Straphangers’ Russianoff Will be Named to Spitzer Team

Streetsblog has learned that Gene Russianoff, executive director of the Straphangers Campaign, will be named as a member of Governor-Elect Eliot Spitzer’s transition team transportation committee. The announcement is likely to be made tomorrow. Russianoff says, “No comment.” Unlike yesterday’s inaccurate tip about the Mayor’s Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability this item seems to be solid.

Russianoff generated one of the nicer soundbites to come out of yesterday’s Citywide Coalition for Traffic Relief rally in this interview with Stan Brooks of 1010 WINS. You can listen to it online but here’s the gist of it:

Traffic is really an urban health issue. It’s about our lungs, our ears, our sensibilities walking down the street and this is a mayor who has really done a lot to make the city healthier. There’s a long way to go and a key way [to make the city healthier] is to tame traffic. This is a walking city, a beautiful city and a city that gives far too much priority to cars driven by individuals and not enough to people on bikes, in buses or pedestrians.

Brooks summarizes: “He says the Mayor has tackled cigarettes and transfats and cigarettes, why not go after traffic?”