CTZN magazine launch by Jeanette Sadik-Khan
At the Good Market, visionary urban planner Janette Sadik-Khan officially launched CTZN magazine with a powerful call to action: “Keep riding, keep fighting!” This inaugural issue of CTZN focuses on promoting cycling-friendly cities and is part of the CYCLE UP! project.
Janette Sadik-Khan, celebrated for her transformative work as New York City’s Transportation Commissioner, made significant strides in her six-year tenure by converting car-heavy streets into bike lanes and reclaiming spaces for pedestrians.
“You can’t make a city better by simply changing the type of car people drive,” she emphasised to an enthusiastic audience in a discussion with Mayor Vallo. “The real transformation over the last decade has been about creating people-centred streets.”
In an interview soon to be published on ctzn.sk, Sadik-Khan recalls the scepticism her efforts faced: “People said we were crazy. They said New Yorkers wouldn’t bike—the traffic was too dangerous, the summers too hot, the winters too cold. ‘We’re not Copenhagen!’ they’d say. But today, over 600,000 people ride bikes in New York daily—more than the population of all of Copenhagen.”
Her advice for cities aspiring to follow New York’s lead? “Just do it!”