Esquire does a profile of New York Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Kahn. Stunning photo, too.
Janette Sadik-Khan: Urban Reengineer
The new city of the future
“I don’t hate cars,” says the commissioner, not pissed, but almost. “It’s a matter of balance. Until a few years ago, our streets looked the same as they did fifty years ago. That’s not good business, to not update something in fifty years! We’re updating our streets to reflect the way people live now. And we’re designing a city for people,not a city for vehicles.” This is a swipe at the old guard, and a new prophecy. …
More downright rebelliously, she sometimes circumvents the community by experimenting with test swatches called pilots, like little harbingers of the future. With a pilot change, you don’t necessarily need community permission, since the idea is that you may end up just taking it down.
For example, with the DUMBO parklet, a past commissioner might have educated the residents first, tried to get them to buy into the plan. But it takes months to convince a neighborhood to agree to a change. Instead, she just painted. …
Part of this is psychological warfare. Moses once said, “Once you sink that first stake, they’ll never make you pull it up.” Sadik-Khan has co-opted those words. Under her rule, bike lanes materialize overnight. Sidewalks become pop-up cafés and flowers bloom inside repurposed pots in quick and cowering deference. New Yorkers aren’t used to this kind of change. So there they sit at their new café and they sip their Darjeeling, looking rather stunned or drugged and if not pleased, then at the very least seated.
The SFU City Program introduced Janette to Vancouver in 2009. Here’s the video of her presentation – Learning from New York.
the real battle isn’t car vs bike.
its pedestrian vs bike. with peds having very valid concerns that often get ignored and lumped together with car-oriented “windshield perspective”.
JSK doesn’t seem to get that
Really? Studies have shown that streets in New York with new bike lanes have also resulted in less pedestrian injuries. She’s also responsible for many little pocket parks, places for people to wander, places where traffic is newly calmed and taken back for people using their two feet. And what of Broadway and Times Square? That’s a place where the unbalance between pedestrian and car was most acute, with pedestrians squeezed onto a tiny sidewalk despite their vastly greater numbers, and now they own the street, to the improvement of not just pedestrians, but also traffic and the city as a whole.
In Vancouver, as someone who walks on Dunsmuir a lot, the bike lane has really improved the pedestrian experience. The lane itself provides a nice buffer from car traffic, the traffic on the street is moving slower and the street looks nicer, but the biggest plus is that the bike boxes allow for a much better crosswalk – more room and better visibility.
This is reminiscent of the Hornby bike lane installation.
I do agree that “just do it” is often more effective than public consultation after public consultation – which, essentially, amounts to “design by committee” (and everyone knows how bad that can turn out).
You can’t please all of the people all of the time – and if you try, you’ll likely end up with such a watered down version of what was originally intended that it’s either ineffective or equivalent to there being no change (i.e. think Granville Street revitalization).
However, if you “just do it” – that requires placing faith in the decision-makers that they will decisions in a relatively unbiased way or, conversely, stick to their platform (and perhaps suffer in the next election).
There used to be a time, pre-“flower power” I’d guestimate, when the populace placed a great deal of faith and trust in the planners and politicians to make the “right” decision. The prevalence of cynicism has since taken over and combined with the “me generation” wanting to micromanage anything remotely affecting them, has led to an erosion of trust over the years and the “need” for public consultation after public consultation (how much do these sessions cost, anyways?).
Does this mean that we’re coming full circle and heading back to the era of trusting the politicians and planners to make the right decision?
… except for all the consultation that happened for the Hornby bike lane installation.
Incidentally, as of December 7th the Hornby separated bike lane is complete and open for use.