NYC Bans Horse-Drawn Carriages, Ending a 165-Year Central Park Tradition

New York City has voted to end one of its most recognisable traditions. On Thursday, October 22, the New York City Council passed a bill banning horse-drawn carriage rides, winding down an industry that has carried tourists through Central Park for more than 150 years.

Under the bill, no new carriage licences will be issued and horse-drawn carriage operations will end by June 2028. Mayor Zohran Mamdani supports the measure and is expected to sign it into law. Earlier in October, he declared that the horse carriage industry was “coming to an end in New York City.”

The council passed the bill by a veto-proof majority, despite a last-minute push to delay the ban. The legislation is known as Romanch’s Law, named after Romanch Mahajan, an 18-year-old tourist who died in June after an incident involving a runaway carriage in Central Park. His death, and a separate incident in the same month in which a horse collapsed in the park while pulling a carriage, reignited a decades-long debate over the safety and welfare of the animals.

Animal welfare advocates have campaigned for years to end the rides, arguing that horses are forced to work long hours in traffic, heat and congestion. Supporters of the ban say the city has a responsibility to protect both the animals and the public.

The decision leaves about 150 carriage drivers facing an uncertain future. The bill requires the mayor’s office to develop a transition plan by April 2027, including career counselling and referrals to jobs in transit, hospitality and taxi work, and to consider compensation for operators. The horses themselves may not be sold for slaughter.

Drivers and their union reacted angrily. The Transport Workers Union, which represents the drivers, said the bill offers nothing concrete for workers whose livelihoods depend on the trade and vowed to challenge it in court the moment it is signed. Drivers say they stand to lose their jobs, their licences and businesses built over years, and they question how they will care for their horses in the meantime.

President Donald Trump, a New Yorker whose Trump Tower sits near Central Park, opposed the ban. Writing on social media, he called the horse-drawn carriage “a quintessential New York experience” and “a great tradition” that “will be missed.”

Two of Mamdani’s predecessors tried and failed to end the rides. Former Mayor Bill de Blasio campaigned on ending them on his first day in office, but the effort stalled amid union opposition. His successor, Eric Adams, floated a ban late in his term, but it went nowhere.

For New York, the vote closes a chapter that began in the 1800s, when horse-drawn cabs first looped through Central Park — and that became a fixture of films, postcards and tourist itineraries around the world.

Sources: Reuters, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The Straits Times.