Like many of his predecessors, Mayor Eric Adams regularly faces scrutiny for the way he commutes to City Hall.
Adams has frequently claimed he rides and surveys the subway system overnight. It’s a point he’s made this year as he’s grappled with concerns over safety in the mass transit system while ordering more bag checks and police officers in stations.
But on Tuesday, he said his packed schedule makes riding the subway to work every day more difficult than being chauffeured by his police detail.
“I gotta be realistic, not only idealistic,” Adams replied when questioned by a Gothamist reporter during a news conference.
The mayor insisted he regularly rides the subway, saying: “Not only do I do it during the daytime, I’m out there 1 a.m., 2 a.m., 3 a.m. And not a lot of mayors do that.”
Adams went on an early morning tour of the subways with the NYPD last week. He also rode overnight with WABC-TV in February.
But his latest comments about his commuting habits reignited a topic that’s been a political third rail for local mayors since the subway first opened in the early 20th century.
“You want to be as much of a New Yorker as your constituents are,” said George Arzt, a political consultant and former press secretary to Mayor Ed Koch. “And to do that, you have to take the subways.”
Arzt said that for mayors, taking the subways is mostly good politics. Koch enjoyed taking the subway occasionally and would often stand in the middle of the subway car as his bodyguards looked on, according to his former spokesperson.
“People want to touch the flesh,” Arzt said. “They want to see the mayor out and about with them.”
The importance of having populist appeal is not lost on Adams, a former transit police officer who has described himself as the city’s first working-class mayor.
He’s been seen on the subways more than former Mayor Bill de Blasio, who was widely criticized for insisting on being driven from Gracie Mansion on the Upper East Side to his gym in Park Slope many mornings during his eight years in office.
But Adams has been less visible in the system than former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who publicized his daily transit commutes. Bloomberg would be chauffeured to an express subway station on the Upper East Side before taking a morning ride downtown.
During his campaign for office in 2021, Adams gave transit advocates hope they’d found a cheerleader for their cause. He vowed to create 150 miles of bus lanes in four years, and bus riders gifted him a jacket bearing the words “NYC Bus Mayor.” He also rode a Citi Bike ahead of the general election in November 2021 and told reporters he’d be the city’s first bike mayor.
But transportation advocates have begun to sour on Adams in recent years as his administration has killed or delayed many bus and bike lane projects across the city.
Danny Harris, executive director of the nonprofit advocacy group Transportation Alternatives, said that while Adams doesn’t need to get out of his car every day, taking the subway or biking more often would help him “not only to understand the pulse of New York City but to see in real time the challenges of accessibility.”
“If the focus is to ‘get stuff done,’ we have a vibrant public transit system that gets people around much faster than traveling through gridlock with sirens,” he added, referring to one of Adams’ slogans.
Leave a Reply