Aaron Naparstek

Ryan Russo is the New York City Department of Transportation's Director for Street Management and Safety, a newly-created job that he started in July. Previously, Russo worked as DOT's Downtown Brooklyn Transportation Coordinator where he was instrumental in designing and developing a number of improvements for pedestrians, cyclists and more livable streets (PDF file) over the last three years. Streetsblog caught up with Russo on Tuesday, a few hours after the City's big bike safety announcement:

This week's New Yorker has a lengthy profile of Bill Clinton by David Remnick. The article is not available online but this Q&A with Remnick is. Check out what Clinton was reading around the time of the World Cup this summer:

Richard Heinberg, whose latest book "The Oil Depletion Protocol" aims to help citizens and municipalities deal with the increasing likelihood of global energy supply disruptions, publishes an excellent monthly newsletter called "Muse Letter." The latest issue focuses mainly on the recent Israeli-Hezbollah conflict -- not exactly within Streetsblog's purview -- but it also contains a potentially critical piece of news about global oil supply.

As reported in today's Observer a team working under Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff has, for the last year or so, been secretly developing a sweeping, new urban planning vision for New York City. In its scope and ambition, the Observer compares the plan to the 1811 layout of Manhattan's street grid system and the 1929 Regional Plan that gave us many of today's highways and parks.

While transportation issues are clearly not very high up on Mayor Bloomberg's agenda, at least one New York elected official is acknowledging that the city has major traffic problems in need of big solutions. At last week's Staten Island Chamber of Commerce breakfast, Clinton focused almost exclusively on transportation issues, according to the Advance:

The Daily News reports that Mayor Bloomberg made his first public statements about U.S. oil dependency on his radio show last week:

Reuters reports, Bicycle and oil deals cement Chavez's ties to Iran:

Above: A message from Allstate, the company that recently stopped renewing New York City home insurance policies due to the increasing risk of global warming-induced hurricanes. Spotted on Broadway near 9th Street.