Take Back the Streets

摘要

On a sun-speckled afternoon in late august New York City Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan is in Times Square, expounding on the delights of a 2.5-acre pedestrian plaza she created three months ago. It displaces the 53,000 cars that crawled through the area daily with a strangely calm oasis where 356,000 people traipse beneath flashing billboards and jumbotrons.rn"Have you sat down in these chairs before?" she asks, smiling,rnthe jacket of her black pantsuit revealing an inch of tan, toned midriff. "You can really see the skyline and the streetscape," she continues. "This precolonial footpath has cut through the heart of New York's grid and created congestion for over 200 years."