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For now, Central Park’s clip-clop chorus has avoided its final curtain call. After weeks of tense politics and emotional testimony, the City Council’s Health Committee voted down Ryder’s Law, the latest attempt to retire New York City’s horse-drawn carriages and replace them with electric alternatives.
The bill, championed by Queens councilmember Robert Holden, aimed to phase out the 167-year-old carriage trade. Holden made the issue his white whale during his final few weeks in office, even trying a procedural maneuver to force a committee vote. That worked—but not in his favor. The committee sank the measure with four no votes, one yes and two abstentions.
Ryder’s Law gets its name from the horse that collapsed on a midtown street in 2022, ultimately becoming a flashpoint for the movement to end the industry. Advocates say the bill is long overdue and Holden accused his colleagues of burying it, calling the proceedings “professional wrestling” and “one of the most undemocratic shams we’ve ever seen” to PIX11 News. NYCLASS director Edita Birnkrant echoed that frustration, saying the vote ignored what she described as broad public support for a ban.
Carriage drivers, on the other hand, took a deep exhale. Many of the roughly 180 unionized drivers have fought fiercely to protect the jobs they say support immigrant families and preserve a unique slice of New York tradition. “It’s a feel-good moment,” Alexander Kemp, the TWU Local 100 vice president, also told PIX11 News, arguing that the debate has been muddied by misinformation and outside interests eyeing the valuable land in which the West Side stable properties sit.
Even Mayor Eric Adams, who was once a defender of the industry, switched sides earlier this fall, urging the City Council to pass the ban and issuing an executive order to boost industry oversight. He criticized Friday’s committee vote as ignoring the will of New Yorkers and endangering both humans and horses. Meanwhile, Gothamist reports that the new mayor-elect, Zohran Mamdani, has struck a cautious tone, emphasizing that the issue needs deeper study before any sweeping change happens.
The debate likely won’t cool down any time soon. This year saw several major incidents, including spooked horses bolting through the park and Ryder’s driver, Ian McKeever, being acquitted in the animal-cruelty case relating to the horse’s death. Holden now plans to seek an injunction to force public hearings.
But for now, the carriages will keep rolling, their future still uncertain, their fate still fiercely argued and their presence—love it or loathe it—still unmistakably New York.