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Bicycling

A New Day at DOT

10:37 AM EDT on May 14, 2007

janette.jpgToday is Janette Sadik-Khan's first official day on the job as New York City's new Department of Transportation commissioner. Word has it she recently purchased a new bicycle and will be using it every so often to commute between her home in the West Village and her new office on Worth Street.

As Mayor Bloomberg said at Sadik-Khan's introductory press conference on April 27:

She is a true transportation professional. Over the past 15 years she's built an incredible record of achievement at all levels of government. She's run operations, she's developed policies, and she has been an entrepreneur. She is going to need to draw on all of those skills as we strive to maintain our vast transportation network, improve safety and expand transportation options in an environmentally-friendly way.

She truly understands the role our streets and sidewalks play within our neighborhoods. She understands that they are not only a means to get somewhere else, they are a part of the fabric of life in all five boroughs.

I heard that [Sadik-Khan's 10-year-old son] gave his mother a mandate before she agreed to take the job. The mandate was: 'Reduce the trucks and increase the bikes.' Sounds like a Deputy Commissioner in the making.

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. 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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