A campaign pledge to clear corners for pedestrian safety has stalled inside the very agency the mayor controls
A Broken Promise at the Crosswalk
During his campaign for mayor, Zohran Mamdani was one of the most vocal advocates for universal daylighting in New York City. The concept is straightforward: clear the parking spots at every corner so that drivers can see pedestrians — and pedestrians can see oncoming traffic — before crossing the street. Mamdani had signed onto a letter calling for “universal” daylighting. He had spoken at forums about the need for hard daylighting — physical infrastructure like bike racks and boulders — at every intersection in the city. He had become personally invested in the issue after a driver killed seven-year-old Dolma Naadhun at an undaylighted Astoria intersection in 2023, an intersection in his own Assembly district. And then, on March 3, 2026, at a City Council Transportation Committee hearing, officials from his own Department of Transportation testified that the administration was maintaining his predecessor Eric Adams’s position against universal daylighting — a position that advocacy groups had spent years calling “unacceptable.”
The DOT Position That Stunned the Room
At the hearing, DOT Deputy Commissioner for Transportation Planning and Management Eric Beaton stated that the administration believes “unhardened daylighting is more dangerous than no daylighting at all.” The claim is based on a DOT report issued in early 2025, just as a City Council bill mandating universal daylighting was gathering momentum. The report argued that daylighting without protective physical objects in the cleared space makes pedestrians less safe because drivers can speed up and cut corners. The report was widely criticized by street safety researchers and advocates, who said it contradicted decades of international evidence and conventional traffic engineering. At the March 3 hearing, the overflow crowd responded to Beaton’s testimony with open skepticism. “I think there’s a lot of skepticism in this room about that,” Beaton himself acknowledged, according to Streetsblog. Street safety advocate Kevin LaCherra called the DOT position “tremendously disappointing.” “It’s confusing that Zohran’s DOT is adopting the universal daylighting policy of Eric Adams,” he said. “Twenty-three Community Boards and over 200 groups and 100 elected officials are asking for visibility at crosswalks that will save lives, and the mayor promised those New Yorkers that he would deliver.”
What the Research Shows
The academic and practical evidence for daylighting is extensive. Studies in cities across the United States and Europe have consistently shown that clearing corner parking reduces pedestrian-vehicle conflicts and decreases serious injury crashes. The National Association of City Transportation Officials recommends daylighting as a standard practice. New York State law already prohibits parking within 20 feet of a crosswalk — but allows New York City to opt out of that rule, an exemption that advocates have been trying to close for years. Mamdani himself, as an Assembly member, signed onto legislation to end New York City’s exemption from the state daylighting law. His administration’s DOT has not reversed that position. NACTO’s Urban Street Design Guide recommends daylighting at all intersections as a baseline safety measure, noting that parked cars create dangerous blind spots that contribute to thousands of pedestrian injuries annually.
An Administration at War With Itself
The daylighting controversy is one of several instances in which Mamdani’s agencies have appeared to contradict the mayor’s own stated positions. The FDNY testified at a separate hearing that it opposed protected bike lanes — a position it later partially walked back. Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch has continued a criminal summons policy against cyclists that Mamdani promised to end during his campaign. These disconnects raise serious questions about the Mamdani administration’s ability — or willingness — to bring entrenched agency cultures in line with the mayor’s public commitments. DOT Commissioner Mike Flynn, appointed by Mamdani, told the Transportation Committee that the new Streets Master Plan will focus on “outcomes, not just miles.” But Streetsblog NYC, which has extensively covered the hearing, noted that the plan sets aside firm benchmarks — meaning there is no clear way for the public to hold the agency accountable for specific results. For advocates who have spent years documenting the human cost of dangerous intersections, the March 3 hearing was a painful reminder that changing a city’s built environment requires more than electing a mayor who agrees with you.
