Why is New York City becoming the national leader in taking back streets from cars and turning them over to people and bikes? The answer is simple: Janette Sadik-Kahn. And she's taken full advantage of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's appointment of her as Transportation Commissioner and his charge to make New York greener and more livable. No where in the country are they doing more innovative things to make an urban area more livable by taking back the streets. Forbes Magazine has a wonderful look (Take Back the Streets, by Susan Adams, October 5, 2009) at this visionary leader and what's she's doing to transform New York City. She's one of the reasons a bunch of us Arlington Transportation staffers visited with her staff on a learning trip to NYC this summer. We all could learn a lot from their good work and put it into practice here in the DC region.
Chris Hamilton is the Commuter Services Transportation Bureau Chief for Arlington County in the Department of Environmental Services, manager of CommuterPageBlog and a Metro/biking commuter from Rosemont in Alexandria.
Did Arlington Transportation staffers learn *anything* about completing long-planned transportation projects on time and within budget in it's "learning trip" to NYC?
I'm still looking forward to the County completing it's *second* major trail network expansion project since the 1994 Arlington Bicycle Transportation Plan was adopted by the Arlington County Board 15.5 years ago.
Posted by: Allen Muchnick | September 27, 2009 at 03:02 PM