With politicians fearful of the TWU, a public referendum is the answer

Why does the carriage horse trade continue in New York City, — ranked the worst city in the U.S. for traffic congestion — and one of the worst for carriage horse accidents? Polls show that 71% of the public want it gone.

What’s really going on here? Streets around Central Park are filled with cars, taxis, buses, emergency vehicles, electric assist pedicabs, bikes and scooters … the same streets used by the carriage drivers to get to and from the park on their tours, putting the horses in harm’s way. Central Park isn’t much better with its pedicabs, bicycles, scooters, skaters, and masses of people. All of it terrifying for the horses!

Carriage horses are often left unattended and untethered at the hack lines; drivers make dangerous, illegal U-turns on Central Park South; carriages are overloaded; horses work in oppressive heat, biting cold and torrential downpours with thunder and lightning — no one in authority enforces regulations. Politicians look the other way.

There have been 115 accidents and 27 horse deaths documented over decades. But many accidents occur that are never reported to authorities.

Last summer, an emaciated and elderly horse named Ryder collapsed in Midtown. The horrific and heartbreaking scene went global. The public cared. But city officials were mute. Why?

Why does this continue in New York when for decades the public has clearly been opposed. There’ve been hundreds of petitions, supportive op-eds, media articles — to no avail. Letters to the mayor and council members have been ignored.

There is one answer. Unions. The Transport Workers Union (TWU) represents the carriage trade, consisting of both owners and non-owners with no benefits or set wages. Unions all stick together, and Council members know that if they support a ban on horse-drawn carriages, they will not get union endorsements and might be primaried. Unions are powerful. Horses be damned.

I support unions. They helped build the middle class and are responsible for better working conditions for many. But what’s going on with the carriage horse business is something else.

A bill that would shut down the carriage trade but keep the drivers’ jobs by switching to horseless electric carriages was introduced into the City Council last year. The union and carriage owners oppose it. It has only 18 sponsors — out of 51 Council Members. It will not pass.

In the 2021 election, animal rights groups endorsed 31 Council candidates who were elected. The endorsements were based on affirmative answers to questions such as whether the candidate would support a bill to ban horse-drawn carriages. Yet fewer than half of those endorsees sponsored the bill. They included Justin Brennan, Gale Brewer, Julie Menin, and Lynn Schulman. It begs the question whether they owe their allegiance to their constituents or the TWU.

It’s a sign of rot in the political system — a Council too afraid of disturbing the status quo but not afraid of double-dealing to get lucrative endorsements.

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Before starting his term in 2022, Mayor Adams said he was willing to discuss the issue but never did. When Ryder collapsed and later died in the summer of 2022, his office didn’t even have the decency to issue a statement.

So where does that leave us? This is an ongoing issue, and it should remain in the spotlight. But we can’t depend on our elected representatives to do anything about it.

Enter a new approach to this stalemate — a citizen’s ballot initiative. People power. We’ve done it before, and it’s a very real possibility now.

In 1997, I was co-chair of the Shelter Reform Action Committee. We sponsored a ballot initiative to create a separate Department of Animal Affairs. We had the help of pro bono law firms and an interested public. This was four years after City Hall created the Center for Animal Care and Control, rife with problems. Although the requirement was 50,000 signatures, in four months we gathered 75,000 valid, confirmed petition signatures, before cell phones and social media. Unfortunately, we lost in the appellate court against City Hall run by former Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

The rules are a little different now but surely, we can do it again. The goal is to get the initiative on the ballot in November 2024 so the public can vote on it shutting down the carriage trade. NYC should not be in the grasp of a union that endangers the public while exploiting helpless horses.

We need to take back our power and we need a new, positive chapter in this saga.

Forel is president of the Coalition to Ban Horse-Drawn Carriages and co-founder of Compassionate & Responsible Tourism.