In 2002, Albany gave control of New York City’s schools to the mayor. For decades, schools were run terribly by a board focused mainly on political alliances. Once Mike Bloomberg, who was then mayor, got control, he brought in Joel Klein as chancellor and they launched an array of innovative approaches that made our schools a lot better.
But the quest to have the city run its own schools did not start with Bloomberg. Ed Koch first started asking for it around 1978. It was a big idea, it took time to percolate and eventually, it happened.
In 2025, congestion pricing took effect in Manhattan under Mayor Eric Adams. Adams did not come up with the idea. Bloomberg did in 2007, fought for it in Albany and lost. But over time, the idea gained support, and eventually happened thanks to Gov. Hochul nearly two decades later.
I ran Bloomberg’s 2009 reelection campaign and tried to make mayoral control of our subways and buses the centerpiece of our campaign. My logic was simple — the city should run its own mass transit and if anyone would be good at it, it was Mike. However, after losing on congestion pricing and other big issues in Albany, Mike felt like the idea was too unrealistic. That was, in my view, a mistake. Not that Mike was wrong — Albany wouldn’t have given it to him. But there was value in getting the idea out there.
I tried again with de Blasio and Adams but neither had any interest in more responsibility for anything. So now, the MTA — an unaccountable state agency — still runs our city’s subways and buses. Not everyone at the MTA is incompetent. But they are not accountable to the mayor, which means they are not accountable to the people of New York. The lifeblood of our city — our subways and buses that move millions of people every day — exists without any real input or control from the people charged with making the city work. That’s unacceptable.
The issue seems particularly salient now that Zohran Mamdani is mayor, since Mamdani made free buses a centerpiece of his mayoral campaign. Most voters didn’t realize this, but Mamdani doesn’t actually have the power to make buses free. Albany does. It’s possible that Mamdani convinces Albany at some point to go along, but right now, he’s struggling to fill a $6 billion budget deficit. Which means mayoral control of our subways and buses are not on the agenda.
If the MTA were a highly functional agency, maybe you could argue it works fine as is. But even with better leadership under Janno Lieber, it’s still a vast, bureaucratic entity that has no real political imperative to do better. No one loses their job if the MTA fails. In fact, when Andrew Cuomo was governor, MTA money that should have gone to our buses and subways went to fund slush fund priorities all across the state instead.
Do I think that if Mamdani calls for city control of our mass transit, it will happen anytime soon? No. Just like mayoral control of schools took more than 20 years and congestion pricing took 18 years, this is going to take awhile too. But clearly Mamdani already believes that he, as mayor, should have the ability to make mass transit decisions.
If Mamdani can get the ball rolling on the bigger picture now, eventually it can — and will — happen. And when it does, New York City will finally be in a position to get the quality of mass transit we all deserve.
Tusk is a venture capitalist, political strategist and philanthropist.