Straphangers’ Russianoff Will be Named to Spitzer Team

3:29 PM EST on November 15, 2006

Streetsblog has learned that Gene Russianoff, executive director of the Straphangers Campaign, will be named as a member of Governor-Elect Eliot Spitzer's transition team transportation committee. The announcement is likely to be made tomorrow. Russianoff says, "No comment." Unlike yesterday's inaccurate tip about the Mayor's Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability this item seems to be solid.

Russianoff generated one of the nicer soundbites to come out of yesterday's Citywide Coalition for Traffic Relief rally in this interview with Stan Brooks of 1010 WINS. You can listen to it online but here's the gist of it:

Traffic is really an urban health issue. It's about our lungs, our ears, our sensibilities walking down the street and this is a mayor who has really done a lot to make the city healthier. There's a long way to go and a key way [to make the city healthier] is to tame traffic. This is a walking city, a beautiful city and a city that gives far too much priority to cars driven by individuals and not enough to people on bikes, in buses or pedestrians.

Brooks summarizes: "He says the Mayor has tackled cigarettes and transfats and cigarettes, why not go after traffic?"

Aaron Naparstek

AARON NAPARSTEK is the founder and former editor-in-chief of Streetsblog. Based in Brooklyn, New York, Naparsteks journalism, advocacy and community organizing work has been instrumental in growing the bicycle network, removing motor vehicles from parks, and developing new public plazas, car-free streets and life-saving traffic-calming measures across all five boroughs. Naparstek is the author of "Honku: The Zen Antidote for Road Rage" (Villard, 2003), a book of humorous haiku poetry inspired by the endless motorist sociopathy observed from his apartment window. Prior to launching Streetsblog, Naparstek worked as an interactive media producer, pioneering some of the Web's first music web sites, online communities, live webcasts and social networking services. Naparstek is currently in Cambridge with his wife and two young sons where he is enjoying a Loeb Fellowship at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design. He has a master's degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and a bachelor's degree from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. Naparstek is a co-founder of the Park Slope Neighbors community group and the Grand Army Plaza Coalition. You can find more of his work here: http://www.naparstek.com.

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