Bill de Blasio

Earlier today Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio named Anthony Shorris to the post of first deputy mayor. An experienced public official whose resume in city government extends back to the Koch administration, Shorris will be tasked with the day-to-day running of the city. His selection is seen as reassuring the city's business establishment without alienating de Blasio's progressive base.

Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio ran on a platform with ambitious goals to reduce traffic deaths, improve bus service, and increase bicycling. As New York City's first mayoral transition in 12 years gets underway, Streetsblog is asking advocates and experts how Mayor-elect de Blasio should follow through and implement a progressive transportation policy agenda. First up: Paul Steely White, executive director of Transportation Alternatives.

Despite a policy book that included a top-notch street safety plank, Bill de Blasio never quite linked progressive transportation policy to social equity during the campaign. But the candidate's campaign promises to reduce inequality did focus on the high price of housing, including a pledge to require developers to set aside a certain percentage of their projects for below-market units. To make housing more affordable for everyone, the de Blasio administration will have to revamp the city's zoning code, and parking reform -- an affordable housing issue the Bloomberg administration barely touched -- should be part of that.

One of the most insightful questions of the 2013 campaign season came two weeks ago, when WNYC's Brian Lehrer asked Bill de Blasio if he considered transportation policy "one of his tools to fight inequality."

On WNYC this morning, Brian Lehrer posed the best transportation question of the 2013 mayoral campaign, asking Bill de Blasio, "Have you thought about transportation as one of your tools to fight inequality?"

Someone should tell Jennifer Fermino that the bikelash is over.

Transportation didn't get much airtime during last night's debate between Bill de Blasio and Joe Lhota, but the candidates did trade a few jabs. Over the course of the debate, which aired on WABC, the pair fielded a handful of questions on MTA fares, traffic enforcement, waste management, and development -- with Lhota at one point deriding Robert Moses.

Yesterday, New York City Democrats chose the candidate who's campaigned as the anti-Bloomberg. But on issues of traffic safety and surface transit, Bill de Blasio, despite some wavering, has pledged to build on the current administration's progress while tackling the unfinished business of reforming the NYPD's approach to traffic violence. And with several City Council candidates endorsed by the newly-formed StreetsPAC winning hotly contested primaries, the results of last night's election bode well for livable streets in NYC over the next four years. As StreetsPAC board member Eric McClure put it, "It's clear from the results of the primary that support for safe and complete streets has gone mainstream."