New York City's savvy transportation commissioner, Janette Sadik-Khan is using data-backed policy initiatives and local governance to boost bicycle and public transit facilities, despite a conservative media backlash.
According Alternet's Don Hazen, Sadik-Khan
"has made great strides in moving New York City into the 21st century. She has overseen the building of hundreds of miles of innovative bike lanes; she's turned traffic-clogged streets like parts of Broadway into vibrant public spaces; she has secured huge grants from the Feds to improve bus service, and perhaps most importantly to her boss, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, she has made the streets safer than they have been in many decades.
Visionary change, especially in a time of economic anxiety and scarcity, is never easy, and Sadik-Khan's remarkable accomplishments have met with resistance from some [who] see [her] as moving too fast, not spending the necessary time to prepare people for change."
Perhaps predictably, the media, in particular the New York Post, are framing these changes in terms of a faux class war that is victimizing the "forgotten" car driver.
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