Zohran Mamdani Gets 8,000 Potholes Filled in a Single Day
https://novaramedia.com/2026/03/24/zohran-mamdani-gets-8000-potholes-filled-in-a-single-day/Open linkView original on lemmy.world1414
Comments226https://novaramedia.com/2026/03/24/zohran-mamdani-gets-8000-potholes-filled-in-a-single-day/Open linkView original on lemmy.world
Sure sure sure, but did the government make any profit from doing this?
Business owners whose vehicles now need less repair and maintenance: “This is unacceptable“
"I used that pothole as a waypoint and now I get lost."
"Garmin GPS announces next update to bring back missing potholes by playing bang.mp3 without any user input destination needed..."
But it was the sound of that specific pothole! How else am I gonna know which pothole is which? Please send help, I've been lost in traffic for 4 hours!
Suspension and tire shops across NYC are sobbing
There's a corner gas episode where the small town gets upset after a pothole is filled because it helps reduce the speed of traffic and a speed bump is too fancy
it's been over a decade since I've seen any of that show and I can picture a whole bunch of scenes from that episode in my head
not because I actually remember them, just because the characters and plot are that identifiable
good show
An incredible pull, but hell yea I see you.
The movie blew my fucking mind...
They were a couple a whole time? 🤣🤣
Dude spoilers!
Cops need loving, too.
That movie intro was gold
YES!! I LOVE CORNER GAS
Fucking socialist, wasting money on things people need.
I know you're joking, but it is so depressing that this is EXACTLY how so many government officials think and how so many constituents have been brainwashed to think.
and, equally if not more depressingly, governments can make waaay more money by TAXING THE FUCKING RICH!
The typical conservative response to that is "but then they'll take their businesses elsewhere and now you get nothing."
The typical conservative response also fails to even consider just how difficult, expensive, and risky it is to move a large business to an entirely new region. Real estate has to be purchased and sold, employees have to be relocated or replaced, logistics have to be established in the new region, valuable business connections and contracts will have to be severed, and for brick and mortar businesses, the competitive landscape will be different.
Also, New York is a market of 5+ million people. They won’t ignore that because of high taxes.
YUUUUP
Car infrastructure doesn't need to make a profit don't you know? Its just public transport that needs be a net gain for the city
Ah, you must be one of those people that needs posts to end in "/s" to get the joke.
Haha I think you might be the person who needs the /s. I was just continuing the sarcasm but making an adjacent sarcastic point
I don’t need the
/sIf this comment is implying an /s then you got me lol
no, you can see it right there at the end:
/s/s
I'm just trying to fit in.
I need the
dif this about cars, only the most libertarian would question, if we're talking about trains tho...
Or also did 20 diff pockets get filled as well??
Who's going to pay the workers to put the pothokes back?
New campaign slogan:
Zohran, he'll fill all your holes.
I wish those movies were still funny today. They were so great in their time.
They aged terribly
I'm so glad someone finally had the bravery and moral courage to take on the scourge of...Austin Powers movies. Truly this is the cause of our time.
Yeah, agreed on all counts 😕
Can you share examples?
I don't remotely remember the one i saw.
Well, just off the top of my head, from very old memories, there's tons of sexual assault. Also lots of making fun of fat people and people with different bodies in general. I'm sure there's a lot more.
There's also the fact that half the 'jokes' were just a scene going on longer than you'd expect.
I think a lot of the body shaming jokes don't land not because we are uptight PC wokies, but because when you don't stigmatise something, it loses its social power. Oh that person has a mole? So what? The boomer humour was 'oh, it's bad to have a mole, but you should never say anything about it!' when you don't believe either of those statements there is no joke, and the scene goes on for like 5 minutes...
The mole was a pun on the 'mole' meaning an embedded spy.
Sexual assault like this?
Someone else mentioned that it's actually pretty consensual. I assumed it wasn't, but I guess I must be wrong. Again, it's been a very long time since I've seen them. I know that consent wasn't the big talking point then that it is now, so I just thought they'd have fucked it up. It's good to see they didn't totally.
