David Byrne.For a city widely seen as a haven for progressive thought, New York has put up surprisingly stiff resistance to helping cyclists get where they’re going in one piece. A year ago, before Wall Street greed had a monopoly on the New York protest scene, East Village residents gathered to voice concern over all the “dangerous bike riders” in their neighborhood. And last March, a group with the woefully inaccurate name “Neighbors for Better Bike Lanes” sued the city over a three-mile bike lane alongside Prospect Park in Brooklyn. (A judge threw out the case because the statute of limitations had expired.)
None of this has deterred Janette Sadik-Khan, the NYC Department of Transportation commissioner. Since her appointment by Mayor Bloomberg in 2007, she has overseen the addition of over 250 miles of bike lanes and pedestrian walkways and has worked to implement a long-awaited bike share program that will launch next summer. On Monday night, Sadik-Khan joined musician/bicycle enthusiast David Byrne at the Center for Architecture to discuss City Hall’s campaign to convince 8 million people that New York can become a bike-friendly to... Read more
