If Mayor Bloomberg is indeed looking inside his administration for the next head of DOT, at least some advocates of progressive planning would like him to consider Emily Lloyd, the commissioner of the city's Department of Environmental Protection.
"It would be awesome if we had
someone like her," said Fred Kent, president of the Project for Public Spaces. "She's really a very practical,
thoughtful, holistic person. It's a quality that would be unusual in a
DOT."
Lloyd has been at the DEP since February 2005. One of her biggest challenges there has been overhauling the agency's deeply troubled
water billing system, which is so flawed that millions of dollars in
outstanding fees and fines have gone uncollected. From 1992 to 1994, a time when budget problems meant the city was struggling to meet its recycling goals, she was commissioner of the NY Department of Sanitation. She has also served as a top administrator at Columbia University, as director of business development for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and as commissioner of Traffic and Parking in Boston.
Kent says that Lloyd would be an ideal candidate at a time when
the DOT needs vision coupled with proven leadership ability. "She has great authority," Kent said. "We worked with her on the Port Authority, turning that from one of the worst public spaces into one that works pretty well. She's able to put a team together that can get difficult things done. She also has a sense of community and community responsibility, which is a skill that transportation people haven't really worked on."
A DEP spokesman said Wednesday that Lloyd was attending a conference on global warming in San Francisco and was unavailable for comment.