Yeah, it's pretty nice for 1997.
Isn't the whole point that it's riffing off the sexual misconduct in the bond movies? Also, Its been a while, but I recall Austin always being overtly consensual as a contrast to the Bond series
Yes, that's the satire. Which is lost on folks who did not grow up with the old bond movies, instead tossing it in the "boomer humor" category without understanding that the reason it was funny to the last generation was because it played off stuff from the previous generation.
Time moves on. Like a poster above us said, the movies aged badly because the comedy isn't timeless, say like Who's On First.
I wonder what will be considered horrible in 5-10 years from now? What awful thing we are doing now that we are unaware of?
I'm afraid in 5-10 years, the pendulum might swing back to jokes like "How many Jews fit in a Volkswagen?"
I find the first one aged better than the rest. I still laughed out loud after watching it recently. The later movies, not so much.
Agree, the first one has aged like fine milk (opinions differ of if its spoiled or turned to cheese) and the opening bit of the second film where they had a real budget for a split second.
The part there thats aged well is of all the actors cast in the parody opening, Danny Devito is the only one who isnt problamatic.
That's the third one.
Good to know. Thanks for the heads up.
Zohran the Hole Destroyer.
You thought Trump's weird enthusiasm for the guy couldn't get weirder. Just wait.
Can my city borrow Mamdani for a couple months?
This guy seems like he’s off to a great start.
And who would have thought paying people to provide services would work? I’m shocked!
He’s young enough that, once he’s done in NYC, he could go off and be mayor of several other cities afterward.
I think that's called a governor
The pot hole that Governor Kathy Hochul filled once she
was elected totook office was finally issuing cannabis stores and farms licenses to grow and sell two years after weed was legalized in New York State, after Cuomo refused to, that corrupt, ass-grabbing jerk.And thank you very much for providing me the incredibly rare opportunity to use that pun. I’ve been sitting on that for so very long.
I had to read this like 4 times before I got it lmao that’s pretty good
I mean, I do legitimately wonder how he did this when other administrations didn't or couldn't. Would like an insider perspective. Like, did he just pay tons and tons of OT? Did he order the potholes filled quickly, even if they didn't meet the normal standard for quality? Did he crack the whip and say "fuck your union rules!" Or were past administrations just this corrupt/lazy/incompetent?
I'm sure his fanboys will say "obviously it's the last one - he's not a corrupt capitalist pig", or something. And I'm open to that explaination. But I'd like, yaknow, some actual statements from people who were actually involved.
EDIT 2: See Aatube's comment below for the NYT article link. It's real.
I suspect the article is overselling it (the comparison, not the raw pothole number), and they don't source basically anything they're saying, so it's hard to definitively call them on that. NYC had a winter that created an abnormal number of potholes, and this article (using an uncited figure) says: "the same number that would usually take New York’s Department of Transport (DOT) a week." But is that for filling potholes directly after winter? Is it for the rate of potholes per week averaged across the year (which would be a completely invalid comparison)? I guess I could try digging it up, but Novara Media clearly didn't give enough of a shit when they said it.
I think it's cool regardless.
Dunno, Novara; maybe when you decide to learn how hyperlinks work.
EDIT: I tried to follow one breadcrumb to the NYT using this quote from the article: "According to the New York Times, the incident signaled early on that Mamdani was raring to take on “long ignored street improvements – the kind of meat-and-potatoes issue that some previous mayors have struggled to deliver on”.".
I can't find that quote, even trying several different verbatim excerpts from the quote (but the full quote should be findable anyway). Thaaaaaaaat's really fucking questionable. I could be missing something. @[email protected], your thoughts?
Here's the source
https://www.nyc.gov/mayors-office/news/2026/03/mamdani-administration-fills-more-than-7-000-potholes-during-wee
Daaaaaamn. That is some actual work being done. And all it took was electing a socialist. Let that be the lesson.
