Zohran Mamdani, more than any recent mayoral candidate, made improving New York City’s embarrassingly slow bus system central to his election campaign. His clarion call: Make buses fast and free.
To accomplish those goals, Mr. Mamdani announced shortly after midnight on Thursday that Michael Flynn, a longtime transit official and consultant, would be the next commissioner of the Department of Transportation.
Mr. Flynn’s appointment was expected — his name began circulating as a favorite for the role on Wednesday — but his presence at Mr. Mamdani’s intimate swearing-in early Thursday was surprising.
Just after the new mayor took his oath of office in the old City Hall subway station, he introduced Mr. Flynn, who was among a group of two dozen family, friends, supporters and reporters and photographers who attended the underground ceremony.
The station’s faded grandeur spoke to “the importance of public transit, to the vitality, the health, and the legacy of our city,” Mr. Mamdani said before he invited Mr. Flynn to stand by his side. We “will take seriously the responsibility and the opportunity we have to make this streetscape and the public transit of the city we call home the envy of the world.”
Mr. Flynn, 46, who worked at the Transportation Department for nearly a decade before joining an urban transportation consultancy, echoed the sentiment. “I know firsthand that New York City D.O.T. has some of the most passionate, talented and committed public servants in the country, if not the world, and they’re ready to think big and deliver big on our ambitious agenda,” he said.
The new commissioner will be closely watched. The Mamdani administration has made a number of promises on road safety, many of which involve public transit.
New York’s buses travel at roughly 8 miles per hour and are among the slowest fleets of any major American city, while serving largely lower- and middle-income residents, especially in the boroughs beyond Manhattan.
One of Mr. Mamdani’s goals — making the buses free — is outside Mr. Flynn’s purview.
The Transportation Department does not control the cost of bus fare, which will rise to $3 in January, up from $2.90. To make buses free, City Hall would have to broker a deal with Gov. Kathy Hochul, who controls the transit system and would most likely have to raise taxes to finance the plan. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the state agency that runs the buses, has signaled its reservations about free buses.
But Mr. Flynn will have significant power to make the service faster, by changing roads and building more protected bus and bike lanes. Both are goals that transit advocates had hoped Mayor Eric Adams would champion.
Mr. Adams was required by law to help carry out a plan to create 150 miles of bus lanes with barriers or camera enforcement and 250 miles of protected bike lanes over five years.
Corey Johnson, the former City Council speaker who helped pass legislation requiring that plan, said Mr. Flynn was key to developing it as a consultant for the city.
Former Mayor Eric Adams’s administration missed the mark every year. In the last four years, the city installed about 28 miles of bus lanes and 95 miles of protected bike lanes, according to the Transportation Department.
Critics of Mr. Adams’s track record on street projects cite a number of abandoned or revised bus and bike lane projects, one of which was mired in claims of corruption.
In August, Ingrid Lewis-Martin, a top aide to Mr. Adams, was accused of participating in a conspiracy to block bike lane changes on McGuinness Boulevard in Brooklyn, in exchange for a relatively small sum of money and a role on a television show. She pleaded not guilty.
On Wednesday, several transit advocates cheered Mr. Flynn’s appointment.
Justin Balik, the vice president at Evergreen Action, a climate advocacy group, said that Mr. Flynn is a “serious pick” who can balance the many demands of the job.
Sam Schwartz, chairman of the transportation program at Hunter College, said he hired Mr. Flynn to lead the Manhattan office of his former transportation planning consultancy, where he worked on a number of road redesign projects that made streets safer for pedestrians.
“Mamdani clearly has made moving buses faster part of his goals, and making streets more livable,” he said. “Mike Flynn is about as expert as you get in those areas.”
Stefanos Chen is a Times reporter covering New York City’s transit system.
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