The memorable Janette Sadik-Khan
Janette Sadik-Khan is a lawyer. She moves easily in engineering circles. She led the New York City Department of Transportation for six years. There is no necessary reason with that professional pedigree that she should also be able to speak clearly. Lawspeak plus engineeringspeak plus transportationspeak plus zoningspeak can be the deadliest of communication cocktails. Numbed by acronyms, baffled by gab, fogged by vaporous words, listeners are quickly anaesthetized while the elect work their schemes unbothered because un-understood. Sadik-Khan spoke to crowds in Edmonton and Calgary last week. She spun yarns from her storied tenure at NYC DOT. Bike lanes. Bikeshare. Summer Streets. Plazas. A new Times Square. Deck chairs. Paint. Bus rapid transit. A reinvigorated way of seeing public space for people. All the riveting stuff of her book Streetfight: Handbook For An Urban Revolution. Read it! My copy Part of Sadik-Khan's revolution is in language itself. In the bo...