Mayor Zohran Mamdani (proper) together with his newly appointed Division of Transportation Commissioner Mike Flynn. Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026.
Picture courtesy of NYC Mayor’s Workplace
Zohran Mamdani’s very first act as mayor was to announce his Division of Transportation commissioner.
The newly minted Hizzoner named transportation veteran Mike Flynn as the top of DOT, an company that’s key to executing one in all his central marketing campaign guarantees: delivering “fast and free” metropolis buses.
Mamdani named Flynn, who has years of expertise as a transportation official and advisor, as DOT’s new boss moments after being sworn in as mayor throughout a midnight ceremony contained in the decommissioned Metropolis Corridor practice station.
“It is an honor to have Mike here alongside me as we embark on an administration that 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,” Mamdani stated in the course of the Jan. 1 ceremony.
“It will require someone who’s experienced, who is fluent in the landscape as it is, and who is ambitious and imaginative towards the landscape as it could be and I can think of no better person than the man alongside me,” he added, referring to Flynn.
Flynn had been rumored to be a favourite for the position all through the day on Wednesday.
DOT oversees New York Metropolis’s streetscape. The company’s purview consists of paving metropolis roads, managing site visitors patterns, including highway security options, and putting in bus and bike lanes throughout town.
Through the ceremony, Flynn — who spent 9 years at DOT underneath former Mayors Michael Bloomberg and Invoice de Blasio — stated he’s “thrilled” to be becoming a member of the administration as a result of Mamdani and his staff “fundamentally understands the role that transportation plays in the day-to-day lives of New Yorkers.”
Flynn labored at DOT for almost 10 years, in the end serving because the company’s director of capital planning and challenge administration till 2014. Throughout that point, he oversaw main capital initiatives similar to avenue reconstruction and pedestrian and bike infrastructure.
Since then, he has labored within the personal sector, main the transportation consultancy TYLin Metropolis Options’ New York workplace. He additionally taught programs on city planning, transportation, and sustainable design on the Pratt Institute for eight years.
“I think that we need to aim higher, we need to be bolder and more ambitious,” Flynn stated. “I think that DOT is an agency that has largely remained as is for a long time. Something that I’m really interested in, and I know the mayor is too, is helping government deliver better for New Yorkers, more efficiently and more effectively. I’m excited to work with my team to identify those opportunities.”
Mamdani choosing Flynn as DOT commissioner, in addition to Julia Kerson as deputy mayor for operations, rapidly drew reward from the transportation advocacy world this week.
Riders Alliance Government Director Betsy Plum, in a Wednesday assertion, stated the group expects Flynn’s DOT to each restart avenue redesign initiatives stalled by former Mayor Eric Adams’ administration and making metropolis buses quick and free a precedence.
“Fast and free buses can’t be an aspiration tucked behind competing priorities,” Plum stated. “They must be the measure of success. A city that works for bus riders is a city that works for everyone, and we’ll be looking to this administration to make that standard real — and to hold the entire system accountable for getting riders where they need to go, quickly and reliably.”
In the case of Mamdani’s pledge to make buses quick and free, Flynn may have no say over the latter.
Public transit fares within the metropolis are managed by the state, which Mamdani must persuade to make his proposal a actuality. He should work with Gov. Kathy Hochul, the MTA, and the state legislature to comprehend that imaginative and prescient.
Nevertheless, as the top of DOT, Flynn will play a crucial position in rushing up metropolis buses. A big a part of carrying out that objective can be by way of constructing way more protected bus lanes — enforced both by cameras or bodily boundaries.
Adams’ DOT persistently fell quick on hitting legally mandated targets for brand new bus lane building underneath the NYC Streets Plan, which was handed by the Metropolis Council in 2019. Though town was required to assemble 150 miles of protected bus lanes over the previous 4 years, it ended up constructing about 28.
Flynn informed Streetsblog that he hopes to start out making progress towards constructing extra bus lanes straight away by getting initiatives that had been stalled by the Adams administration, such because the Fordham Highway bus lane within the Bronx, again on monitor.
MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber has stated that he expects the Mamdani administration to rapidly get bus lane building again on monitor.
“So I do expect to see, after the inauguration day, pretty fast, that the city will move quickly to make good on those legally required commitments,” Lieber stated late final 12 months. “And help us make more progress on the bus system.”
