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  • Zohran Mamdani will win New York City mayoral election, CNN’s Decision Desk projects

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    (CNN) — Zohran Mamdani, the 34-year-old democratic socialist whose focus on working-class issues and personal magnetism attracted a diverse coalition of volunteers and supporters to propel a once-underdog campaign, will win New York City’s general election race for mayor, CNN’s Decision Desk projects.

    Mamdani beat former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo for a second time, shattering the political scion’s hopes of a comeback after his loss to Mamdani in the June Democratic primary. Also running in the general election was Republican Curtis Sliwa, who refused to end his campaign despite pressure from Cuomo and his supporters.

    Mamdani’s win marks a victory for the progressive wing of the Democratic Party at a time when national Democrats are divided over how to counter President Donald Trump. The president is himself a native New Yorker who has falsely derided Mamdani as a “communist” and suggested he’d “take over” the city if he is elected.

    The results are likely to echo far beyond New York City, elevating both Mamdani’s profile and platform, including his proposals to freeze the rent for New Yorkers living in rent-stabilized apartments, make public buses free to ride and provide universal childcare by taxing the wealthy.

    Mamdani’s win completes a meteoric rise a year after the state assemblyman launched his bid for mayor, promising to make the most expensive city in the country affordable for its working class.

    Who is Zohran Mamdani?

    Mamdani is a three-term state assemblyman who entered the mayor’s race as one of several apparent also-rans to what appeared to be Cuomo’s race to lose.

    Born in Uganda and first raised in Cape Town, South Africa, Mamdani moved to New York City when he was 7. He attended the prestigious Bronx High School of Science and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Bowdoin College. He is the son of Mahmood Mamdani, a professor at Columbia University, and Mira Nair, an Indian filmmaker whose credits include “Mississippi Masala” and “Monsoon Wedding.”

    Before becoming an assemblyman, Mamdani was a housing counselor and self-described C-list rapper who went by the name “Mr. Cardamom.” His short-lived music career was sometimes front and center in his opponent’s attack ads.

    The music video for “Nani,” a rap song where Mamdani pays homage to his grandma and New York City’s South Asian culture, also shows him shirtless, donning only an apron, looking directly at the camera while he rocks side to side. The image was plastered across anti-Mamdani campaign ads to poke fun at his past music career and his lack of governmental experience.

    Andrew Epstein, a campaign aide, noted that Mamdani’s rapping career helped him indirectly in his campaign.

    “An incredible asset for anybody seeking to run for office is bravery in the face of embarrassment and being able to push through the natural inclination many of us have not to kind of introduce themselves to strangers or do things in a kind of silly way in front of them,” Epstein told CNN.

    But Mamdani made a steady climb in the mayor’s race by producing a constant stream of social media videos, including interviews with voters who had supported Trump in 2024 due to the high cost of living. He ran a groundbreaking digital campaign in which he spoke in multiple languages and connected with supporters with a message anchored to affordability.  During the campaign, Mamdani, who natively speaks Urdu, released campaign videos in Bangla, Spanish, and Arabic.

    One of his most memorable viral videos tackled what the candidate referred to as “halal-flation.” He set out to interview street meat vendors about the high cost of running a street food business in New York City. With a mouthful of rice and halal meat, Mamdani detailed how an arcane permit system in the city is in part to blame for the prices of what should be cheap street food.

    “This was one of the coldest nights of the year, bitterly cold,” Epstein recalled recently. “We were downtown by Zuccotti Park near Wall Street and Zohran just asking people on the street, ‘Would you rather pay $10 or $8 for halal?’ People were pushing through trying to get home, you know, it was rejection over and over and over and over again, but it never fazed him.”

    Mamdani was cutting into Cuomo’s lead in public polling by the June primary. The city’s traditional power brokers, including the real estate and business sectors concerned with Mamdani’s democratic socialist identity, banded together in support of Cuomo and donated millions of dollars to anti-Mamdani super PACs. Business leaders argued Mamdani would drive wealthy New Yorkers out and discourage businesses from operating in the nation’s financial capital.

    Their push ultimately helped Mamdani cast his campaign as a fight between working-class people and billionaires.

    Still, his primary victory shocked much of the political world.

    “I don’t think the line is so much between progressives and moderates. It’s between fighters and fakers,” said city comptroller Brad Lander, who ran against Mamdani but allied with him under the primary’s ranked-choice voting system. “What Zohran is showing is that it’s worth putting up big bold ideas for change, standing up and fighting for them, and that’s pretty hopeful. Yes, he’s a democratic socialist, but he had a bold vision for the future of the city and that excited people.”

    The general election campaign

    After taking a vacation in Uganda to celebrate his wedding, Mamdani returned to a city mourning the deaths of New York police officer Didarul Islam and three others in a Midtown Manhattan shooting. He was confronted with his years of tweets criticizing the police, including references to law enforcement as racist and wicked and calling for them to be defunded.

    “I am not defunding the police. I am not running to defund the police,” he would tell reporters after meeting with Islam’s family, part of an overall shift away from anti-police rhetoric that culminated in recent weeks with his commitment to retain the current police commissioner, Jessica Tisch.

    He also reached out to New York’s Jewish community, roiled by his criticisms of Israel’s government and questions about democratic socialism. Mamdani is an outspoken advocate for  Palestinian rights, a supporter of the movement to boycott and divest from Israel and a fierce critic of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

    “I hate my choices,” said Cydney Schwartz, a 33-year-old liberal Democrat who has lived in Israel and was in line to cast an early vote. She declined to say who she chose.

    The last days of the campaign

    In the closing days of the campaign, Mamdani referred to the race as a choice between “oligarchy and democracy.”  His omnipresence on the campaign trail was on display during the last days of the race and in the lead-up to the last weekend of early voting in the city.

    As more than half a million New Yorkers turned out to cast their votes early, Mamdani was everywhere: He was in church in the morning, calling into radio shows midday, stopping into ethnic supermarkets in the outer boroughs, popping up on influencer live streams, joining a Union Square freestyle rap battle and capping off his Saturday with a whirlwind tour of the city’s nightclub scene.

    Paying homage to the city that never sleeps, Mamdani appeared to hardly do so either, stopping at six nightclubs in Brooklyn just to do it all over again on the last Sunday of early voting. He attended a church service with his parents, met campaign volunteers before stopping on the sidelines of the New York City Marathon, went to Queens for a meet-up with Gov. Kathy Hochul to cheer on the Buffalo Bills, and popped up in the nosebleeds of Madison Square Garden for a New York Knicks game.

    Cuomo also campaigned across the city. Notably, he tried to cut into Mamdani’s core support of South Asian and Muslim voters by highlighting Mamdani’s opposition to criminal penalties for prostitution. He also laughed when a radio host suggested Mamdani would cheer another 9/11 attack, drawing allegations from Mamdani and others that he was playing to Islamophobia. Cuomo denied he was doing so.

