Should Boston continue to reduce its dependence on cars? Mayor Michelle Wu says yes, while her main opponent in the mayoral race Josh Kraft says no.

How their prospective mayoral administration for the next four-year term would approach transportation in the city provided one the starkest contrasts, and punchiest exchanges, between Wu and Kraft in their first head-to-head matchup in a mayoral forum that was held Thursday night.

The question pitched by moderator Saraya Wintersmith of GBH News was whether reducing the city’s dependence on cars would be a priority for their administration.

“No,” Kraft said. “I think there’s a lot of folks in this city, I hear from them every day, they need their car. … I think creating different pathways for transportation is great, whether it’s bikes, cars, improving the MBTA in the city.

“When I look at transportation though, I think the first thing we’ve got to do is go to the basics. We need to fix the roads, fix the sidewalks, fix the potholes in the roads, the curbs, so people that walk can walk, people that drive can drive, people that ride bikes can ride bikes,” he added.

Wu, in contrast, said emphatically that her administration would continue to stay the course on trying to get people commuting to and from Boston out of their cars.

“Yes, absolutely,” Wu said. “Reducing dependence on cars has been the official policy of the city of Boston since Mayor Menino 15-plus years ago said the car is no longer king. We need everyone to have more options to get around safely, affordably, conveniently, and I’m really proud of the progress we’ve made.”

Wu said the city has been working with the MBTA on its efforts to remove slow zones and get up to speed on maintenance and track fixes that were flagged by the feds a few years ago, and has worked to make its “roadways safe for everyone.”

The mayor’s roadway reconfigurations, particularly bike lanes, have come under fire from parts of the public, and have become a key talking point for Kraft, who has vowed to pause bike lane construction.

Wu recently ordered a 30-day review of the city’s street changes, including the effectiveness of the bike lanes. She has stated in the past several months that the city moved too fast on street changes, some of which were called “heavy-handed” by a Wu administration official who was tapped to lead the review.

The mayor said at the day’s forum, however, that Kraft lacks a concrete plan on transportation. Wu cited an interview he gave to Politico Massachusetts last week, when he was asked whether he had a plan for addressing the city’s traffic congestion, consistently ranked among the worst in the nation, beyond pausing the construction of bike lanes.

“No, I really haven’t,” Kraft told Politico. “I think we’ve been more focused on bike lanes.”

Wu deadpanned, “That’s not a plan. That’s not even the concept of a plan.”

Kraft responded by referencing instead the remarks he gave earlier in the forum, about fixing roads and sidewalks. He said he was “for bike lanes,” but said the city needs a “pause” to “understand where we can put them with thoughtful feedback.”

Wu and Kraft also tangled over the city’s finances and Mass and Cass, the longtime epicenter of the region’s opioid epidemic. For the latter, Kraft said he gave the city’s response to the Methadone Mile situation an ‘F,’ while Wu gave her administration’s grade an “incomplete.”

Boston’s AAA bond rating was reaffirmed for a 12th straight year this week by two global ratings agencies, but the past year’s local financial conversations have been dominated by a decline in commercial real estate values that contributed to a double-digit average spike in property taxes for homeowners this past January.

City budget conversations over the past two months have also been focused on the Trump administration’s threats to strip federal funding from Boston, some of which Wu says the city is already challenging in court.

The four candidates taking part in the mayoral forum — which also included community activist and former city employee Domingos DaRosa, and Alex Alex, a 24-year-old Dorchester resident who immigrated illegally to the U.S. as a child — were asked what opportunities they saw for the city to raise revenue, and how their potential administration would prepare for a reduction in federal funding.

While two other candidates spoke on the matter, the fireworks were again seen solely between Wu and Kraft, who are widely viewed as taking part in a two-horse race.

Speaking to the $300 million in federal funds that she says are at risk in Boston in the next fiscal year, Wu said, “We are preparing for the unplannable while at the same time not jumping into buying into the fact that we need to slash and cut” from the budget.

“It’s not just billionaires at the federal level who have said we need to cut everything in the name of efficiency,” Wu said. “There are people on this stage right now who have said, let’s take a 2% cut across the board to city services — that, when you tell the truth, translates into firing police officers, teachers, etc., mass layoffs. We need to protect city services more than ever.”

Kraft, a son of the billionaire New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and longtime philanthropist, shot back.

“When I talk about savings in the budget, when there was a $4.6 billion budget and the city administration said there wasn’t a penny to be cut from it, I just find that hard to believe,” Kraft said. “I also think it’s disrespectful to so many citizens in Boston that are making hard fiscal decisions that impact their families every day.”

Wu hit back, saying, “It’s easy to stand on the sidelines when you’re new to the city, new to any city policy-making to just say, cut, cut, cut, and not have to say where we put forward what a 1% cut would look like for the city of Boston.”

The mayor’s dig reverberated unexpectedly at the end of the forum, hosted by Democratic ward committees, when candidates were asked a throwaway question about what ward they live in.

Kraft, who recently moved to Boston, having purchased a North End condo in October 2023 for $2.5 million, after having lived in Chestnut Hill, was stumped.

“I’m embarrassed to say I don’t know,” he said.