Mayor de Blasio appointed Henry (“Hank”) Gutman as Commissioner for the Department of Transportation.
The post remained vacant after the former Polly Trottenberg resigned to a higher position in the federal government, becoming Deputy Secretary of Transportation.
Gutman, a lawyer by training, was most recently the head of the Brooklyn Navy Yard. He was also a board member of Brooklyn Bridge Park. He had a very indirect relationship with urban transport, although for the last two years he was a member of the expert council on Brooklyn problems – Queens Expressway, where he was appointed by the mayor, in whose political companies Gutman contributed $ 18,375 over the past decade.
When de Blasio was asked why he now put a layman in charge of the Department of Transport, he took his appointee under his protection.
“I had the opportunity to see how he dealt with very difficult situations and very tough problems in the communities and always knew how to find common ground,” the mayor replied.
Gutman will have to work with de Blasio for the last 11 months of his stay in power. The Commissioner was appointed a few days after the mayor addressed New Yorkers with his annual State of the City message, which focused on further cycling New York. De Blasio outlined his ambitious program to install 10,000 bicycle parking racks in the city by the end of 2022, and reaffirmed his commitment to the idea of Open Streets, that is, streets where pedestrians and cyclists dominate.
The new transport commissar is in complete solidarity with the mayor.
“The Mayor and I are convinced that if you give people more good alternatives to the ‘car culture’, they will willingly take advantage of it,” said Hank Gutman. “Safe bike stands are part of the equation.”
The popularity of the bicycle has grown greatly among the townspeople during the epidemic. However, the authorities, having promised to install 1.5 thousand parking racks in the 2020 financial year, did not even make it to half: only 672 racks were installed.
High hopes are pinned on Hank Gutman. “He needs to realize, without reservation, that people and public transportation are more important than cars and parking lots,” said Danny Harris, CEO of Transportation Alternatives. “This means new fenced paths for cyclists, dedicated bus lanes and open spaces for public use.”
All of this is provided for in the program outlined by de Blasio in the State of the City. The city plans to expand public spaces in areas hardest hit by COVID-19. The Open Streets project, originally a one-year project, is becoming permanent. The network of protected cycle paths will be expanded. Each borough will have a special “Cyclist Boulevard”. And another new project, Bridges for the People, means that there will be separate cycle lanes on two bridges across the East River – Brooklyn and Queensboro.
Newspaper headline:
New York will switch to bicycles