    Incumbent Mayor Eric Adams ended his independent bid and endorsed Cuomo. But Cuomo was unable to push Sliwa, the Republican nominee, out of the race, denying anti-Mamdani voters the chance to consolidate behind one opponent. Sliwa repeatedly and colorfully vowed he would die before making way for Cuomo, arguing he owed it to his supporters to keep running.

    For Cuomo, Tuesday’s results are likely a coda to a long and eventful political career. He was governor of New York for nearly 11 years before resigning in 2021 after he was accused of sexual harassment, allegations he has denied, and amid criticism of how his administration handled Covid-19 cases in nursing homes. Running for mayor, Cuomo leaned into his executive experience, often pointing out Mamdani’s short career in politics and relative lack of work history.

    He relaunched his mayoral bid as an independent after losing to Mamdani in June. He remained focused on public safety, promising to hire additional police officers and build more housing. Cuomo, who has a longstanding relationship with Trump, also sought to portray himself as the better candidate to fend off the president’s attacks on New York City.

    A history-making mayor

    Mamdani will be inaugurated on January 1, 2026. He inherits a deeply complex city home to 8.5 million people, a large bureaucracy, a municipal workforce of roughly 300,000 and a city budget of $115 billion.

    Mamdani will make history as New York City’s first Muslim mayor, the first South Asian to hold the office and one of the youngest mayors elected in modern times. He recently married Rama Duwaji, an artist of Syrian descent who was born in Texas and moved to New York City to complete a master’s degree in illustration. Duwaji skipped traditional campaigning alongside her husband on the trail and while it remains unclear whether she will have any role in his administration, at 28, she will be the first member of Gen Z to serve as New York City’s first lady.

    While Mamdani’s identity as both an immigrant and a South Asian New Yorker was central to his campaign, his connection to that community began to take shape long before he launched his run for City Hall. He first made national headlines in 2021 when he joined New York City cab drivers on a 15-day hunger strike seeking relief from excessive debt.

    Mamdani has a strong connection to the cab driver community in New York City, which is largely made up of immigrants, including thousands of South Asians who were among his fiercest supporters. In the last days of the campaign, Mamdani made a stop at LaGuardia Airport’s taxi stand at midnight, catching cabbies at shift change.

    “Without the night shift, there is no morning,” Mamdani told them.

    CNN’s David Wright contributed to this report.

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    Gloria Pazmino and CNN

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  • Trump is freezing billions in funding for a Chicago train project because of ‘race-based contracting’ | Fortune

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    President Donald Trump’s administration will withhold $2.1 billion for Chicago infrastructure projects, the White House budget director said Friday, expanding funding fights that have targeted Democratic areas during the government shutdown.

    The pause affects a long-awaited plan to extend the city’s Red Line train. The money was “put on hold to ensure funding is not flowing via race-based contracting,” budget director Russ Vought wrote on social media.

    Vought made a similar announcement earlier this week involving New York, where he said $18 billion for infrastructure would be paused, including funding for a new rail tunnel under the Hudson River.

    Trump, a Republican, has embraced Vought’s tactics. On Thursday night, he posted a video depicting him as the reaper, wearing a hood and holding a scythe.

    Losing the money would be a significant setback for Chicago’s transportation plans. The Red Line extension is slated to add four train stops on the city’s South Side, improving access for disadvantaged communities.

    In addition, a broader modernization project for the Red and Purple lines, which Vought said was also being targeted, is intended to upgrade stations and remove a bottleneck where different lines intersect.

    In New York’s case, Trump’s Transportation Department said it had been reviewing whether any “unconstitutional practices” were occurring in the two massive infrastructure projects but that the government shutdown, which began Wednesday, had forced it to furlough the staffers conducting the review.

    The suspension of funds for the Hudson River tunnel project and a Second Avenue subway line extension is likely meant to target Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, whom the White House is blaming for the impasse. The New York senator said the funding freeze would harm commuters.

    “Obstructing these projects is stupid and counterproductive because they create tens of thousands of great jobs and are essential for a strong regional and national economy,” Schumer said on X.

    ___

    This story has been corrected to show $18 billion, not $18 million, was held in New York.

    Fortune Global Forum returns Oct. 26–27, 2025 in Riyadh. CEOs and global leaders will gather for a dynamic, invitation-only event shaping the future of business. Apply for an invitation.

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    Chris Megerian, The Associated Press

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  • Car Free Day Long Island promotes greener travel | Long Island Business News

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    THE BLUEPRINT:

    • LI encourages alternatives to driving on Sept. 22

    • Long Islanders urged to walk, bike, or take transit

    • Local leaders join sustainability push

    • Efforts support cleaner air, safer streets and more

    Car Free Day LI is Monday, and advocates hope people in Nassau and Suffolk counties will drive less, and rely instead on mass transit, bicycling, , vanpooling and working from home.

    More than 2.8 million people live in Nassau and Suffolk, and if community members replaced one car trip on Monday alone, the results would be felt right away, according to Transit Solutions, a federally funded Metropolitan Transportation Authority program.

    “For twenty years, Transit Solutions has shown what’s possible when works together,” Mindy Germain, Car Free Day LI co-chair, said in a news release about the program.

    “Every rider, every partner and every small behavior change adds up to cleaner air, safer streets and stronger communities,” she said. “Today, we’re inviting every Long Islander to make one simple swap – and be part of the next 20 years of progress.”

    Going car-free for a day on Long Island can be challenging, but Transit Solutions highlights several initiatives aimed at making it easier, helping to reduce the region’s carbon footprint and air pollution while also improving overall transportation options.

    This includes transit investments by the Long Island Rail Road, NICE Bus and Transit, all aimed at helping people reach jobs, schools, medical appointments, run errands, and more.

    College campuses, including Farmingdale State College and Adelphi University, aim to reduce car dependency and educate students about through Transit Solutions’ Transit Ambassador Program. There is also a youth ambassador program for younger Long Islanders.

    Northwell is working with Transit Solutions to achieve the goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2050 through pre-tax transit benefits and bike co-op initiatives.

    The City of Glen Cove is working with Transit Solutions to make walkability, accessibility and age-friendly mobility a priority.

    Additional supporters include Vision Long Island and Friends of LI Greenway, which promote trails, and walkable main streets. And ICF Statewide Mobility Program is advancing new approaches that include its Bike Borrow program.

     


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    Adina Genn

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  • What Would Free Buses Look Like, Actually?

