New York City’s new transportation commissioner is looking to cities like Bogotá, Tokyo and Paris for inspiration as he seeks to realize Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s mandate to make NYC’s streetscape “the envy of the world.”

“New York is the greatest city in the world, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t things that we can’t learn from our global peers,” Transportation Commissioner Mike Flynn said Thursday on WNYC’s “Morning Edition,” specifically calling out the capitals of Colombia, Japan and France.

Bogotá has received global acclaim in recent years for its expanding rapid bus network and bike lanes. In 2022, the city received a sustainability award from the Institute for Transportation and Policy Development.

Tokyo has long been light-years ahead of New York City when it comes to reorienting its streets, with an efficient subway system and sprawling network of pedestrian plazas that discourage commuters from driving.

And in Paris, Mayor Anne Hidalgo has over the last decade prioritized banning cars from the city center and expanding pedestrian space. Last year, Parisian voters passed a referendum to close an additional 500 streets to traffic — and remove 10% of the city’s parking spaces.

Cyclists represent more than 10% of all commuters in each of the cities cited by Flynn. In New York City, only about 2% of people commute by bike.