Mayor Bloomberg joined U.N. secretary-general Ban Ki-moon and Dept. of Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan to kick off a new U.N. initiative on safer streets, and, while he was at it, he gave a full-throated endorsement to his DOT head:
“When I hired Janette Sadik-Khan to be the commissioner of the city’s Transportation Department, I urged her to be bold and to think outside the box,” he said. “That is exactly what she has done. She has taken what her predecessor Iris Weinshall did so ably and took it to even higher levels.”
Sadik-Khan has come under fire in recent months, particularly around improvements to 34th Street and in the wake of the December snow storm. Some downtown residents have even been calling for her resignation, and she remains a topic of enmity for the Post‘s editorial board.
The mayor though isn’t having it.
“The bottom line is you’ve done exactly what we’ve asked. Road safety statistics show that your efforts are bearing fruit. You are saving lots of lives and making the city better,” he said before ceding the microphone to her.
