and take the tiniest of steps. Gabe’s ready to just go out and do it after he gets some solid engineering and design input.

After then-D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty tapped him to be transportation director, Klein quickly helped launch Capital Bikeshare, expanded the city’s Circulator bus system, and laid the groundwork for a streetcar. Fenty lost re-election, and when Emanuel won in Chicago, Klein helped his team with transition plans, including the mayor’s transportation policy.

He was already known to Emanuel through the city’s work installing bike share stations at the White House and closing off nearby streets for a farmer’s market. Meanwhile, Klein already knew Emanuel's brother Ezekiel, and in transportation circles he worked closely with another Illinois political player – then-U.S.Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood – who wassaw that it might be time for him to depart the city of Chicago." (Klein, for his part, says he wasn’t forced out and is moving back to Washington, D.C to be close to friends and family. His wife stayed there while he worked in Chicago, and his sister and most of his close friends are also in the Washington area as well.)

Sadik-Khan has had her critics in New York. The New York Post calls her the “psycho bike lady;” Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz calls her a “zealot,” and mayoral front-runner Bill De Blasio called her a “radical.” The bike lanes she's built have been subject of lawsuits. The New York Times chronicled a controversial technique used by the administration -- and in particular the transportation department