Here's a press release from the piece of shit who was in office previously, Eric Adams, celebrating the 500,000th filled pothole of his tenure. Mamdani assumed office January 1, so at 82 days, he's advertising ~610 potholes fixed per day in a winter that's produced an abnormally high amount of potholes.
Adams' press released was published January 29, 2025, and he assumed office January 1, 2022, or 1124 days. This means Adams was advertising ~445 potholes filled per day, which is 73% the amount Mamdani advertises here. Once you account for the fact that Adams' average was across three years rather than just "from the middle of winter to spring" – meaning that on average there were fewer potholes available to fix per day than Mamdani's timespan – the difference, while not exactly clear, is negligible. Even accounting for the fact that Mamdani just assumed office and may have some inertia, these aren't even close to earth-shaking numbers.
You can also see that this kind of pothole dick-measuring contest is extremely typical for NYC mayors – and god, fuck Eric Adams. If I wouldn't slobber Adams for basically these same numbers, I'm not going to slobber Mamdani either.
Edit: Something else I totally forgot to address is response time; per the Adams press release (I'm taking it uncritically, but I'm also taking the Mamdani PR uncritically; sue me):
Meanwhile, Mamdani's press release states:
And just like before, the difference in the nature of their tenure means I can't in good faith give Adams the point based on the raw number; obviously the average response time across three years with four seasons each could have fewer hurdles on average than "middle of winter to spring", where everything's cold as fuck and frozen and snowing.
I appreciate you sitting through all of this for our benefit :)
I wanna see mamdani be successful but I'm wary of putting politicians up on a pedestal as our saviors and hope, as I'm learning from my elder leftists that thats gone wrong a lot of times before 😅
Still rooting for him though :)
EDIT: See Aatube's comment below for the NYT article link. It's real.
Okay, makes sense; from the press release:
Left with no other data (I'm not thrilled Novara treated this press release totally uncritically), I'm forced to assume they mean "average potholes per week per year", which is a completely bullshit metric to compare against that you'd only use as an empty boast. A day with just under 7x the efficiency of an average day of the year isn't all that exceptional when the day is a spring thaw right after a winter that made an exceptional amount of potholes. Pothole filling is not and will never be even close to evenly distributed.
It's still very good to be taking care of potholes, but Novara seemingly took a standard press release about fixing potholes and turned it into how Mamdani is revolutionizing NYC.
All that aside: what are your thoughts on the article seemingly fabricating a quote from The New York Times?
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/06/nyregion/mamdani-pothole-williamsburg-bridge-bump.html?unlocked_article_code=1.V1A.e_aT.Ra0vREoZDA0U#%3A%7E%3Atext=long-ignored+street+improvements+%E2%80%94+the+kind+of+meat-and-potatoes+issue+that+some+previous+mayors+have+struggled+to+deliver+on
It's right here.
When you're trying to find a quote, try wrapping the literal quoted text in quotation marks and searching to get exact matches: https://www.google.com/search?q=%22long+ignored+street+improvements+%E2%80%93+the+kind+of+meat-and-potatoes+issue+that+some+previous+mayors+have+struggled+to+deliver+on%22
Oh, thanks! I did search it in quotes. It just didn't show up for some reason. I guess Bing just doesn't like this one for some reason (an example substring I chose):
Super my bad. Amended my comments. Very heavily appreciated. I should've tried another search engine to be safe.
I appreciate your thoroughness!
Oh, this is not thorough. But I appreciate your appreciation.
The question is, how many potholes do they usually fill in a day? For all we know they fill 8000 potholes every spring, but just don't advertise it. That being said, letting the people know what you do for them is important.
1/5 that or so, based on the article
He’s got John Henry on the payroll.
He said, asking on Lemmy, where none of those people are likely to exist.
Sure. But a future article or other news source or maybe a former mayor's aide's twitter account might have more info, and maybe someone here knows about that
Im just gonna leave this here
It's possible they're all fresh new potholes. The reason there's more of them is the trend from cars to SUVs.
