Though only five people came to hear her speak, Wade went on for more than two hours.

“They were looking for impact. Even specific things, like certain businesses that might be located on a certain street, and how would that business be impacted if the traffic were reversed, or if there were more traffic, or less traffic,” said John Robert, district manager of the local community board. “I was surprised.”

He added: “But that means maybe they’re listening. That would be nice, right?” Now that Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s experiment with pedestrian plazas on Broadway is complete, his message to Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan has been simple: “More, better, faster.” Over the next four years, DOT officials plan to “export that Broadway experience,” as one insider put it, to neighborhoods across the city.

In order to do that, DOT officials have had to overhaul the way they design and sell those plans to local stakeholders. The Department has adopted a policy of dispatching high-ranking lieutenants like Wade to community briefings across the city, seeking more extensive feedback before announcing its plans. DOT held over 2,000 such meetings last year.

And DOT officials have established a new internal decision-making mechanism designed to anticipate community backlash, according to people briefed on the process. The new protocol has longtime “livable streets” advocates in the Department asking jarring questions about DOT projects, like: Are their parking changes involved? Are there signal light timing changes involved? Is there a potential problem with deliveries?

“There’s a tough line with this kind of stuff, because there are transportation and planning experts who work for the city who are coming up with a lot of these ideas, and it’s not something you want public opinion to always decide what’s best, as far as traffic flow is concerned,” said one administration official. “Ultimately they’ve learned that, that said, you have to work with people. … You can’t just spring it on people and do it in the dark of night.”

DOT has also had to confront a new and politically tricky question: Who pays for the pedestrian plazas? DOT’s coffers are bare, and not every neighborhood has its own Times Square Alliance, or the deep-pocketed benefactors that come with it. Community boards and business improvement districts have clamored for their own Broadway-like plazas in recent months—but want control over the plans in exchange for their money. For a department that has long sought exclusive control over its plans, the shift could be unsettling.

“DOT may have to relinquish a little bit of control in exchange for some longterm assistance in maintaining these types of public spaces. Communities are reluctant to provide those resources if they don’t have a seat at the table,” said Paul Steely White, the executive director of Transportation Alternatives. “DOT has been very reluctant to open up the planning process, because I think they see that as tantamount to chaos.”

In an interview, Sadik-Khan said the Department had developed procedures for incorporating community feedback into its planning process.

“Broadway was a very focused example of what it is that we’re doing in other communities, and community issues differ. You need to tailor transportation projects to meet local needs,” she said. “We’ve come up with strategies to improve safety on our streets and work with communities to tailor projects that meet those local needs.”

Already, advocates and lawmakers say they detect a softening of DOT’s approach. In a meet-and-greet earlier this year with new Council Transportation Committee chair Jimmy Vacca, Sadik- Khan assured him that DOT’s focus would be on easing conditions for drivers, saying: “DOT acknowledges that the transit infrastructure of New York City is roads.”

But some lawmakers remain skeptical. Vacca said he is preparing to hold hearings on the results of the Times Square experiment, and would aggressively scrutinize plans for similar projects elsewhere.

“If we take this pedestrian plaza planning process to other parts of the city, you will be often diverting traffic onto residential streets. And that poses other problems,” he said. “The concept may be good, but I think that each individual location has to be looked at.”