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    One of the busiest buses in New York City, the Bx12, starts its route at one end of the A train, in Inwood at the very top of Manhattan, and runs across to Co-op City, in the Bronx—the largest housing coöperative in the world. In between, it crosses a lot of places people might want to get on: the 1 train, the 4, the D, the 2, and the 5; the tip of the Bronx Zoo; the bottom of the Botanical Garden; Fordham University; the Metro-North railroad (Hudson Line); and the Bruckner Expressway, an enormous highway designed by Robert Moses, which cuts large swaths of the Bronx off from the water.

    The Bx12 is almost always full. On a recent weekday afternoon, large crowds waited at each stop, and people pounded on the back doors when they couldn’t squeeze on. There is no cross-town subway in the Bronx, which is part of the reason that Fordham Road, where the Bx12 often slows to a crawl, is the second-busiest bus corridor in the city. (The first is the M15, which goes up and down First and Second Avenue in Manhattan.) Most New York bus lines don’t collect nearly enough fares to cover their operating costs. The Bx12 comes close.

    Soon, the bus might be free. Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic Party’s nominee for mayor, won June’s primary in a landslide, partly on a promise to make every bus route in the city faster—and fare-free. (In 2023, as a state assemblyman, Mamdani had co-led a pilot program that made one bus route in each borough free for a year.) Recently, Andrew Cuomo, who lost the Democratic primary and who is now running as an Independent, announced that he, too, wants to make the bus free, but only for low-income New Yorkers. (Cuomo made the announcement in front of a sign that read “We have problems . . . but nothing we can’t solve. . . .”) Eric Adams, the current mayor, had originally attacked Mamdani’s policy as unrealistic and expensive, but he has started to soften. “I’m not opposed to free buses,” he said earlier this month, in an appearance on a podcast called “Smart Girl Dumb Questions.” He said of Mamdani’s free-bus trial, “When he presented that to me at Gracie Mansion, I said, ‘Wow, that’s a good idea.’ ”

    Is it a good idea? 1.3 million people catch the bus every day—roughly forty per cent of the daily subway ridership. People want a lot of things from the bus. They also don’t expect much. Commuters often find themselves waiting for the bus at a low moment—when the train is down, or it’s late at night—and then, it won’t arrive. (Industry experts call this a “ghost bus.”) Occasionally two buses will come at the same time, a phenomenon, known as “bus bunching,” which is extremely complex to model, like fluid dynamics or global supply chains, and depends on intricate traffic flows. The average speed of a Manhattan bus is 6.3 miles per hour, about the pace of a light jog. The fare-evasion rate is at forty-five per cent, according to the M.T.A. (For the subway, it’s only ten per cent.) Since 2008, drivers have been told that they don’t have to enforce the fare.

    Danny Pearlstein, the spokesman for the pro-transit group Riders Alliance—which supports the free-bus policy—told me recently that the bus “is a vehicle of last resort.” People rely on it, but they don’t like it. Making it free, he said, would boost ridership and speeds, lead to improved service, and give a financial break to bus riders, who are generally lower income. (Riders Alliance sells a tote bag that says “Real New Yorkers Ride the Bus.”) “The bus is sort of the invisible workhorse of the city,” Pearlstein said, as we sat pressed close together on a crowded Bx12. “Right now, they’re a lifeline, but they could be a lot better.”

    The other day, at a stop on East Fordham Road and Southern Boulevard, Leslie Delgado was trying to head west. “I don’t think I’ve ever been on a Bx12 that was empty,” Delgado said. She was wearing a bright-yellow T-shirt, and the doors of the express Bx12 had just closed on her because it was too packed to get on. Delgado takes the bus every weekday from her home in the west Bronx to her work as an outdoor educator. As she waited for the next one, I brought up Mamdani’s proposal. “I think it’s great,” she said. “I feel like true New Yorkers know that they’re free—it’s just about accessibility.”

    A Bx12 was shuttling toward us, a local, set to stop every three or four blocks, and Delgado chose not to take it. “I like the bus,” Delgado said. “I think there needs to be more of them.” I asked whether she was concerned that making the bus free could result in less bus funding. “Yes, but there’s so much more money going to stuff like cops, and from what I’ve seen they just kind of stand around,” she said. Then she stuck her head out. Two express buses had pulled up at once; she hopped on the first one.

    What would happen if the bus became free? Most experts I spoke to were extremely reluctant to speculate. Still, there are a few things that they agreed on. Ridership would go up. “Typically, when something is free, people will take more of it,” Ana Champeny, vice-president for research at the Citizens Budget Commission, a nonpartisan fiscal watchdog, said. Subway habits could change. (A report from the N.Y.C. Independent Budget Office, a nonpartisan government department, estimated that four-per cent of subway rides would switch to bus rides.) Commuters would probably start taking the bus on shorter trips. It’s highly likely that people would walk less.

    Speed isn’t guaranteed. Passengers could begin to board from all doors, which would make things faster. But increased crowds might slow it all down. During the free-bus trial, ridership on each of the free lines surged between twenty-two and forty-six per cent, but speeds dipped slightly, by 2.2 per cent on average, potentially because the efficiency gains of faster boarding were cancelled out by delays created by more demand. “Everyone’s asking this question,” Emily Pramik, a lead transportation analyst at the Independent Budget Office, said. “Theoretically, making buses free could reduce what’s called dwell time, which is the time that a bus spends at a bus stop taking on passengers.” Boston is currently trialling free buses, and data shows less dwell time; New York’s trial showed more. Traffic is really the big issue. (The problem, as it always is in New York, is other people.) “It might be faster,” Adam Schmidt, a transit expert at the Citizens Budget Commission, said. “It might not be.” Pramik said, “I have to tell you, I don’t know.”

    People on the bus would probably become nicer: data from the free-bus trial showed that assaults on drivers dropped. Would free buses lead to more homeless people using the bus for shelter? Not really, David Giffen, the executive director of the Coalition for the Homeless, told me. “Most people who are sleeping unsheltered, they prefer to find places where they can lie down—buses are not ideal places to get rest.”

    How much would it cost? A report prepared by the Independent Budget Office, in 2023, projected an annual price tag of six hundred and fifty-two million dollars. What else costs the city six hundred and fifty-two million dollars? It’s thirty-nine days of running the subway, or around two hundred and fifty days of trash collection and street cleaning, or employing thirty-three hundred N.Y.P.D. officers for a year. It would also cover just three per cent of the M.T.A.’s 2022 annual operating expenses—eleven days. But the cost would likely be higher. The report estimated that the M.T.A. collected about seven hundred million dollars in 2022 from bus fares. In 2025, the M.T.A. budget aims to collect eight hundred and fifty million, and, in 2026, the fare is set to rise to three dollars. (“The price hikes compared to the service that we get, it doesn’t equate,” Delgado told me, at the bus stop.)

