THE CENTER FOR THE LIVING CITY PRESENTS:
Janette Sadik-Khan, former NYC Department of Transportation Commissioner who introduced pedestrian plazas, bike lanes and bike sharing, will speak on the legacy of writer and preservationist Jane Jacobs (1916-2006), whose work changed the way the world views and understands cities. One of the leading voices on urban transportation policy, Janette Sadik-Khan is internationally respected for her transformative redesigns of New York City streets and rapid-implementation strategies that are being replicated today in cities around the world.
Award-winning author and preservationist Roberta Brandes Gratz will introduce Janette.
Pay what you wish. RSVP requested.
JANETTE SADIK-KHAN
Principal, Transportation at Bloomberg Associates
Janette Sadik-Khan served as Commissioner of the New York City Department of Transportation (NYC DOT) from 2007-2013, where she implemented an ambitious program to improve safety, mobility and sustainability, and ensure a state of good repair on the city’s roads, bridges and ferries. At Bloomberg Associates, she works with mayors around the world to reimagine and redesign their cities with innovative projects that can be developed quickly and inexpensively.
At NYC DOT, Janette oversaw a $2.8 billion budget, delivering transformative projects including the pedestrianization of Times Square and redesigning 2.3 miles of Broadway from Columbus Circle to Union Square; the planning and launch of seven Select Bus Service routes; and the nation’s largest bike share program. She added nearly 400 miles of bicycle lanes and installed 60 plazas across the city. She also developed and published New York City’s first-ever Street Design Manual and Street Works Manual, defining new standards for creating more resilient and attractive streets.
Before joining the Bloomberg Administration, she was a Senior Vice President at Parsons Brinckerhoff, an international engineering firm. Prior to that, she served as Deputy Administrator of the Federal Transit Administration.
Sadik-Khan is the chair of the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO), an organization of transportation commissioners in over 40 US cities, and is a member of the board of directors of both the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) and the Regional Plan Association (RPA). She also sits on the Board of Trustees of Occidental College, from which she holds a B.A. in Political Science, in addition to a J.D. from Columbia University School of Law. She is the author of Streetfight: Handbook for an Urban Revolution.
As New York City's transportation commissioner, Janette Sadik-Khan managed the seemingly impossible and transformed the streets of one of the world's greatest, toughest cities into dynamic spaces safe for pedestrians and bikers. Her approach was dramatic and effective: Simply painting a part of the street to make it into a plaza or bus lane not only made the street safer, but it also lessened congestion and increased foot traffic, which improved the bottom line of businesses. Real-life experience confirmed that if you know how to read the street, you can make it function better by not totally reconstructing it but by reallocating the space that's already there, breaking the street into its component parts, Streetfight demonstrates, with step-by-step visuals, how to rewrite the underlying “source code” of a street, with pointers on how to add protected bike paths, improve crosswalk space, and provide visual cues to reduce speeding. Achieving such a radical overhaul wasn’t easy, and Streetfight pulls back the curtain on the battles Sadik-Khan won to make her approach work. She includes examples of how this new way to read the streets has already made its way around the world, from pocket parks in Mexico City and Los Angeles to more pedestrian-friendly streets in Auckland and Buenos Aires, and innovative bike-lane designs and plazas in Austin, Indianapolis, and San Francisco. Many are inspired by the changes taking place in New York City and are based on the same techniques. Streetfight deconstructs, reassembles, and reinvents the street, inviting readers to see it in ways they never imagined.