In the spirit of our own local Machiavelli, it might not hurt to "prepare the ground," politically speaking, for the coming neckdowns/bulb-outs. In my experience, people can get very upset if they think that DOT is moving without their consent. In the next few months it would probably be a good idea to get some of the community boards and local civic/business/block associations, political clubs and co-op boards to pass resolutions in support of the sidewalk extensions. Even if they supported the Traffic Calming project back in the 90s, there may have been some turnover, and many people may not be expecting them.

Finally, since the ball will be going into the DDC's court, they'd probably like to know that there's grassroots support for the project. They might even have some kind of cash fund that they can borrow against so that they could make the improvements before July. They might also be able to move them up on their schedule. After all, it's a matter of life and death.

Once work starts, a photo-op where politicians get to have their pictures taken protecting the lives of small children would probably be appreciated and help to ensure support.

The thing that's missing here, and from every agency involved, is leadership at the top. If the mayor was a real civic leader he would be holding a press conference announcing that he's fast-tracking all improvements for third avenue today and that they'll be done in six months. That's leadership. The mayor is a good organizer of information and he's a good person. But is he a good leader? Not so much.

What do we get instead? We get people like Moses, and Doctoroff who just wind up as unaccountable czar's of government and are rewarded as great makers of cities. We should have a civic leadership that respects the city and it's citizens enough to both accomplish important goals and be accountable for their failures. Instead we have unaccountable traffic engineers and feckless politicians, neither of whom really care enough about the quality of life in this city.