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Donald Trump/New York cycling infrastructure (TDKR Chicago 101 wikimedia commons/ NYCDOT Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)"They're so bad": Donald Trump promises to scrap "dangerous" New York bike lanes and "kill" congestion charge
Donald Trump wants New York to "kill" congestion pricing and "get rid of the bike lanes", claiming that reduced traffic is bad for business and a sign that "people can't come into" the city.
Speaking to the New York Post, the newly elected president claimed "no one's coming to the city" because of "horrible" congestion pricing that is "destructive to New York", as well as cycling infrastructure which Trump called "so bad".
"They should get rid of the bike lanes and the sidewalks in the middle of the street," he said. "They're so bad. They’re dangerous. These [electric] bikes go at 20 miles an hour. They're whacking people."
Speaking about the congestion pricing — which came into effect last month and sees drivers charged for entering Manhattan's Congestion Relief Zone, the daily price for car drivers with an E-ZPass $9 during peak hours ($13.50 without E-ZPass) — Trump accused the policy of being "destructive to New York".
"I think it's really horrible," he said, expressing a desire to meet with New York's governor, Kathy Hochul, to make a deal about ending the charge. Trump added that "out of respect" he would not divulge details from two previous phone conversations about the policy.
"I think it's really horrible, but I want to discuss it with her at this point," he continued. "If I decide to do it, I will be able to kill it off in Washington through the Department of Transportation. It's a lot of power.
"Traffic is way down because people can't come into Manhattan and it's only going to get worse. People don't know about it until they get the bill."
While Gov. Hochul notes the policy has reduced traffic, Trump claims this is not a good thing and means "no one's coming to the city".
The president also claimed that rather than encouraging people to use public transport by making vehicle journeys more expensive, the city would be better served focusing "on safety and cleanliness in the subway" and cited cases of users being pushed onto the tracks by "thugs".
"Cleanliness and efficiency are good but they gotta get tough on the thugs. They can't be nice," he said.
Trump's history with cycling of course began back in the late 80s when he was backing bike racing as a business concern, sponsoring the Tour de Trump in the US. At the time he said he believed the race could "rival the Tour de France", but admitted he hadn't ridden a bike since he "was seven or eight years old".
Since his entry to politics cycling has featured perhaps most prominently during interview attacks on the former president, Joe Biden, whose cycling hobby and well-reported crashes were a constant source of entertainment for Fox News and Republicans at the start of this decade.
Back in 2015, while establishing himself as the Republican candidate before his first stint as president, Trump criticised US Secretary of State John Kerry for breaking his leg in a cycling crash during Iran nuclear talks in Switzerland.
"He goes into a bicycle race at 73 or 74 years old," Trump said, although the facts were that Kerry, then aged 71, was not competing in a bike race when he crashed. "He falls, breaks his leg. I don't want him on a bicycle during nuclear negotiations. I swear to you, I will never enter a bicycle race if I'm president."
A couple of years later there was a suggestion Trump's presidency could be good news for bike couriers, the politician addressing reports of Russian hacking by saying: "No computer is safe. It's very important, if you have something really important, write it out and have it delivered by courier."
Fox 5 News even interviewed a New York City bicycle courier who rides an average of 50 miles a day for courier business Cyclehawk delivering packages for clients including banks, fashion agencies and architects. The noise around that cycling positivity died very quickly, however, and eight years on Trump has his sights firmly set on the city's cycle lanes.
Dan is the road.cc news editor and joined in 2020 having previously written about nearly every other sport under the sun for the Express, and the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for The Non-League Paper. Dan has been at road.cc for four years and mainly writes news and tech articles as well as the occasional feature. He has hopefully kept you entertained on the live blog too.
Never fast enough to take things on the bike too seriously, when he's not working you'll find him exploring the south of England by two wheels at a leisurely weekend pace, or enjoying his favourite Scottish roads when visiting family. Sometimes he'll even load up the bags and ride up the whole way, he's a bit strange like that.
Latest Comments
- alexuk 5 min 26 sec ago
If a bike-lane is 5h1t3, it should be ripped out. Let's hope a better bike lanes take their place....
- wtjs 14 min 27 sec ago
These self-driving bollards are among my favourites...
- wtjs 22 min 3 sec ago
It should all be subject to FOI requests, surely?...
- brooksby 32 min 20 sec ago
Nothing at all to do with cycling, but just very (unintentionally) funny:
- Mark Skinner 2 hours 4 min ago
My Datum 30 on 35mm tyres is perfect for wet winter rides and local gravel. Fairly sure it will take 38mm tyres if needed.
- belugabob 3 hours 5 min ago
Should have held my breath , and waited for the previous comment to post...(Slow internet day)
- the little onion 3 hours 8 min ago
I have tried calling. They are just so busy. And the legal advice phone line is about what to do in a crash, not this kind of incident.
- Sredlums 3 hours 29 min ago
It would be really weird if it didn't at least go low enough to clamp the seat post or top tube with the bike still standing on the ground. Would...
- Secret_squirrel 4 hours 3 min ago
Camera's are your only friend when supported by a halfway helpful police force....
Add new comment
21 comments
If a bike-lane is 5h1t3, it should be ripped out. Let's hope a better bike lanes take their place.
I wish they'd rip out the rubbish ones near me. Sometimes no bike-lane is better than a terrible and dangrous one! especially the painted ones, absolute waste of time.
I thought he wanted the states to make more decisions for themselves like abortion and for the federal govt to be smaller and less involved in peoples lives.
No, he wants to be a fascist authoritarian above any laws
When he wasn't in charge of the Federal Government, he wanted States that wanted to do what he liked to be able to do so without interference from the Federal Government. Now he is in charge of Federal Government, he wants to be able to stop States that want to do things he doesn't like from doing those things.
