NYC Transport and Tourism Leaders Follow Bloomberg Out of Mayor Office

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is taking the city’s top travel and transportation leaders with him when he steps down from office at the end of the year.

According to a New York Times article published this weekend, former CEO of the city’s tourism agency NYC & Company George Fertitta will head Bloomberg’s post-mayoral group Bloomberg Associates.

The organization, made up of top administrative leaders, will advise local governments on how to make their cities a better place to live with more pedestrian areas and green spaces, accessible public transportation, and well-connected neighborhoods.

Fertitta had led NYC & Company since its formation in June 2006 when Mayor Bloomberg combined three existing tourism marketing companies to create the new NYC & Company. His then-goal of hosting 50 million annual visitors by 2015 was reached in 2011 when 50.2 million tourists visited in one year.

Transportation commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan will also join the new group. Appointed by the mayor in 2007, Sadik-Khan has been instrumental in the introduction of Citibike, the closing of parts of Broadway, safer streets, and overall infrastructure improvements.

We highlighted ten ways that the Bloomberg administration changed transportation and the landscape of New York City this summer. Changes under Bloomberg and friends include the introduction of rapid bus transit, 400 miles of bikes lanes, a bikeshare program, wayfinding maps, and the Highline park.

These are initiatives that Bloomberg’s new group will likely be using as examples when advising other cities in the coming years.