Livable Streets

Wanted: A Progressive DOT Director for Washington D.C.

Washington D.C.'s Transportation Director Emeka Moneme is resigning, opening up a window of opportunity for that city's active livable streets movement. Greater Greater Washington's David Alpert is pointing Mayor Adrian Fenty to New York City's recent experience in choosing a new DOT Commissioner:

By Aaron Naparstek

12:43 PM EDT on July 24, 2008

Washington D.C.’s Transportation Director Emeka Moneme is resigning, opening up a window of opportunity for that city’s active livable streets movement. Greater Greater Washington’s David Alpert is pointing Mayor Adrian Fenty to New York City’s recent experience in choosing a new DOT Commissioner:

Mayor Bloomberg chose Sadik-Khan, and now we have separated bike lanes, brand-new plazas, a boulevard-like design for Broadway, and more. We need a similarly visionary leader for DDOT.

Perhaps because D.C. is such a wonk-filled town (or maybe because it was one of America’s first planned cities), greater Washington boasts a healthy number of really smart, high-quality blogs covering urban planning, transportation policy and livable streets. I’ll be looking forward to seeing how these bloggers help shape the public discussion as Fenty goes about choosing his next transportation commissioner. Here’s some good D.C. reading…

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.