Second City Dept. April 6, 2015 Issue

Iron Mayor

By Betsy Morais - The New Yorker

Steven Fulop, the mayor of Jersey City, has a Kuota K-Factor bike with Mavic Cosmic Carbone SLS wheels. “It’s for triathletes,” he said, as he walked out of City Hall and along the bike lane on Grove Street. He wore a long brown coat and a blue-and-red tie. “I did an Ironman—that’s with a two-and-a-half-mile swim, a hundred and twelve miles on the bike, and then a marathon,” he said. “Now I do the half Ironman. In the mornings, I train.” This involves a 5:40 a.m. bike ride: twenty-five miles, up to the George Washington Bridge and back. Fulop, who is thirty-eight, has posted on Twitter and Facebook about his athletic pursuits, his encounters with tapas chefs and local artists, and a free heart checkup with Dr. Oz. He moved to Jersey City in 2000, and, after stints in the Marine Corps and at Goldman Sachs, he was sworn in as mayor in 2013. “We’re not yet at the forefront of top-tier midsize cities,” he said. “Starting to do things like bike-share systems is how we’re going to get there.”

In January, Fulop announced that Jersey City will start a program that connects to Citibike, in New York, allowing a person to hop on a bike, ride it to the PATH station, turn in the first bike, and pick up a new one on the other side of the river. He envisages the program attracting New Yorkers who want to spend the day in Jersey City. “The views of Manhattan are second to none,” he said.

Read more:  http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/04/06/iron-mayor