"Gridlock" Sam Schwartz

Who Will be the Next DOT Commissioner?

People are starting to kick around the names of potential successors to outgoing DOT Commissioner Iris Weinshall. This morning, Crain's Insider reports:

By Aaron Naparstek

12:29 PM EST on January 31, 2007

People are starting to kick around the names of potential successors to outgoing DOT Commissioner Iris Weinshall. This morning, Crain’s Insider reports:

Insiders believe that Mayor Mike Bloomberg will look inside his administration for Iris Weinshall’s replacement as transportation commissioner. But because Bloomberg will be out in 2009, top transportation people may favor state jobs: state transportation commissioner, Long Island Rail Road president or New York City Transit president. NJ Transit is seeking an executive director.. Two private-sector candidates could be Janette Sadik-Kahn of Parsons Brinckerhoff, who lost out to Weinshall for the job, and former MTA chair Bob Kiley, who implemented congestion pricing in London. Weinshall is leaving for CUNY in mid-April.

Sadik-Kahn was Mayor David Dinkins’ Transportation Advisor. In addition to setting up London’s congestion charging system, Kiley was chairman of the MTA in the 1980’s.

Here are some other names that are flying around:

Emily Lloyd
Sam Schwartz
Gary Toth
Jack Lettiere
David Woloch
Michael Primeggia
And then there’s this one. It’s not quite a “name” per se. More a question: Isn’t there some deputy commissioner from London we could call?

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.