    The six-hundred-and-fifty-two-million-dollar figure also doesn’t factor in the cost of running extra buses if ridership were to explode. Pramik, who was one of the authors of the I.B.O. report, told me that, at least in 2023, the bus system could take a ridership bump of twenty per cent without extra expenses. That would have brought ridership closer to pre-pandemic levels. But there’s a tipping point. Champeny, of the C.B.C., said, “For a while, the extra cost is going to be zero—until you tip, and you need another bus. And then you have this big jump.”

    Charles Komanoff, a transit expert often cited by the Mamdani campaign, estimates that free buses would generate six hundred and seventy million dollars in economic benefit from saving people time. (Komanoff also predicts a 0.01-per-cent reduction in “all-cause mortality”—“two fewer deaths per year”—due to improved health caused by an uptick in cycling prompted by fewer motor vehicles on the road.)

    Finally, there’s the six-hundred-million-dollar question of who pays. The city of New York does not control the M.T.A.’s budget. The money for free buses would have to be found through negotiation with Albany and Governor Kathy Hochul. “There’s plenty of money in New York to support free buses if our political leaders prioritize it,” Pearlstein, of Riders Alliance, said. The current administration disagrees. “Mayors can’t do that,” Adams said on “Smart Girl Dumb Questions.” “The governor already said, I’m not signing off on that.”

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    Naaman Zhou

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  • As SEPTA service cuts take effect, city officials urge people to make changes to their commutes

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    The impacts of the SEPTA’s service cuts took shape Monday – the first weekday with reduced subway and bus service and the first day of classes in the School District of Philadelphia. 

    Additional cuts and fare increases are scheduled to take effect next week unless SEPTA receives funding needed to close its $213 million budget deficit. In a news conference, officials said the city’s streets will become more congested and that public transit could become more crowded if those additional reductions are implemented. 

    MORE: SEPTA reveals student safety plan with service cuts set to kick in right before first day of school

    The city is attempting to mitigate the problems, but commuters also are urged to avoid traveling during rush hour as much as possible, allow for extra travel time, consider off-street parking and to consider carpooling. They also advised people to use the Regional Rail system’s park-and-ride locations to travel into the Center City, though Regional Rail faces a 20% reduction in service beginning Tuesday, Sept. 2.

    “We do expect increases (in traffic) next week,” said Michael Carroll, deputy managing director for the Office of Transportation and Infrastructure Systems. “Folks will return from vacations after Labor Day, more schools will be in attendance. … We’re maintaining our infrastructure, accelerating repairs where we see issues that may affect our transit system.” 

    Carroll said the city is monitoring traffic volume, tracking external factors that could reduce the efficiency of street work and looking for changes in parking patterns and travel peaks. 

    After lawmakers failed to pass legislation to fund the transit agency, SEPTA pushed forward with the elimination of 32 bus routes on Sunday and reduced service on buses and trains by 20%. Additional service cuts and fare increases are expected Sept. 1- 2 unless the state steps in. 

    Tony Watlington, superintendent for the School District of Philadelphia, suggested the service cuts had impacted student attendance Monday, pointing to a drop-off at Furness High School in South Philly. 

    “As we left Furness High School, Principal (Daniel) Peou told me that typically he would expect 90-plus percent of his children to be in attendance, but because of some of the transportation impacts, those numbers have dropped down to the 70s,” Watlington said. “While that’s not a promising trend, we are hopeful that this can get turned around sooner rather than later.” 

    The district’s attendance numbers for Monday were not available at the time of the news conference, Watlington said. 

    About 52,000 students ride SEPTA to get to school, Mayor Cherelle Parker said. To protect students, SEPTA Transit Police Chief Charles Lawson said Friday that the transit authority is deploying additional officers during peak travel times on approximately 12 routes. Officers will ride buses, patrol stations and watch cameras.

    SEPTA had sounded the alarm about the service cuts for weeks, and set a deadline for lawmakers to come up with more funding. The transit authority’s leadership has estimated the system needs $168 million to survive and avoid most service reductions, but that was before the Sunday’s deadline passed, when SEPTA eliminated 32 bus routes and began reducing bus and subway service by 20%.

    The funding issue has held up the passage of the Pennsylvania budget.

    The Regional Rail cuts that would take effect next week may not be the last. Without additional funding, SEPTA officials say there will be more reductions on Jan. 1. That includes eliminating five Regional Rail lines, stopping rail service at 9 p.m. and cutting another 18 bus routes. Coupled with the reductions in place, SEPTA service would be reduced by 45% from what it was earlier this summer. 

    City Council members pressed state lawmakers to return to the negotiating table and pass a budget that includes support for SEPTA. 

    “The longer the cuts are taking place, the more significant impacts that we’re going to see taking place throughout our city,” Council President Kenyatta Johnson said at Monday’s press conference. “… We’re going to continue advocating until we get a deal done.” 

    Brian Pollitt, president of Transit Workers Union Local 234, said SEPTA’s service cuts will result in overcrowding on the buses. That often leads to additional frustrations, placing drivers at risk. The union represents 5,000 transit workers. 

    “Pennsylvania’s Republican state senators have been derelict in their duty,” Pollitt said in a statement. “The conditions facing SEPTA’s passengers and employees brought on by the lack of state funding could and should have been avoided.”

    Updated schedules and trip planning tools with details on the changes can be found on SEPTA’s website. 

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    Molly McVety and Michaela Althouse

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  • Third Spaces: The Building Blocks of A Healthy Community and Social Life

    Third Spaces: The Building Blocks of A Healthy Community and Social Life

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    Third spaces are public, informal gathering spots — like cafes, parks, or community centers — where people can relax, socialize, and build connections outside of home and work. In a world increasingly dominated by digital interactions, these spaces play a vital role in fostering community and countering loneliness.

    “Third spaces” refer to social environments that are separate from the two primary places where people spend most of their time: home (the first space) and work (the second space). These third spaces are informal, public gathering spots where people can socialize, relax, and build a sense of community.

    Sociologist Ray Oldenburg first introduced the concept in his book The Great Good Place. He argued that third spaces are crucial for fostering social cohesion, civic engagement, and a sense of belonging. They serve as “neutral grounds” where people can engage in casual conversations and form social connections that they might not in other settings. Places like main streets, libraries, cafes, pubs, and community centers are essential to a functional society and can provide avenues for grassroots activism, community involvement, charity and volunteer work, and social support.

    One of the most important features of “third spaces” is that they involve interacting with people outside of our typical social circle of family, friends, and coworkers. They introduce the possibility of new connections and new relationships. Other important qualities include easy accessibility, low cost, and an inviting atmosphere that encourages mingling and conversation.

