New York’s carriage phaseout puts 180 horses—and workers’ futures—at stake

About 180 horses will need retirement homes if New York carries its carriage phaseout through. That is the scale of the task behind the City Council’s vote to end horse-drawn carriage operations: not simply taking an attraction off the streets, but arranging what comes after for the animals and the people whose incomes depend on them. The city plans to help find those homes and employment opportunities for industry workers. Neither task is yet demonstrated to be complete. ¹

The Council voted on October 22, 2026, to approve Romanch’s Law, setting a planned June 1, 2028 endpoint for the industry associated with Central Park. The measure reaches horse-drawn cabs across New York City, not just rides inside the park. The vote was 40 in favor and seven against, with two abstentions, according to contemporaneous reporting. ^{3 2 11}

It is a decisive legislative step, not an immediate shutdown. As of October 26, a completed mayoral signature had not been confirmed. Mayor Zohran Mamdani supported the negotiated phaseout and was expected to sign, but that expectation should not be confused with completed enactment. ⁹⁴

The Council’s legislative record illustrates the distinction. Int 0943-2026, concerning a prohibition on horse-drawn cabs and an industry transition plan, displays the status “Enacted (Mayor’s Desk for Signature).” Yet its enactment-date and local-law-number fields are blank. The record supports reporting that the Council passed the measure; it does not establish that a signed local law has taken effect. ⁸⁵

Council Member Christopher Marte sponsored the bill, and Council Speaker Julie Menin backed it. Their legislative victory moves the argument into a different phase. The central question is no longer whether the Council will approve an end to the rides, but whether the city can make the promised transition work. ³

The measure bears the name of Romanch Mahajan, an 18-year-old tourist from India who died following a runaway-carriage incident in Central Park on June 17, 2026. His death gave fresh urgency to a campaign that had already linked animal-welfare objections with concerns about passenger and public safety. ^{97 98}

The precise sequence remains unsettled in the available reporting. NHK describes Mahajan as having been thrown from the carriage; other accounts describe him jumping while trying to help his mother after she fell. The runaway incident and his death are established, but choosing one version as definitive would go beyond the evidence. A final medical examiner’s determination and a final investigative finding assigning responsibility were not established for this report. ^{1 83 99}

That distinction matters. A fatal incident is a compelling reason to scrutinize safety. It is not, by itself, a finding of criminal responsibility against an individual driver.

Supporters of the phaseout argue that the rides expose horses, passengers and the public to unacceptable risks. Opponents see the loss of both a longstanding New York tradition and a livelihood. Those are different kinds of claims, and the vote does not make the economic one disappear: a city can decide an industry should end while still owing serious attention to the people it displaces. ^{1 7}

The city’s stated plan is to provide employment opportunities for carriage drivers and other industry workers and help find homes for about 180 retiring horses. The horse figure describes the reported retirement task; it is not an independently verified tally of currently licensed carriage horses, much less a count of completed placements. ¹

For workers, employment assistance is not the same as a guaranteed replacement income. Specific appropriated funding, compensation amounts and guaranteed jobs were not established in the evidence reviewed. For the horses, neither completed placements nor the full enforceable retirement safeguards were established. Precise interim implementation milestones also remain unconfirmed. ^{3 85}

These are not side issues to be dealt with after the last ride. They are the substance of the transition. A job referral must lead to work someone can depend on; a horse’s placement must amount to more than a destination on moving day. The long phaseout gives the city preparation time. Whether that time is used well will be measured in livelihoods and lasting care, not announcements.

There are limits, too, to what the available numbers can tell us about the industry’s record. Dated totals of active licensed drivers, carriages and carriage horses were not established, nor were numerical inspection, violation or enforcement results sufficient to quantify its safety performance. The documented incidents deserve attention without being stretched into a statistical account the evidence does not provide. ^{12 13}

Before it was called Romanch’s Law, the phaseout campaign used the name Ryder’s Law. Ryder was the carriage horse whose August 2022 collapse became a focal point for opponents of the industry. He was euthanized several months later because of his poor medical condition, according to the Manhattan district attorney’s account. ^{35 88}

On November 15, 2023, District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced charges against Ryder’s driver, Ian McKeever, then 55. Prosecutors alleged that McKeever abused the horse to the point of collapse despite significant health problems, after work on an 84-degree day. Those are prosecutorial allegations, not a finding of guilt. An Associated Press report documented a criminal trial in July 2025; its outcome was not established in this reporting. ^{88 91}

Earlier policy proposals also need to be kept separate from the measure now passed. In March 2023, the New York City Bar Association supported proposed legislation that would have prohibited horse-drawn carriage operations beginning June 1, 2024, replacing them with a horseless electric-carriage program. That was a proposed deadline, not evidence that a ban took effect in 2024. Nor does the available evidence establish that the current measure includes the same electric-carriage replacement. ^{87 85}

Then-Mayor Eric Adams took another step on September 17, 2025, calling for an end to Central Park’s horse-drawn carriages and signing an executive order to strengthen oversight and enforcement while preparing agencies for an eventual Council ban. That executive action was preparation for a legislative decision, not the ban itself. ¹⁸

The Council has now made that decision. Mayoral action is the immediate unresolved step. Beyond it lies the harder test: turning employment assistance into dependable work and retirement promises into safe, lasting homes before the planned June 1, 2028 endpoint. Ending the rides is a deadline. Completing the transition is an obligation. ^{94 3 1}