NYC mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa, who doesn’t drive, rips opponent over traffic tickets

Curtis Sliwa, the long-shot GOP candidate for City Hall, slung some arrows at his Democratic opponent, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, in an attempt on Tuesday to enliven the mayoral race with seven weeks until the general election.

Sliwa ripped Adams over traffic tickets picked up by his government-issued auto, and over his stated desire to make public transportation in the city free.

Democratic New York City mayoral candidate Eric Adams (left) and Republican New York City mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa (right) (Tim Balk/)

“It’s sort of like, whoa, do as I say, not as I do,” Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels patrol group, said after Adams staged a news conference on Monday that focused on street safety and called for increased penalties for reckless driving.

The subway-loving Sliwa, who said he doesn’t have a driving license and flunked the test multiple times, has displayed ambivalence on some street safety measures. He told the Daily News on Tuesday that he would close some bike lanes, saying his position is: “If you don’t use it, you lose it.”

But in a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Midtown Manhattan on Tuesday, Sliwa painted the bike-friendly Adams as the hypocrite, highlighting a StreetsBlog report published in June that indicated Adams’ city-issued car had picked up 15 reckless-driving camera citations since 2019.

That report came after Adams released E-ZPass records from his official vehicles to combat questions about whether he was living in Brooklyn or with his girlfriend in New Jersey. A longtime resident of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Adams appeared to have often slept at his office in Brooklyn Borough Hall during the campaign.

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On June 11, Adams said he was concerned about the traffic tickets. “I’m going to do a deep dive in the data,” he told reporters. “I can’t be an advocate about stopping crashes, and my drivers are speeding. So I’m on them. I’m annoying to them about driving within the speed limit.”

Adams has expressed his preference for cycling over driving, and he had an ambitious pro-bike platform in the Democratic primary, though his opponent Kathryn Garcia earned the coveted endorsement of StreetsPAC, a street-safety-focused political organization.

Evan Thies, an Adams spokesperson, issued a statement accusing Sliwa of hypocrisy for “remaining silent all these years while New Yorkers have been dying at the hands of reckless drivers. Mr. Sliwa has not stood with families and victims throughout the years. Eric has been a leading voice on making our streets safer, and he will continue to lead at City Hall.”

On Tuesday, Sliwa also attacked Adams for a comment he made to New York Magazine during the Democratic mayoral race. Adams said he intended to make public transportation free in New York City, an apparently unrealistic promise that would hinge on the agreement of the state-run MTA as well as a way to replace the $5 billion the agency raked in from transit fares last year.

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Sliwa claimed that cutting fares could increase crime on the subway, calling it a “recipe for chaos.”

Sliwa faces a Sisyphean lift in making the race competitive due to the voter profile of deep-blue New York City, home to six Democrats for every Republican.

He told The News he feels like he’s building momentum, because “people are realizing I’m not the traditional Republican.” A Trump critic, his campaign is focused on funding the NYPD and rescuing animals.

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But even as Sliwa aimed fire at Adams, he may have harmed his standing with Democrats he must charm by delivering a bit of swaggering commentary on Fox News.

Discussing Tuesday’s recall election facing Gov. Gavin Newsom in California, Sliwa said he supports Larry Elder, a Republican challenger whose campaign has preemptively suggested voter fraud in the Golden State.

Sliwa distanced himself from the fraud charge, but poured praise on Elder.

“This is a man’s man,” Sliwa said on Fox News on Monday. “He should be the next governor of the State of California.”

With Clayton Guse