    As modern life has shifted more towards digital interaction, the role of physical third spaces has become a topic of renewed interest among psychologists and social scientists, especially in discussions about loneliness and community fragmentation. People are spending less time in third spaces than ever before; and with remote work becoming more common, many people don’t have much of a life outside of home anymore.

    This general tendency has led to an increase in atomization, where individuals feel less and less connected to their local communities and society at large. This has far reaching consequences on health and well-being, as well as social trust, cooperation, and group cohesion.

    Third spaces play an integral role when it comes to happiness and well-being on both an individual and social level. Let’s mention a few common examples and then explore more on what makes these spaces so important to a healthy social life.

    Common examples of third spaces include:

    • Main streets and public squares
    • Cafes and coffee shops
    • Public libraries
    • Parks, nature preserves, beaches
    • Bars or pubs
    • Community centers
    • Bookstores
    • Churches and religious organizations
    • Local food markets
    • Music venues or dance clubs
    • Local sports leagues (bowling, basketball, baseball, etc.)
    • Shopping malls
    • Co-working spaces

    Can you think of any other examples? What are some neutral places where various people can go to meet new people?

    Ray Oldenburg argues that the increase of suburbanization and a “car-centric” society has decreased the use of third spaces and is one major cause behind our more atomized and individualistic world. Many adults living in suburbs have a long commute and a busy work schedule, so they rarely have time to spend outside of home or work. They live and sleep in their suburban homes, but they aren’t involved in their local communities in any meaningful way.

    Modern living creates a fundamental disconnect between home, work, and community, which can lead to feelings of alienation and loneliness. Third spaces can be a social glue that ties these different aspects of our lives together into a meaningful whole.

    As someone who grew up in Levittown, New York – one of the first mass-produced suburbs – I can relate to the feelings of atomization and not having many third spaces to hang out with friends during my childhood. The most frequent spots were typically shopping malls, bowling alleys, or parking lots, but there weren’t many other “public square”-type places where everyone could go on a weekend night. This made it difficult to build social connections or a sense of community outside of school.

    In Robert Putnam’s classic book Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of the American Community, he documents the downfall of community feeling and social cohesion since the 1960s. Key factors behind this decline include changes in mobility and sprawl, family structure and time schedules, as well as technology and mass media. The rise of home entertainment including TVs, internet, and video games has made people less motivated to go to physical third spaces for leisure, socializing, or relaxation.

    There are many factors that have led to the decline in community and the use of third spaces. It’s tempting to want to blame only one thing, but the problems we face in today’s world are complicated and multifaceted. There’s no quick or easy fix for improving the use of third spaces, but we can be more aware of the role they play in our daily lives.

    Are Buses and Trains Third Spaces?

    Public transportation such as buses and trains share some qualities with “third spaces,” such as being neutral ground that anyone in the community can access, a shared experience of commuting together, and the possibility of social connection with locals and strangers. However, these places are typically not seen as “third spaces” because their primary function is transportation and not social connection. The average person on commutes tends to withdraw and mind their own business, so these spaces aren’t very conducive to new conversation or forming new friendships (although it’s definitely possible).

    Building Social Capital and Weak Ties

    When you frequent any third space (such as a cafe, bar, church, or library), you naturally start to see familiar faces and build light social connections there.

    This is what sociologists refer to as social capital, which is just an economic-centric term for relationships that we value, trust, and provide social support.

    Third spaces help form casual relationships (or “weak ties”) that can lead to huge benefits. One common example is learning about a new job opportunity or a possible romantic interest through an acquaintance or friend of a friend.

    Social capital can manifest itself in many small and hidden ways too.

    When I lived in Brooklyn, I would go to the same bodega every morning for my coffee and breakfast sandwich. There were a couple times I was in a rush and forgot my wallet, but since the store owner knew me well and recognized me, he trusted me enough to let me pay next time. That may seem like a trivial thing, but it’s something that can only be accomplished with a minimal level of trust or social capital. If I were a completely random stranger I wouldn’t get that benefit.

    Through third spaces, you begin to run into the same people, build a sense of familiarity and comfort, and start connecting with them on a level beyond random stranger, even just the act of seeing a familiar face and saying “Hi” can give a nice boost to your day (learn the power of “10 second” relationships).

    Find a Healthy Dose of Third Spaces

    No matter how introverted or extraverted you are, everyone needs a healthy dose of social interaction. Third spaces provide opportunities to meet new people, connect with a broader community, and expand our social circle. Often just finding one third space where you feel comfortable and connect with like-minded people can make a big difference in the quality of your social life. Find a third space that works best for you and make it a part of your daily, weekly, or monthly routine.


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    Steven Handel

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  • CDOT wants to widen Federal Boulevard for new bus lanes. Some worry it’ll make the road even more dangerous

    CDOT wants to widen Federal Boulevard for new bus lanes. Some worry it’ll make the road even more dangerous

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    Traffic moves along South Federal Boulevard in Denver on Monday, Aug. 12, 2024. The Colorado Department of Transportation intends to convert one of the three southbound lanes, seen here at right, to a bus lane, and widen the road to add a northbound bus lane, seen at left.

    Nathaniel Minor/CPR News

    The Colorado Department of Transportation wants to widen over two miles of South Federal Boulevard to make space for bus lanes. 

    Project leaders say the extra space will be needed to preserve two vehicle lanes in each direction on a busy stretch of Federal. Cutting the road down to one lane would send too many drivers onto side streets, they say.

    “There are places where traffic calming through road diets and otherwise is the best option,” said CDOT Executive Director Shoshana Lew, adding: “But that’s not always the answer.” 

    But some bus riders, advocates and at least one member of the Denver City Council worry the changes would make Federal Boulevard even more dangerous than it already is.

    The new bus lanes are a key part of a planned bus rapid transit line along nearly 18 miles of Federal.

    CDOT fast-tracked the project, which it has estimated at $300 million, after it overhauled its transportation agenda to comply with state mandates to lower climate emissions. 

    Several bus rapid transit lines are planned on arterial streets across the Denver metro that, like Federal, double as state highways.

    Unlike local buses, the rapid routes — known as BRT lines — are generally designed for speed and comfort. They typically stop at amenity-rich stations that are spaced further apart, buses are given priority at intersections, and passengers can board through any of the vehicle’s doors.

    In some cases, buses also get their own lanes. Bus lanes are often the most controversial part of a BRT project because they have the greatest potential to disrupt the status quo on busy, dangerous roads.

    Drivers cross 8th Avenue on Federal Boulevard. May 8, 2024.
    Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite

    But climate and road safety advocates say disruption is a welcome feature of BRT projects — not a bug. The state’s car-dominated transportation system has Colorado on track to miss upcoming climate goals and Denver officials have struggled to get a handle on growing traffic deaths in the last decade. 