The first part makes sense. But I think an especially harsh winter would be more the culprit than SUVs. Not that they don't cause more damage - but the number of SUVs in a city doesnt double in a single year and cause a noticeable increase in potholes. We would expect a gradual increase in pothole development that would only be noticeable with statistical analysis over several uyears.
You're totally right. I didn't know it was such a big jump. I assumed this was one of those cases where every administration gets to claim something is the "biggest ever" because the thing they're bragging about tends to grow steadily with population and/or inflation.
I mean, totally possible. But it looks like he just got a lucky break with the weather this year, lol
"But how is that even possible?"
I mean, my question was how it managed to do its job better than previous administrations.
Analysis elsewhere in the thread appears to indicate that none of my hypotheses were actually the most likely scenario. Instead, (and I'm embarassed I didn't think of this) the most obvious hypothesis is that the DOT is filling potholes at a completely normal rate, and there are just a lot of potholes available to fill. They are comparing filling potholes on the pothole-filling-est day of the year after a harsh winter, versus an average week after average winters in previous administrations.
So, as always, the null hypothesis when a politician says something should be "it's spin"
It looks like a promo for a new Law & Order spinoff.
Crazy what not settling for less when it comes to public office will do for you for once.
Of course.
Actual uplifting news and it's something Zohran Mamdani did. Sucks that this guy isn't eligible for the presidency.
Trump won't be eligible in next election and I'm certain that won't stop him from trying. Why can't we do the same?
...because Zohran Mamdani isnt already the president and isnt being supported by the richest men in the world and is actively being worked against.
I mean presidency eligiblity seems to be up in the air these days. Maybe it's not impossible
Great things happen when the wealthy pay their fair share.
This is exactly why they never want us to see it happen.
They're gonna pay one way or the other.
We don't want cake.
We can have revolution AND cake!
No thanks, cake makes you soft. BRING ME PIE!!!
Nobody has paid anything different yet. The tax year hasn't even finished. He just decided to spend his funds on something visible to everyday New Yorkers.
By himself? That's quite a work ethic.
He's used to filling holes since college days
Mamdaddy
Immigrant took my jerb which I would never do.
This should be in every Mayoral job-orientation handbook.
The problem is, you see; hardly anyone reads books these days.
I have dozens of books (that warn exactly, with instructions) on how to avoid this exact situation.
I have like 30 books that I think "Hmm, that looks interesting".
But then I'd feel guilty for doing nothing with that time.
Reading is doing something.
Time better spent rotting your brain on the internet with the rest of us.
The important thing about having books is the option to read them.
There's a flip side. My country has roadworks everywhere right before election time lmao
wow, its almost like socialism can benefit society.
I mean this really isn't socialism this is just basic general government work and somebody actually pushing for the people that do the work that they're being paid to do already.
So true. Governments have lost sight that they exist to serve the people. They are a collectivist solution to managing large projects the population needs. You can take many approaches to that, but that is the fundamental reason we have them.
Otherwise, we don't need them and wouldn't choose to have them.
It was more alluding to the fact that he is a socialist and his interest is in bettering the city rather then enriching himself.
Every good Mayor does this. There is nothing unique or ultra special about him doing his job.
I agree that a good mayor does stuff like this. But with the state of american politics in general, and NYC in particular, this kind of behavior is far from the norm. Otherwise this post wouldn't get any traction.
This is exactly the norm. New York politicans are always doing bursts of road maintance and bragging and trying to outdo the previous one. I checked the last 15 years and found every single mayor did this. Not all of them filled in more than the previous which is why there is stats like Filled in X by X date or filled in X in a single day or filled in X over the term.
I like Mamdami but I also like living in reality I also think presenting this as Mamdami is the first guy to fill in potholes completely undermines peoples trust in the government. I am happy to be shown im wrong and that this is exceptional but from what I see its nothing more than a good headline.
No ones saying he's first guy to fill potholes...
