transit riders in the U.S. are in the NYC Metro area. The subway carries three times more NYC riders than the bus. NY is our richest city, with huge numbers of ultra-rich people, a congestion charge, tax and financing systems that are very different than Oregon or Portland.
So it’s not really a question transferrable to Portland.
But yes, I’m not sure that fareless bus systems in NYC (or Portland) make more sense than improving service, which is generally the trade-off.
It would probably make more sense to do grocery stores at the state level; but at that point you’d probably have more grocery stores going to underserved rural areas than in urbanized areas. I’d rather see the city incentivize affordable grocery stores in walkable areas. Market of Choice and New Seasons are too expensive for anyone other than hot people with email jobs. A WinCo or similar store in the Central Eastside would be a huge win.
I do support fareless transit service. I did the math awhile back and we could institute a 10 dollar per month utility fee and replace what the farebox recovers and it would be more efficient than the current system of collecting that money as people board. It would also mean that any household that made more than 2 trips per month by transit would be saving money.
Spoken like someone who will Never drive a city bus.
Their jobs are difficult now. Fare less Bus service sounds great to people with nice office jobs who never deal with the public.
Using fare to keep the riffraff off the bus is not a serious person suggestion.
Why not?
You should feel gross just suggesting it. You should be run out of town for even thinking that was a good thing to suggest.
It’s insane.
Bathrooms too messy? Add a toll. Still too messy? Have to clean too often? Raise that toll.
Litter in the parks? Toll.
Insanity.
I didn’t suggest it and you didn’t explain why it’s not only an “unserious” idea, but one so bad that anyone who suggests it should be forcefully removed from the city, including, presumably all the city and TriMet officials who got rid of the Fareless Square for just this reason.
On the plus side, with so many people run out of town, it will certainly solve the housing crisis.
Living a place with municipal (city owned) liquor and grocery stores, they are actually kind of good, though the later have become pretty rare (but that might change soon). That being said, given Portland government’s penchant for putting optics, lip service, and check-box pandering over actually functioning departments, I’m not sure how well a Portland version would be.
My bank is a co-op, my electric is a co-op, my heating (propane) used be a co-op, and when they finish running the cable out this far, I can make my internet a co-op. The idea that co-ops are someone not workable just isn’t accurate.
That’s great that co-ops work for you.
However co-ops are private entities, they are Nothing like government owned and run.
Apples and Oranges.
Co-ops, which I’m defining as businesses where the customers are the owners, are great, and are a very different beast than a city-owned business.
In a co-op, incentives are perfectly aligned. In city-owned business, they may or may not be, but, realistically, probably aren’t. Look at TriMet as an example — while not city owned, you can see that their incentives aren’t always cleanly aligned with those of riders.
How are city-run liquor stores materially better than the privately owned ones we have in Oregon? I’ve visited state-owned liquor stores in NH, and they seemed more-or-less the same as ours (but cheaper because their booze taxes are low).
This is amazing. I loved Mamdani before, and now I love him even harder.
Thanks for digging that recording out and sharing it.