    CDOT’s preferred plan for Federal, if it can find the money for it, would split the difference between a road diet that would surely make motorists fume and a full-bore expansion of the road. 

    Under a developing plan that CDOT officials stressed isn’t yet final, the agency would convert one of the three southbound vehicle lanes between Alameda and Jewell avenues to a bus lane. CDOT would use mostly existing right-of-way to widen the road just enough to accommodate a new northbound bus lane over roughly the same length. The road would be widened between Evans and Jewell avenues for bus lanes in each direction.

    That design is similar to the recommendation that came out of a city-led Federal BRT study in 2022.

    Bus riders worry a wider Federal will be more dangerous.

    A Denverite reporter roamed South Federal for a few hours on Monday morning and spoke with a handful of bus riders about the prospect of a wider road. 

    “I think it’d be a bad idea,” said Kelly Faison as she prepared to board an RTD bus on south Federal on Monday. “[It would] probably be more dangerous.”

    Many riders declined to be recorded and refused to give their names, but nearly all said safety was a top concern.

    “Wider lanes just means more time that it would take for a pedestrian to cross, and they’re already being run over,” said Carolyn, an elderly woman who declined to give her last name but said she walked across Federal often.

    Carolyn said she tries to look in “every direction the whole time that I’m crossing because somebody act like they want to run me down even as I have the light.”

    Denver planners have long identified South Federal as one of the most dangerous corridors in the city. Its recent Vision Zero action plan called for “immediate remedial safety work” on it, saying the stretch between Alameda and Yale saw eight traffic-related deaths between 2016 and 2021.

    Jamie Torres, the city councilor who represents some neighborhoods along Federal, said she is “totally against” widening the boulevard — even for the addition of bus lanes.

    “I think residents are exactly on point around how difficult it is already to cross a six-lane highway,” Torres said.

    Then-City Council president Jamie Torres attends council’s weekly working group meeting with Mayor Mike Johnston’ administration on homelessness and migrant arrivals. Dec. 12, 2023.
    Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite

    Ryan Noles, CDOT’s bus rapid transit program manager, said they are also considering new safety features for pedestrians — rebuilt sidewalks, signals timed to give walkers more time to cross, and mid-block crossings, for example.

    Jill Locantore, executive director of the Denver Streets Partnership, called such changes “helpful but marginal.” The root problem, she said, is Federal’s width.

    “Because that encourages drivers to go faster and just increases pedestrian exposure to traffic,” Locantore said.

    Locantore wants planners to go all-in on buses, like they are on Colfax.

    The Denver-led East Colfax BRT project will narrow the road to just one vehicle lane in each direction from Broadway to the Aurora border.

    “If it can work on Colfax, why can’t it work on Federal?” Locantore asked,

    A rendering of a possible bus rapid transit design on Colfax. (Denver Public Works)

    But there are significant differences between the two roads. Colfax is a denser, more walkable corridor that was originally built around streetcars. Large parking lots and low-slung commercial buildings are far more common on Federal. 

    State data says Colfax sees less traffic on its soon-to-be-slimmer stretch, peaking at 30,000 vehicles a day near East High School, than the segment of Federal in question which tops out at 40,000 vehicles daily. The federal government says road diets typically are implemented on roads with daily traffic of 25,000 vehicles or fewer.

    Mimi Luong, who owns Truong An Gifts in the Far East Center, said she’s supportive of better bus service on Federal — she’s suggested new Asian-themed bus stations too. She just visited South Korea and loved using the bus system there. 

    But she said Federal needs to stay at least two lanes across. 

    Mimi Luong stands in front of a Lunar New Year banner hanging on her family’s Truong An Gifts shop in the Far East Center as they prepare for the big holiday weekend. Feb. 8, 2024.
    Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite

    “Honestly, this is Colorado,” she said, adding: “You need a car for everywhere you go.”

    Torres said the idea of a one-lane Federal Boulevard seemed “pretty limited,” but said CDOT’s have-it-both-ways proposal makes it seem like they aren’t confident in BRT’s ability to shift drivers to transit riders.

    “It seems like we don’t quite know that BRT will work or not,” Torres said. 

    Lew, CDOT’s executive director, said her goal is to give travelers “as many safe sustainable choices as possible.” What CDOT eventually does with Federal will also be determined by how much money the federal government pitches in, Lew added.

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    Nathaniel Minor

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  • L.A. to get $77 million in federal funds to add electric buses before Olympics, hopes for millions more

    L.A. to get $77 million in federal funds to add electric buses before Olympics, hopes for millions more

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    Standing before the renowned peristyle at the Los Angeles Coliseum, where the 1984 Olympics opening ceremony was held, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on Thursday touted a $77-million infusion of cash for Metro to pay for more electric buses.

    The buses will help ferry tens of thousands of fans across the city in what is being trumpeted as a “transit-first” Games, and are among thousands of details that officials need to get in order before Los Angeles hosts the 2028 Olympics. The cash influx aids a larger effort by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority as it pushes to turn its fleet of 2,000-plus buses all-electric by 2030.

    “Angelenos and Olympians are going to know just how efficient this region’s public transit can be. This is an investment in the future,” said Buttigieg, flanked by Mayor Karen Bass, LA28 Chairman Casey Wasserman and other officials who are looking to the Paris Olympics, set to start this month, as L.A.’s countdown begins.

    MTA aims to acquire battery-electric buses, charging equipment and supporting infrastructure to operate reliable zero-emission services spanning multiple cities within L.A. County.

    Buttigieg spent the day in Los Angeles riding the subway, getting on trains, taking buses and touting funds the region had received as part of the Biden administration’s $1-trillion infrastructure bill, which has pumped millions of dollars into Metro’s expanding rail system and the port, as well as getting new projects off the ground. But most Los Angeles officials had their minds trained on the 2028 Olympics, with the Paris Games just days away.

    More than a million people are expected to come to the Los Angeles region for the 17-day Olympiad, and organizers want them to arrive at venues by public transit, on foot or by bike. That will be quite a feat for a sprawling metropolis known for its congested freeways. So, local leaders have used the Olympic Games to add urgency to their wish lists, such as the fleet of electric buses. This strategy has led to some funding — but it won’t solve the logistical puzzle of moving vast crowds of tourists on a day-to-day basis.

    Metro has asked the Biden administration for an additional $319 million for the upcoming year to cover costs related to the Games, including $45 million to plan and design the supplemental-bus system that will carry fans to venues and $14 million to design routes for athletes and other VIPs.

    Buttigieg said he couldn’t “get ahead of the White House” but that his department had been providing technical support to Congress members who are weighing how to support the Olympics with funding.

    But, so far, there hasn’t been a commitment. Mayor Bass, who is heading to Paris next week for the Olympics, said she was confident that President Biden, who is facing a bruising campaign, will help Los Angeles.

