City 'Could Be Free of Traffic'

Reposted in full from the Sydney Morning Herald, 13 November 2010

'She is the woman whose job it is to stop New York City traffic - literally. As transport commissioner of New York, Janette Sadik-Khan was charged with easing the congestion crisis in the Big Apple, which she has done with more than 320 kilometres of bicycle paths, new bus and ferry routes and ambitious projects such as turning the once jammed Times Square into a plaza.

She has been vindicated by a 100 per cent increase in cycling since 2006, a drastic reduction in the number of accidents and faster-moving traffic.

As a guest of the City of Sydney council, which is trying to implement its radical cycle and pedestrian-friendly reform, Ms Sadik-Khan is here to try to convince us that if you can make it happen in New York, you can make it happen anywhere.

''If we're going to make a city that people want to be in we have to prioritise these investments,'' she said.

Hers has been a formidable task in a city as notorious for its bellicose populace as its gridlocked streets, but Ms Sadik-Khan, a former corporate lawyer and cycling enthusiast, did not tread lightly.

The centrepiece of her reforms has been turning Times Square, where the average speed used to be 6.4 kilometres an hour and the defining sound was the car horn, into a safe plaza for the 356, 000 people who visit on foot each day.

Lanes were closed to cars, cycling strips introduced and cafe tables scattered where taxis used to dominate. New York Magazine praised her efforts as ''bypass surgery on the heart of New York''.

''People don't go to Broadway to see the traffic,'' she said. ''Now they have a way to really enjoy it.''

The changes were incremental, a key tactic in winning over her boss, the New York mayor, Michael Bloomberg, and the public.

For the lord mayor of Sydney, Clover Moore, to realise her ambition of making George Street a pedestrian precinct, Ms Sadik-Khan advised: ''Try it on weekends, try it at a different time of day, paint it a little different and assess it and report back to the public and say this is what we've found,'' she said. ''That takes a lot of the anxiety out.''

Even so, she has had plenty of critics at home and has been labelled an ''anti-car extremist''. Under the City of Sydney's 2030 strategy, George Street should become a pedestrian plaza with light rail running down its spine.

The state government is undertaking studies on the alignment for a light rail extension in the central business district but has not committed to the council's plan.

''I'm rather envious of Bloomberg. He has greater powers than I do,'' said Cr Moore yesterday.

''To do the sort of thing they have done you need to be able to get on and do the job whereas I need to negotiate with the RTA.'''