Friday, October 03, 2008

Philadelphia Hires New Pedestrian and Bicycle Coordinator

Mayor Nutter’s Office of Transportation and Utilities has hired Charles Carmalt for the position of Pedestrian and Bicycle Coordinator. Thank you Mayor Nutter for fulfilling this campaign promise and filling this position!

Carmalt joined the Office with 35 years of transportation planning experience. His career included both private and public sector work. For the last nine years, he ran his own consulting firm where his projects placed special emphasis on the needs of pedestrians and bicyclists. As a volunteer he has been an active member of the NJ Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Council and as the Lawrence Township representative for the Mercer County Bicycle and Pedestrian Task Force.

His role at the City will be to coordinate all activities that impact the quality of the urban environment for pedestrians and bicyclists. His responsibilities will range from assisting on the Planning Commission’s forthcoming Pedestrian and Bicycle Plan to helping build relationships with outside agencies like the Philadelphia Parking Authority in order to expand and improve our bicycle parking options.

The Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia heartily welcomes Charles to this new position and we look forward to working with Charles to make Philadelphia a more bicycle-friendly city.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is an exciting step forward! Will this position also monitor and participate in the passage of bike friendly legislation on a local and state level? I recently returned from Moab, Utah where I did some biking and was interested to hear that Utah has a law mandating that when cars approach a biker from behind they must remain behind the biker until it is safe to pass and then they must leave a minimum of 3' of space between any part of the car and the bicycle. The compliance by motorists was obvious. Having heard on the BCP listserv of many incidents of local bikers being hit by car/bus mirrors or the vehicles themselves, it sounded like a worthwhile initiative to pursue for PA, assuming it does not already exist. If there is already legislation addressing this, some education and advocacy is in order.

Andrew J. Besold said...

Hmmm...

I wonder if they have plans and money to hire an assistant for the Bike/Ped Coordinator.

I'd make a great underling!

Mike Dee said...

So the city hires non-residents now?

That's great :/

John Boyle said...

The City has a 6 month grace period to move into the city.

There aren't too many city residents who have the qualifications to be a bicycle pedestrian coordinator, at least by our standards.

Mike Dee said...

""There aren't too many city residents who have the qualifications to be a bicycle pedestrian coordinator, at least by our standards.""


And you know this how?

Was this position ever advertised? i was looking for it, because i have the qualifications.

John Boyle said...

We blogged about the posting on the city's website in April.

http://bcgp.blogspot.com/2008/04/philadelphia-posts-pedestrian-and.html#links

Anonymous said...

You guys should do an op-ed defending this hire...it's taking some heat from Councilman Green.