    “The White House has been supportive from Day One,” she said Thursday on a grassy area outside the Coliseum. “There is an individual staff person there that focuses on the Olympics that we stay in constant contact with. And so I feel very encouraged.”

    Then-Mayor Eric Garcetti, who secured the ’28 Games, sold it to the public as a monumental event that would generate millions, not burden taxpayers. But transportation is proving to be tricky. One tabulation of the cost to double the number of buses so fans can better transverse the city on public transit is estimated at upward of $1 billion.

    And the buses purchased from the federal grant won’t expand the fleet or get the agency to its goals of going electric. There are too many roadblocks for that to happen, including a lack of chargers and a shrunken pool of manufacturers that can deliver electric buses.

    For now, Bass and many of the rest of the Metro board — which includes the Board of Supervisors — will go to Paris to watch how the city handles the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

    And they are in wait-and-see mode when it comes to funding.

    The incoming Metro executive board chair, Supervisor Janice Hahn, said she and Bass pitched Buttigieg as they rode the B Line on Thursday, stressing that the federal government should help with the Olympics.

    “We wanted to make the case that we shouldn’t go it alone,” she said. “We could use federal dollars to help us.”

    City News Service contributed to this report.

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    Rachel Uranga

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  • Why the National Guard Won’t Make the Subways Safer

    Why the National Guard Won’t Make the Subways Safer

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    The millions of people who crowd into New York City’s busiest subway stations every day have recently encountered a sight reminiscent of a frightening, bygone era: National Guard troops with long guns patrolling platforms and checking bags.

    After 9/11 and at moments of high alert in the years since, New York deployed soldiers in the subway to deter would-be terrorists and reassure the public that the transit system was safe from attack. The National Guard is now there for a different reason. Earlier this week, Governor Kathy Hochul sent 1,000 state police officers and National Guard troops into the city’s underground labyrinth not to scour for bombs but to combat far more ordinary crime—a recent spate of assaults, thefts, and stabbings, including against transit workers.

    The order, which Hochul issued independently of the city’s mayor, Eric Adams, prompted immediate criticism. Progressives accused her of militarizing the subways and validating Republican exaggerations about a spike in crime, potentially making people even more fearful of using public transit. Law-enforcement advocates, a group that typically supports a robust show of force, didn’t like the idea either.

    “I would describe it as the equivalent of putting a Band-Aid on a hemorrhage,” William Bratton, who led the police departments of New York, Boston, and Los Angeles, told me. “It will actually do nothing to stop the flow of blood, because it’s not going to the source of where the blood is coming from.”

    David A. Graham: The subway-crime death spiral

    Bratton’s success in reducing subway crime as the chief of New York City’s transit police in the early 1990s led then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani to appoint him as NYPD commissioner. He returned to the post under a much different mayor, Democrat Bill de Blasio, nearly two decades later. During a 40-minute phone interview yesterday, Bratton acknowledged that many New Yorkers perceive subway crime to be more pervasive than it really is; rates of violent crime in New York City (and many other urban centers) have come down since the early months of pandemic and are much lower than they were in 1990, when he took over the transit police.

    Bratton is most famous—and, in the minds of many, notorious—as a practitioner of the “broken windows” theory of policing, which calls for aggressive enforcement of minor crime as a precondition for tackling more serious offenses. The idea has been widely criticized for being racially discriminatory and contributing to mass incarceration. But Bratton remains a strong proponent.

    He blamed the fact that crime remains unacceptably high for many people—and for politicians in an election year—on a culture of leniency brought on by well-intentioned criminal-justice reformers. Changes to the bail system that were enacted in 2019—some of which have been scaled back—have made it harder to keep convicted criminals off the streets, Bratton said, while city leaders are more reluctant to forcibly remove homeless people who resist intervention due to mental illness. Bratton said that police officers are less likely to arrest people for fare evasion, which leads to more serious infractions. “We are not punishing people for inappropriate behavior,” Bratton said.

    The subways need more police officers, Bratton said, and Adams had already announced a deployment of an additional 1,000 last month. But an influx of National Guard troops won’t be as effective, he argued. They can’t arrest people, and the items they are looking for in bags—explosive devices and guns, mainly—aren’t the source of most subway crime. The highest-profile incidents have involved small knives or assailants who pushed people onto the subway tracks. “What are the bag checks actually going to accomplish?” he asked. “The deterrence really is not there.”

    Our conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

    Russell Berman: What did you think of the governor’s decision to send the National Guard and the state police into the subways?

    William Bratton: I would describe it basically as a public-relations initiative that is the equivalent of putting a Band-Aid on a hemorrhage. It will actually do nothing to stop the flow of blood, because it’s not going to the source of where the blood is coming from.

    The problem with crime in the subways, as with crime in the streets, is the idea that we are not punishing people for inappropriate behavior, whether it’s as simple as a fare evasion or something more significant—assaults and robberies and, in some instances, murders.

    The presence of the National Guard in the subway system is not needed, not necessary; nor are, for that matter, state troopers. The NYPD and the MTA are fully capable of policing the subways and the train systems.

    Berman: This is going to remind people of what New York was like in the months and years after 9/11, when you routinely saw National Guard troops doing bag checks in busy stations. Was it more effective to do that then, because people were worried about what was in those bags? Now they are more worried about other things.

    Bratton: That was appropriate then. People understood that what the National Guard was looking for in that era were bombs. So the bag checks made sense. It wasn’t so much the level of crime in the subways. What they were fearful of was terrorists, so the use of the National Guard for that purpose was appropriate at that time.

    What is the problem in terms of crime in the subway? It is the actions of the mentally ill, who have been involved in assaults and shoving people onto the tracks. It is the actions of a relatively small number of repeat criminals. And what are the bag checks actually going to accomplish? If you are carrying a gun, if you’re carrying a knife, you walk downstairs and see a bag check, you’re going to walk back up the stairs and down the block and go in another entrance and go right on through. So the deterrence is really not there.

    William Bratton: Police reform needs to come from within

    Berman: Did those bag checks back then after 9/11 ever find anything significant, or was it mostly for making people feel like someone was watching?

    Bratton: I’m not aware that anything was ever detected. Might something have been deterred? Possibly somebody who was coming into the subway with a device and decides, Well, I’m not going to do it after all. But I can’t say with any certainty or knowledge.

    Berman: Governor Hochul is also proposing a bill that would allow judges to ban anyone from the public-transit system who has been convicted of assault within the system. What do you make of that?

    Bratton: It would be difficult to enforce. They’d be banned from the system, but if they’re on the system behaving themselves, who’s going to know?