No people are actually acting like hes the first guy to fill potholes. There are so many comments saying "omg why could not one else do this" "omg a government actually working for people". I am correcting the record to show governments do this
At the very least it is evidence that socialists can govern at least as well as capitalists.
I mean honestly that's just kind of a dumb take. Regardless of him being socialist or not the fact is he's just doing his job.
Sure, but there a shit ton of people who say that because he’s a socialist, everything will go to hell. It’s important to counter that argument with facts that show otherwise.
In the entire fucking rest of the world Mamdani would just be viewed as a boring centrist bureaucrat that does their job. But "spending money on public infrastructure" is somehow seen as radical left socialism in the US.
Yeah it’s really sad.
I mean we have many countries that prove that aspect we don't need some dude in New York to prove or disprove that we also have many failed leaders that have failed at that very task as well in the socialist world.
Agreed, and also agreed that Mamdani wouldn't even be called a socialist in most of the world. But in the American context, everything I said is true. I'm sorry that we're so distorted from reality that we have to have conversations like these.
Almost like the propaganda about government workers being inefficient and lazy is capitalist propaganda if the socialist politicians are the ones driving efficiently making government work.
🫡poop
Ever since the day I first saw him I knew this was a man who can fill a hole
lots of holes are yearning to be filled
I mean I know he's a ladies man, but seriously, 8000 in a day? Hats off, Mamdani. Don't forget the electrolyte drinks.
All it took was one single governor not being a sociopath.
Mind blowing!
Makes you wonder what Eric Adams was doing all day
No it doesn't. He was lining his fucking pockets.
Fraud. At a break-neck pace.
A day should be enough to travel from NYC to Washington DC, via Istanbul.
he approved a "study on trash cans(how people were throwing thier trash away)" in NYC which costs millions.
Turns out you can improve both public transit and driving! It was sort of being implied by haters that driving was going to get way worse under him IIRC.
This is good but cis people still need to push him to keep his promise on protecting trans people that he made during the campaign and stand up to Mount Sinai and Langone.
https://bsky.app/profile/erininthemorning.com/post/3mhtvnnr4222c
"Cis" is not a sexuality. The only person going on about sexuality is youuuuuu.
Cis people are people whose gender identity matches their sex assigned at birth. It's basically anyone that isn't transgender, nonbinary, or intersex.
It matters in this contect because while transgender people can advocate for their own rights, they don't have the leverage needed to succeed unless cisgender (cis) people help.
No but why should I, why is this the most important problem that should consume my time and energy, while there are 1000 of other global problems. Mass starvation, war, poverty, racism, anti trans, Eco terrorism, getting fucked by politicians. What is so bad in new York for trans people, is it forbidden to be trans, I actually don't know because I don't live there, but it seems like it has a healthy community?
You're a cis people dumbass
It's important to remember there is no default or baseline for defining a human person. With race, if someone just says "person" without specifying race/color, does that imply "white" (or whatever other default) to you? And if I just say "people", does that mean straight people only and not gay people?
How about gender? Are "people" just the men, or just the women? Cis/trans is the same. There is no default here, just a bunch of people with different backgrounds trying to do their best.
Also, if it just so happens you're one of the folks who considers "cis" a slur, I'd ask if you feel the same about the most accurate terms for your gender, race/ethnicity, etc.
Okej but why do you want to define a human person or whatever, in this scenario? I don't care about cis/trans or anything, I don't identify as cis or man or woman. But grouping people based on things they have no choice in and then telling them because you are born like this, it's your responsibility to do whatever I ask of you, sounds weird to me. People are dealing with their own issues as people who identify as trans are.
Red flag!
A cis person is the oppossite of a trans person.
What the fuck is a trans person and a cis person?
You seem confused.
Should've used rats to fill them in. .
Boom, two birds, one stone.
I should be mayor. Amateurs.
You wanna get 2 birds stoned at once?
You talkin bout Pigeons?
