Photos: Riders Alliance YouTube Screenshots
New York, NY—As disgraced New York City Mayor Eric Adams exits the 2025 New York City Mayoral race, where he was polling dead last, New York City’s Riders Alliance organization, a grassroots subway and bus advocacy group, announced its first ever endorsement for New York Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani.
In a video posting to social media this morning, New York City’s grassroots organization of subway and bus riders will endorse New York State Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee, for mayor.
“Public transit is the heartbeat of our city. That’s why making it safer, faster and more reliable has been a cornerstone of our campaign. So today I’m so excited to announce that we’ve received the support of grassroots members and leaders of Riders Alliance,” said NYS Assemblymember and Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran K. Mamdani. “Together, we’re not only going to make buses fast and free, we’re going to deliver world-class public transit to our world-class city.”
The endorsement is the Riders Alliance’s first ever and will kick off six weeks of volunteer canvassing and texting in the runup to the November general election. Today’s endorsement follows the group’s launch of its political arm last spring.
“The opportunity to have a mayor who has put bus riders at the very center of their governing agenda is incredibly exciting,” said Riders Alliance Executive Director Betsy Plum. “It offers us the greatest opportunity that we have had in more than a generation, perhaps ever, to deliver the bus agenda that New Yorkers deserve and to elect a ‘Rider-in-Chief.’ We are very proud to be able to make our first ever political endorsement and endorse Zohran Mamdani for mayor.”
Riders Alliance members have seen Mamdani’s leadership and commitment to better public transit up close. Three years ago, as the MTA faced a devastating budget hole coming out of the pandemic, he approached the organization with a pitch: ‘let’s work together on a bold, rider-led campaign to fix public transit.’ In Mamdani, advocates met an incredibly well-versed, ambitious, and highly organized kindred spirit, and together, won a budget that funded public transit, curbed an upcoming fare hike, increased subway frequency on 14 lines, piloted free bus service on five routes, and expanded automated bus lane enforcement to unclog the nation’s slowest buses.
“I’ve always been pretty cynical about politics and politicians in general because of how badly they’ve failed us,” said Riders Alliance member Judy Wang from Queens. “But because I actually worked with Zohran, I really got to know his character, someone who’s really about service and not self-gratification or power or wealth, for their own sake.”
Disgraced former governor Andrew Cuomo is running a distant second behind the frontrunner Mamdani in most mayoral polls. In office, Cuomo raided dedicated transit funds and ignored train delays as they quadrupled from 2012 to 2018. Last year, he tried to stop congestion relief from becoming reality, delaying essential subway improvements. He’s never been a straphanger himself and has regularly used the subway as a backdrop or prop: powerwashing train cars, demonizing public transit riders and exploiting New Yorkers’ safety concerns to suit his political agenda. Most recently, he relaunched his mayoral campaign with a ridiculous, empty promise to “build a new subway system.”
“If I can’t afford to get around New York City, then I really can’t afford to live in New York City,” said Riders Alliance member Emily Rose Prats from Brooklyn. “Someone who has a real vision and is out there talking to people, is out there doing the work — that’s the kind of person that I want to then be the mayor of my city.”
From now until election day, Riders Alliance members and leaders will organize together, canvassing and texting fellow commuters in an effort to elect Mamdani and advance the organization’s mission of fast, reliable, affordable, accessible transit for every New Yorker.
“He works in a village mindset, he came from a village mindset, and that perspective is how we collectively create change,” said Riders Alliance Organizer Mayana Torres. “A fast and free bus will be imperative to make it more accessible to more communities.”
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