Michael Bloomberg

City Hall has another big vacancy to fill. This morning the Bloomberg administration announced that Robert Lieber, deputy mayor for economic development, is returning to the private sector. Lieber's portfolio includes the New York City Economic Development Corporation and the Department of City Planning. His departure could create a window of opportunity to fill some of the biggest gaps in the city's sustainability agenda, PlaNYC 2030. 

As the new deputy mayor for operations, Stephen Goldsmith will soon be responsible for a portfolio of about a dozen city agencies, including NYCDOT, the NYPD, and the Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability. To a certain extent, the livable streets agenda will go through him. While Goldsmith may not have a direct role in shaping the specifics of New York City transportation policy, by steering the Bloomberg administration's broad goals and political objectives, he's going to influence what the city will and won't do for livable streets over the next four years.

If you had to choose where the city should cut funding, which mode of transportation would you target? Personal automobiles, cabs, Access-A-Ride? How about buses, subways, bikes, and pedestrian safety enhancements?

When NYPD announced Monday that, effective April 1, city parades must be shortened in distance by 25 percent and may no longer exceed five hours -- period -- there was an understandable sense of disappointment. But since the move was framed as an unavoidable reality of lean times -- "The mayor has made it clear that New Yorkers can't afford a tax increase now, and we can't take our eyes off the ball when it comes to keeping crime low," said Deputy Mayor Ed Skyler -- electeds don't seem to be putting up much of an argument. After all, how you gonna enjoy the parade if you get shot, or blown up by terrorists?

In the last eight years, Amanda Burden's Department of City Planning has rezoned 20 percent of New York along relatively transit-oriented lines, while simultaneously promoting quasi-suburban projects at prominent sites and maintaining parking minimums that erode the pedestrian environment. In other words, the planning department is promoting growth in the right places, but enabling the wrong kind of development. So in the next four years, will New York's planners adopt more sustainable practices or continue the status quo?

This is the second installment in a three-part series on the reshaping of New York City and its consequences for sustainability and livable streets. Read the first part here.

This is the first installment in a three-part series on the reshaping of New York City and its consequences for sustainability and livable streets.

Mayor Bloomberg has seen some of the data from the city's trial of car-free, pedestrian-priority spaces in Midtown, and it looks like the changes in traffic speeds are not as impressive as hoped for. This, I daresay, is good news.