Sounds like a waste of good drugs
Yeah they can use the pothole debris to kill all the pigeons. Pay attention.
Can he please fill the pot hole in my heart next?
I would give my left nut for my city to spend some money to fill in the god damn potholes instead of whatever the hell they're spending my extra .1 percent sales tax for stupid road projects that will do nothing to actually make a difference in traffic..
They need that money for the big interchanges they're going to put in for the 10s of people working at all the new data centers.
I'd give both my nuts for my city/area to upgrade the trains to run 24/7 and more often. But also they can just have my nuts, I don't really want them anymore.
Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall . . .
Capitalists hate this one trick.
That one trick? When politicians focus on actually doing their fucking job.
The job is to hire a survey team, count the potholes, then hire consultants to decide which outside contractors to get to fill the potholes, and don't verify they do anything at all, if they don't steal the asphalt and sell it to local driveway contractors.
That's how it's done in my city.
Politicians are supposed to be working for the betterment of all, not just the richest few. So..... Yes
Now do Blackburn, Lancashire.
Are there also 8000 to fill? You may need to count them all.
Sounds like they need to invite Wanksy round for a visit
I think they've been through several rounds of repaving since 1967.
I think that might be slightly out of Mamdani's jurisdiction..
New York Mayors love to brag about filling pot holes. https://hoodline.com/2025/01/new-york-city-celebrates-500-000-potholes-fixed-under-mayor-adams-leadership-aims-to-enhance-roadway-safety/
So it was a PR stunt that fixed more potholes than the DOT usually does in a week, and it further established credibility that socialists can perform at least as well as the best capitalists.
I’ll be interested to see how Mamdani’s longer term infrastructure plans work out.
No. DOT usually does bursts where they fix a lot of potholes then the mayor articles such as the above. They always hone in on a weird framing of the stat. This is potholes fixed in a single day. Others do potholes fixed total or over a period of time, average pothole fix time etc.
Sure but this was never a concern. Its not that we(socialism haters) think they can use a government department to fix an issue. Its that we think they will interject the government into industries it has no business running and then will lead to inefficient run industry. I dont think Mamdami will do that or anything close to it.
Potheads in shambles
Unfortunately it was manhattan so that was just one city blocks worth 😝
The South African pothole
You can tell it's a pothole by the way it is
How shit are the streets in the US? Everyone in the comments are bitching about their holes.
It depends. Northern roads go through a lot of freezing and thawing, water leaks into the cracks, freezes, expands, breaks up the roadway, cars/trucks roll over them and breaks it up more, and the next thing you know there's a rim denting hole in the road. You can patch them all day long, and others will open up right next to them.
Down south, where it's warmer, the roads last much better. I'm in Florida, and the roads are generally pretty great, and when people visit America, most of them go to Florida, so that's what they know.
Just to be clear, I am not defending or praising the Florida government which is probably the most corrupt state government in the nation. The roads are good because the weather is good, not because of the government. They suck.
the fact that one of the biggest cities in the world had at least 8000 holes to begin with is ridiculous. NYC is smaller than 800km². that's at least 10 potholes per km², if you assume the city is entirely made of roads and no buildings.
gigachad
Did they do right or just drop some loose asphalt in them and pat it a couple of times with a shovel?
It's too cold for proper patches, so most of the patches will just fall apart in a few weeks.
I need more of this guy. This and the snow is all I heard.
More holes filled in one day than Bonnie Blue.
i imagine max she dîd is 3 holes in a day though, not such a good example
BREAKING NEWS: Zohran Mamdani has sex with Bonnie Blue for a total of 1000 offspring; potholes deemed obliterated.
What a terrible evil person. I can't believe he's supporting our infrastructure and supporting jobs.
Paying workers is easy. I'm interested where did he divert funds from.
Usually there's a suitcase full of money politicians are supposed to take to the bank before flipping on everything they ran on. Maybe he didn't get the memo?
City council slush fund?
Gracie mansion has $100 bills and gold Krugerrands just lying around in massive piles
Sidewalks and safe paths protected from distracted drivers as well, please.