(And also what Hirsute said.)
Bikesnob should be good this evening.
Not sure: I think Eben has been trying to avoid "politics".
Meh. He's just the most attention-grabbing loon to have a go.
Canada can offer you a provincial governor meddling in the major city in the same way *
Rishi was having a go (late, a bit more oblique) via Mark Harper (who was at least the transport secretary) - who remembers the "Plan for Drivers" **?
* Doug Ford, brother of a previous Toronto mayor, the late crack-smoking (not hyperbole) Rob Ford. And these guys are apparently really popular! And we in the UK think we've got it bad with a few pandemic piss-ups in number 10 and some dog-whistlers on the right...
** Because "the easy political choice is to vilify the private car even when it’s been one of the most powerful forces for personal freedom and economic growth in the last century. Used appropriately and considerately, the car was, is, and will remain a force for good. ... It is not right that some drivers feel under attack. ... We will explore options to stop local councils using so-called “15-minute cities”, such as in Oxford, to police people’s lives; we will restrain the most aggressively anti-driver traffic management measures."
I say, anyone fancy a culture war?
Fortune's wheel does indeed make strange revolutions
He might be a loon but the danger and destruction continues and has global effects.
Then you have musk who thinks we live in a “Truman Show” constructed by USAID.
This is going to end horribly and affect everyone.
Unfortunately the US is so big and powerful (and generally sees itself as such an exemplar / exception) that when it changes direction (either going out to save / police the world, OR suddenly turning inward) it can affect everyone (sometimes positively, sometimes in terrible ways).
We're "living beyond our means" in the UK. The US are already further beyond that - they've just turned to go further in the wrong direction (looks good short term, for some...)
Many places in the US could make a change away from quite so much driving - to their own benefit (even economically). Mass motoring early and thoroughly may have almost permanently blocked paths to changing that though.
(e.g. Here's Portland, one of the places often touted as a bike city, where things have recently stalled or declined at a tiny modal share compared to some places in Europe. Although it's hard to compare as they seem to record only "commuters" - who are often the easiest group to grow).
I wouldn't trivilise it. Cyclists are just another minority in the eyes of his authoritarian regime. UK may suffer similar fate, should Reform come to power.
I just saw that the UK and the US have refused to sign the Paris accords on AI.
I'm not sure you'll need to wait until Reform and the Faragists have come to power…
Perhaps the dire prognostications from some folks about self-driving cars need another outing?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=040ejWnFkj0
Although currently some seem to have an achilles heel...
I was reading about this. While it was advertised as an anti-cycle lane policy, when you looked at the detail of the bill there was only one bit on bike lanes (anti of course), but there was a lot more about making it easier for massive and expensive road building schemes to proceed with substantially reduced scrutiny.
That's small comfort if you want to keep bike lanes etc, but it's always worth thinking about what is really motivating them. I notice amongst a lot of the hyperbole on tarrifs, he wanted much higher tarrifs for EVs and solar panels than for oil and gas, which IMO is telling.
Well, NJB feels that this chap holds some kind of grudge against Toronto (which may be true, IDK). I would agree that it's often more about the equivalent of "drill baby drill" - e.g. chasing the fast money / development, usually via reduced regulation - than sticking it to e.g. cyclists.
Even in the UK rather than US cyclists (especially for daily transport) are a tiny minority almost everywhere. Most people probably rarely or never think about this topic. Which might make it even more curious that such media bile appears, but ...
He better get on with scrapping it, before people adjust to it as they have everywhere else a congestion charge has been introduced, and a majority grows to prefer it.
I've been following the introduction of New York Congestion (Relief) Charging with interest. It was originally supposed to come in last Summer with a fee of $15, but the New York mayor bottled it, and paused it, reintroducing it last month as a reduced fee of $9, which is still expected to raise enough revenue for them to secure bonds of $15bn to fund investment in public transport etc. It seems there's some ancient beef between New York and New Jersey too, with the Mayor there turning down the opportunity for a share in proceeds for their public transport, and instead they made an uncessful legal challenge. He is also obsessed with spending public money on road widening, which is no longer necessary, so a lot of questions there.
So far the number of vehicles coming into Manhatten is down, but given only 11% of those commuting to work there did so by by car, and cars don't go to shops, it's car-brain to believe that fewer cars must mean business is down. Car parking is already hugely expensive, and there are tolls on a lot of the bridges into Manhatten, so those previously driving in were already spending a lot more than petrol money.
Not that it's statistically significant, but despite prophecies of doom and gloom, Broaway audiences were higher in January 2025 than January 2024, and the same is apparently so for footfall - however they measure it.
It seems that there isn't a legal means for a President to overturn something that was approved at State level, especially now it's in place, however, he might threaten to remove Federal funding and basically blackmail New York into abandoning it. However, as most regulars here know, these are the kinds of changes that people worry about, but then decide they are OK/good once seen in action, and become more popular over time. Polling currently showing it's more popular with those who are affected by it than those who are indignant at the thought of having to pay.
Hopefully it's all bluster from Trump. If he still has his hotel in New York he might realise that his customers prefer to visit a city with cleaner air.
I'm not sure what authority Trump has to remove cycle lanes in New York. Or maybe he's going to get Elon to send some goons to paint over them.
This. Seems like a clear case of Federal interference with the State legislation.
Which is currently his go-to activity, isn't it? Now he's president, anyway (before, he thought it was terrible if he thought the feds were interfering in state matters…).
This would be the Trump who - while currently resident in Washington DC - is legally a resident of Florida, after leaving New York because too many people hated him there…