    Berman: Earlier you mentioned that law enforcement should be punishing fare evasion more than they do. When people hear that, they might think of the “broken windows” theory of policing. These people aren’t necessarily violent; they’re just jumping the gate. Is your argument that you’re trying to address higher-level crime by prosecuting lower-level crime?

    Bratton: “Broken windows” is correcting the behavior when it’s at a minor stage before it becomes more serious. Somebody who’s not paying their fare might be coming into the subway system with some type of weapon. Oftentimes they’re coming into the system to commit a crime—or, if they encounter a situation in the subway, out comes a box cutter, out comes the knife, out comes the gun. The situation escalates.

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    Russell Berman

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  • Classic SEPTA trolleys could return this spring after many delays

    Classic SEPTA trolleys could return this spring after many delays

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    SEPTA’s green-and-cream retro trolleys have been spotted back on the tracks in the city, but they won’t be ready for passengers until at least this coming spring.

    SEPTA expects eight of the classic PCC trolleys to return within the next few months. “We don’t have a specific date yet, but we are making progress with training and test miles for the vehicles,” Kelly Greene, SEPTA public information manager told PhillyVoice.

    MORE: SEPTA’s Valentine’s Day trolleys are back on the tracks

    The vintage trolley cars, which date back to 1947, have been out of commission since 2020, replaced with buses. After a scheduled rollout last fall did not come to fruition, SEPTA has continued to push back the trolleys’ return window.

    “The planned September start was pushed back due to a number of factors, including Authority-wide safety training that we implemented for all employees following a series of serious accidents over the summer,” Greene told PhillyVoice.

    Accidents last summer included a trolley derailing as a result of a car collision and a crash damaging a historical building due to faulty brakes.

    “We also added some more training for employees who are going to be working with the PCCs, including the operators, mechanics, transportation managers, and other support staff. At that time, we decided to work toward a spring 2024 timeline for putting the vehicles back in service.”

    Operators will continue to give the refurbished cars more “break-in time,” with SEPTA aiming to give each of the cars 200 hours to iron out any electrical or technical issues that may arise.

    “The trolleys are out on the street now as part of our testing, so people are likely to see them more and more as we get closer to spring,” said Greene.

    The trolley restoration project began last year, repairing and refreshing the PCC trolley cars with fresh paint and new parts while updating them with SEPTA Key Card scanners and modern ADA-accessibility features. The project cost approximately $250,000 per trolley.

    Once the PCC trolleys are ready to serve commuters, they’ll join the buses that currently run on Route 15, which runs along Girard Avenue through North Philly and West Philly.

    But in the long-term, the trolleys will eventually phase out as SEPTA continues towards a larger modernization of its trolley system. SEPTA’s plans include faster service and improved accessibility on trolley cars and stations for individuals with disabilities.

    “It could take as long as a decade for full implementation of the (modernization) project,” said Greene. “Restoring the PCCs allows us to continue to run ADA-accessible trolleys on Route 15 in the meantime, and we know riders are looking forward to seeing these iconic vehicles back in service.”

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    Chris Compendio

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  • ‘Driving in traffic is stressful’: More commuters are trying public transit after fire closes 10 Freeway

    ‘Driving in traffic is stressful’: More commuters are trying public transit after fire closes 10 Freeway

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    Caprice “Kip” Harper was among those commuters who heeded the call from transit officials to take public transportation after a fire under the 10 Freeway in downtown Los Angeles closed that vital thoroughfare.

    Harper, an archaeologist for the state, opted for a 50-minute commute on the Metro’s A line train from Pasadena to downtown L.A. Thursday morning to partake in a strike held by California state scientists calling for more pay.

    “I wanted to chill out,” she said. “Driving in traffic is stressful, and I also wanted to save energy for the protest.”

    Preliminary data from transportation officials suggest that the closure of the freeway may have prompted more motorists like Harper to jump on public transit to avoid the traffic headache created in downtown Los Angeles after a fire erupted under the 10’s overpass at Alameda Street on Saturday morning. The fire was fueled by wood pallets stored there and is being investigated as an arson.

    The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority recorded a 10% increase in ridership on the E line train that runs parallel to the 10 Freeway Monday and Tuesday, L.A. Metro Communications Director Dave Sotero said. L.A. Metro also reported a 25% increase in parked cars at outlying stations including Norwalk, Lakewood, Azusa and East L.A. on Thursday.

    “Metro usage is up and we need to continue that until we get to Tuesday,” Mayor Karen Bass said at a press conference Friday, urging commuters taking the Metro system this week to make it a habit even after the freeway opens.

    It remains unclear, however, if there has been a notable uptick in ridership on the entire regional system this week in response to the freeway closure. L.A. Metro said it does not yet have data on overall ridership for this month.

    While Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Thursday that the 10 Freeway would reopen by Tuesday — much sooner than expected — the roughly 300,000 commuters that drove that stretch of the freeway daily have been tasked with finding alternative routes or modes of transportation until then. But many commuters have chosen to continue driving, opting for side streets through neighborhoods in the city’s core.

    To help speed up the commute for those taking public transit, the Los Angeles Department of Transportation has adjusted signal times along the A and E train lines for faster service into downtown L.A. The L.A. Metro has also added buses to Line 66, which runs along Olympic Boulevard, and Line 51, which runs along Soto Street, while Metrolink increased the number of commuter trains from San Bernardino and Covina to Union Station. Bass even rode the Metro’s E line train to work Wednesday morning, encouraging commuters to take public transit while the 10 is closed.

    Although taking the Metro had a “comparable” commute time to driving, Harper’s first 15 minutes of her Thursday commute was spent getting to the nearest Metro station, Fillmore Station. It’s a reality that deters many locals from ditching their car and hopping on the train.

    For many others, mass transit wasn’t a viable option.

    Ashley Olmeda, 30, said taking public transit just does not make sense for her when the nearest Metro train station to her residence in Alhambra is an 18-minute drive to Memorial Park Station in Pasadena. She instead drove 40 minutes to downtown L.A., a drive that would have normally taken 15 minutes. But it was still the better alternative to taking public transit, she said.

    “There’s no Metro near me, so I would have to go out to Pasadena to the nearest Metro station,” she said. “But if I had access to one, I would [take public transit].”

    For others, using public transit is not feasible when they need to get around the city throughout the day.

    Tom Somers, 69, came into downtown L.A. from La Cañada Flintridge to go to court Thursday morning. As a lawyer, he needs to be able to travel freely between the Ronald Reagan Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse in downtown L.A. to his office in Koreatown.

    “I’d like to [take the Metro]. I’d really like to,” he said. “But I need to get to court and the office and driving makes more sense for that.”

    He instead opted for a 65-minute commute to downtown L.A., which would normally have taken him 35 minutes, he said.

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    Ashley Ahn

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