Don't forget the bikes!
“FUCK CARS… wait where is my uber and my food delivery? Why is my Amazon late? But I wanted to rent a car to go to the pumpkin patch and to go to the airport to travel to the third world so I can feel superior!”
-downtown people
I base this all on my SIL and her friends who are all silver spoon downtown kids who hate cars, except when they rent em cause they tired, they go on about the environment, except when they have to travel across the world twice a year and rent diesel cars to travel the third world and pretend that people’s poverty is an adventure. The kind of people who go on about bike lanes but want nothing to do with road education and safety of pedestrians. The ones who say you need to grab your disabled ass and put all your kids on a bike and haul them to the dr in -20 snow weather. Btw what transit? It sucks unless of course you’re a downtown silver spoon baby who thinks transit and accessibility is city level everywhere, even in rural areas
As a non-American, how far does this strawman get his food from? A lot of food couriers in my city get by with bikes and public transit. Same with uber, do you guys not have trains? (Or buses)
Tens of millions of Americans quite literally don't have either of those things available to them for delivery services.
A German ex once told me that "people from the EU simply cannot understand how large and spread out the USA is until they travel here."
Tokyo seems to be bigger than New York and it's only issue with transit AFAIK is overcrowding, which is also a consequence of other things. My "USA state"-sized country can get me from one end to another in less than a day of trains too.
The issue still doesn't sound to be size, but awful management over decades. It's too far gone to easily fix, and it's not the people's fault, but it still sounds like something to take the piss out of the country for.
JFC, I'm talking about delivery via local mass transit. Of course we have long distance passenger trains.
Your response literally highlights my previous statement. This issue w/ the USA is undercrowding as far as mass transit goes.
See Thats the issue, you hit it right in the head! Do we have even halfway decent transit, bus routes and trains? No we do not.
Fix the transit and fund it so it doesn’t cost me $5 to travel 10km in 3 hours, and I’ll consider saying fuck cars too. But 99.9% of anti car people live in this fantasy world where transit is lovely and funded like the military and everything is accessible to everyone always.
Get your head out your asses and realize that in order to reduce cars, we need to give people ways to get around.
And one thing bike hipsters love is to ignore anyone with disabilities or families, cause they’re selfish and think everyone is a silver spoon downtown baby.
why don’t I throw my wheelchair ass on a bicycle, and toss my kids on my shoulders and ride them to school and the doctor in -20 winter. Cause fuck cars?
So... the pro-car infrastructure is to blame? That sounds like fuck cars to me. Disability friendly buses and trams are a thing too.
The guy you were replying to was even asking for better train and bus lanes, not even mentioning bikes.
It it’s not FUCK CARS grow up, it’s FUCK THE POLITICIANS UNDERFUNDING TRANSIT AND ECO VEHICLES ON BEHALF OF CORPORATIONS.
us blaming each other is exactly what they want. You blaming a family who NEEDS a car to survive and get around is what they get off on
Then drivers swerve into bike lanes to avoid the potholes.
Local weed babe still waiting to get filled.
What matters is what’s meaningful, not what’s expedient.
This isn’t impressive. NYC roads are in rough shape, and patchwork fixes are routine work often dressed up for press. I don’t care about cars.
Bikes cause negligible wear. Vehicles are what degrade roads. Designing n repairing infrastructure around cars feels outdated.
Focus on what actually moves the needle: stronger schools, addressing the $25 billion deficit, supporting people in need, and investing in water infrastructure.
Those are lasting impacts.
I may come off critical, but as Socrates once said- an unexamined life is not worth living.
I think potholes are way more meaningful to bicycles, scooters, and motorcycles than cars from a usability standpoint
You ever hit a pothole on a bike because it looked like a little water and you didn't want to go further into traffic? Definitely a painful and potentially expensive experience.
