Janette Sadik-Khan

Thanks to Clarence Eckerson for this Streetfilms Shortie.

Addressing a packed house in Washington last night, Rep. Earl Blumenauer, founder of the Congressional Bike Caucus, posed a Zen-like 'universalist cyclist question'.

This year the New York City Department of Transportation measured a 26 percent jump in commuter cycling. Coming on the heels of 2008's unprecedented 35 percent growth, that puts the total two-year increase at a whopping 66 percent.

When we wrote about the trial pedestrian plaza on 17th Street and Market Street that DPW expects to start this May, the story generated numerous doubts about how the city would create a successful public space out of a busy street abutting a gas station. 

With San Francisco about to embark on its first pilot street closure, I thought it would be appropriate to revisit this conversation with the Open Planning Project's Executive Director, Mark Gorton, and New York City's Commissioner of the Department of Transportation, Janette Sadik-Khan, who has taken on the challenge of transforming NYC streets in a series of groundbreaking pilot projects.