In her six-year tenure, Sadik-Khan has made a lot of changes.
She focused on reducing the number of cars on NYC streets. She built hundreds of miles of bike lanes, introduced a hugely successful bike share program, created pedestrian plazas, and transformed Times Square.
Between 2007 and 2011, the number of New Yorkers commuting by bicycle doubled, meeting a DOT goal ahead of schedule.
To triple that number by 2017, Sadik-Khan led the installation of 350 miles of bike lanes on streets throughout New York, providing a relatively safe way for cyclists to get around.
The bike lanes have aroused plenty of criticism, largely from neighborhood groups. At a 2011 event at the Center for Architecture, Sadik-Khan defended the expansion as a public good:
“Some people have tried to paint bike lanes as elitist, which is really hard to believe because [the bicycle] is the most affordable way to get around town other than walking, and it’s really heavily used by a wide range of social and ethnic groups.”
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