Yeah, big shit needs to be accomplished but these initiatives compound and get the public behind fixing stuff and making life a little better. Would I like to see empty rentals be taxed at 2-5x the rate of occupied dwellings, fuck yes, will it happen soon, probably not.
NYC has bike lanes which have waaaay less pot holes....and too many double parked cars.
Ps i ride a surly long haul trucker and I very rarely hit potholes, because bikes can dodge a lot of them w/out dramatic movement. Bikes rule!
I get the sentiment, but we don't have much in terms of hope in our government/politicians these days. Hopefully this is just a stepping stone.
Ty for the reply. Hope is powerful.
Ive just seen this same press release from mayors nationwide a dozen times...because im old.
What about the busses?
You'll rarely feel a pothole in a bus, but sure good point.
Also a good point, revisit these same potholes in 30 days and see how they’re holding up before celebrating it in a press release.
Personally, I think cities are a complete blight upon the Earth, I'd actually only be happy if he was reclaiming the city for nature and getting all of those people off that previously beautiful land.
But, I suppose people do have different views on what's good.
Blight compared to what? Moving the people to the suburbs or killing all the people? Cities are much better for the environment than equally populous suburbs or exurbs.
Yeah, be aware it’s low hanging fruit. Make sure it’s not bread and circuses.
Low hanging fruit is better than no fruit, which is what we were getting from Eric Adams
Better uplifted news would be "Zohran Mamdani Also Gets 8,000 Pedophiles Fired from Governmental Positions in a Single Day."
He's a mayor. Unless 8000 known pedophiles work for the city of new york, that's not in his purview. Potholes are
If there was a mechanism to make him president right now, I am sure he would.
Define "mechanism" 👀
(IT'S A JOKE FEDS)
What a wonderful metric to measure how a mayor or prime minister is working. If the streets are full of potholes, you have a bad government. If the streets are paved with smooth asphalt without a single hole for your precious car burning expensive gasoline to fall in, then they're doing some very good work. The economy and potholes. That's the most important things.
The point is that Mamdami is actually doing what his constituents have been asking. If you want to put a negative spin on it, at least make it about how low the bar is instead of this insufferable interpretation of the situation
Kier Starmer would never fill a pothole! The same was said about the previous progressive mayor of my city. She and the party pushed very hard for bike paths everywhere. And we got them. But conservatives and people not from the city were whining because somehow, there were still potholes in the city.
I maintain it's a stupid metric.
Ok well carry on finding the negative in every shred of positive news then
Cars are objectively bad for the environment, for planning, for space, for human community and sociability. There's a lot to criticize about cars
Bikes and buses use streets, too.
Wheelchairs, scooters… lots of things that aren’t cars have wheels and may need to cross the road at some point!
What's Johney-5 up to these days?
You're right, it is a wonderful metric! The metric boils down to "public servant uses public money to improve the lives of the public." The same can be said for all public services: parks, playgrounds, healthcare, inspection and maintenance, just to name a few.
Contrary to what seems to be a widely held opinion in the US the government should not be a for-profit enterprise, rather an entity entrusted with spending public money (i.e. taxes) for the good of the public, and on things no private company would bother with as there is no expected return on investment other than "making people healthier and happier". Healthy, happy people are more likely to contribute and be more productive, which in turn raises more taxes and so the cycle continues. So yes, fixing potholes is a great start, well spotted.
It kind of shows the priorities? Your infrastructure will be fine for a few years if you do no maintenance. After that, it's downhill. If you are investing in maintaining it, you show that you have the longterm interests of the population in mind instead of some shortterm things that might help you during your short term
This is "rape whistles shouldn't need to exist" logic. I know you're in your own little universe where you could just Infinity Gauntlet snap and there'd be no more cars in NYC, but in the world we actually live in, he's helping.
They're not even really using it as a metric. They're just staying a fact and you're getting all worked up over nothing. The article even mentioned an electric scooter rider who died after they got launched off their vehicle after they hit a pothole: this could have easily happened to a cyclist.
Someone's disappointed about their unfilled holes.