Dan Doctoroff

Finally: Long-Term Transportation Planning Underway at DOT

By Aaron Naparstek

12:15 PM EDT on July 7, 2006

Streetsblog is picking up many under-the-radar signals that the Bloomberg Administration may finally be asking its transportation agency to do more than fill pot holes and that Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff is leading a serious push to develop a comprehensive transportation and land use strategy for New York City.

The first signal came at the beginning of Mayor Bloomberg’s second term when DOT Commissioner Iris Weinhall’s box was moved on the Administration’s org chart and she began reporting directly to Doctoroff.

Next, DOT’s creative, competent Lower Manhattan Borough Commissioner, Steve Weber was promoted to a newly created Strategic Planning position. Amazingly, prior to Weber’s appointment, there was no one in New York City government responsible for long-term transportation planning and strategy.

Now, in, perhaps, the most public sign that a major transportation and land use planning initiative is underway, Weber is assembling a Strategic Planning staff. Sources say that he will have as many as eight full-timers working under him.

Here are three job postings that just came online:

Associate Project Manager – Level I-III (Strategic Planning)
Project Manager – Strategic Planning
Associate City Planner – Level I-II (Strategic Planning)

Aaron Naparstek

Aaron Naparstek is the founder and former editor-in-chief of Streetsblog. Based in Brooklyn, New York, Naparstek's 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. He was also one of the original cast members of the "War on Cars" podcast. You can find more of his work on his website.