Horse-drawn carriages are on a countdown in New York. The City Council voted 40-7 on Thursday to ban them from operating after June 2028, paving the way for the end of an industry as old as Central Park itself and delivering a long-sought victory to animal rights advocates, the New York Times reports. Mayor Zohran Mamdani plans to sign the bill, although key questions remain: how to compensate medallion owners who paid up to $400,000, what work will replace the jobs of about 150 drivers and dozens of stable workers, and where the 180 horses will go.
Transportation Workers Union Local 100 is promising an immediate court battle, calling the transition plans hollow and arguing the bill provides no protections for workers. This initiative gained momentum after the death of an 18-year-old Indian tourist, Romanch Mahajan, in a car accident in June; his family publicly lobbied for the ban. “The time for justice has finally come,” his uncle, Gaurav Mahajan, said at a rally Thursday.
Betsy Smith, director of the Central Park Conservancy, also praised the bill, the AP reports. “In the modern era, horse-drawn carriages pose a serious, even fatal, safety risk to park visitors, horse-drawn carriage drivers and the horses themselves,” she said. John Samuelsen, international president of the TWU, repeatedly pointed out that Mahajan’s death was the first known death of a passenger since horse-drawn carriage travel began, the Times reports. He accused New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin of using an “artificial public safety crisis” to help developers eye land currently occupied by horse stables.
- Another critic: President Trump, who complained that a “quintessential New York tradition” was ending for “political reasons.” “So sad to see Central Park’s beloved horse-drawn carriage industry come to an end after more than a century, largely due to a tragic accident,” he said in a Truth Social article. “When there’s a car accident in the area, and there are a lot, they don’t stop cars from entering the park. So why would they stop the cars?”
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