PlaNYC

Location: With the Richard Ravitch report scheduled to come out Dec. 5 and the financial state of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, there’s been some buzz about congestion pricing being put back on the table. Do you think there’s potential for that, and do you think that would be a good thing?

Mr. Aggarwala: I can’t second-guess what the Ravitch report will include, I’m optimistic it’ll be good for the city, and, at the end of the day, any thoughtful proposal that fully funds the M.T.A.’s capital needs is good for the city.

 
But do you think that peoples’ perspectives around congestion pricing have changed since it went down in the spring?

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One of the central elements of Mayor Bloomberg's plan for a sustainable New York City is to improve mass transit and get people out of their cars and into busses and subways. In addition to better and more frequent transit service, the city also needs to ensure that the price of mass transit is kept under control. In the aftermath of the defeat of congestion pricing, we see that mass transit in this region is under greater financial stress than at any time since the fiscal crisis of the mid 1970's.

State and local tax collections are in decline, and the MTA bears the burden of the Pataki philosophy of borrowing to fund transit infrastructure.  read more »

There is a small town America that is idealized in myth and literature, but even in the internet age thrives outside our largest cities. In these places community spirit and what used to be called civic virtue (or values) is nurtured through local schools, churches, little league, scouts and a wide variety of community based organizations. The force of economic power is as present in these places as in large cities, and I do not want to leave the impression that all is light and joy in these places, but community is always present and taken for granted.

Here in New York City community must be nurtured in the face of big anonymous institutions and the speed and intensity that is always present and taken for granted.  read more »

The city is creating a new office to clean up brownfields for development, an issue outlined last year in its PlaNYC sustainability plan. Officials have said the existing incentives for landowners to clean up the sites do not provide sufficient push to remediate. With the reformed program, the city hopes, will come quicker remediation and new uses for the land.  read more »

Earlier this week, New York Times reporter Felicity Barringer filed an excellent story on San Francisco’s successful waste management strategy.

The story discussed San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom’s zeal for keeping garbage out of landfills. Currently, his city keeps 70 percent of its disposable garbage out of landfills.

You might think that would be enough, but it’s not. He is about to propose legislation to mandate recycling of cans, bottles, paper, yard waste and food scraps. If you don’t recycle, the city won’t pick up the rest of your garbage.

How much of New York City’s waste is kept out of landfills? About 30 percent. Of course, that puts us ahead of Boston at 16 percent and Houston at less than 3 percent.  read more »

Expanding parks is not supposed to be this difficult.

“This is the worst situation I’ve ever encountered in terms of [dealings with] the community,” said Carol Greitzer, a former councilwoman from the West Village who helped start a group called 250+ Friends of New York Parks. It opposes many of the Bloomberg administration’s park plans. “They come up with a plan. Maybe—maybe—if you’re lucky, you can tweak it slightly, but that’s about all you can do.”  read more »

When we walk down Broadway in Manhattan, we sometimes forget that New York is virtually surrounded by water. In fact, the five boroughs have 578 miles of shoreline. If global warming ends up melting enough sea ice at the poles to cause the sea level to rise, New York City is in a world of trouble.  read more »

A little more than a year ago, Mayor Michael Bloomberg launched his pathbreaking "PlaNYC 2030" urban sustainability plan. According to the city’s own progress report on the plan’s first year:

 

The implementation of PlaNYC's 127 initiatives requires the effort of more than 20 City agencies; the help of our Sustainability Advisory Board; partners and supporters from all across New York City; and close cooperation with the City Council and other elected officials. In the first year since the release of the plan, we completed rezonings, planted 54,484 trees, moved our taxis and black cars toward fuel efficiency, encouraged bicycling with 60 new lane miles, and engaged New York City in the most significant transportation discussion in a generation.

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Yesterday, Dan Hendrick of the New York League of Conservation Voters stopped by City Hall, just in time to chat about Earth Day!  read more »

 

As David Paterson took the oath of office as New York’s 55th governor earlier this week, you could almost taste the sense of relief in legislative chambers. Our new governor gave a remarkable, deeply personal and engaging talk and then left to face the challenges of rebuilding the broken machine of state government.

With Wall Street melting down, the economy heading south, and the war in Iraq continuing to drain the nation’s treasury and will, Governor Paterson faces a budget gap estimated at $5 billion. Upstate New York has been in a generation-long recession and now those of us in the City wonder if our own remarkably resilient post- 9/11 era will end with a crash.

New York City and New York State have been counted out before, and have demonstrated the capacity to come back. In the mid-1970’s, then-Governor Hugh Carey, the city’s labor unions and financial industry got together with then President Gerald Ford and figured out a way to dial back our near bankruptcy. Some of us remember the summer of 1977 as immortalized by sportscaster Howard Cosell’s famous phrase that “the Bronx is burning” during the Reggie Jackson-dominated World Series.  read more »

In an apparent effort to bolster political support for congestion pricing, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority released a $29.5 billion five-year capital plan for all sorts of transit improvements and updates today, counting on $4.5 billion to come from the mayor’s controversial plan.

Included in the capital plan are hundreds of new train and subway cars, updated signaling systems, money for the Second Avenue Subway, and a rebirth of a grand entrance to the redone Fulton Street Transit Center downtown (the entrance was scrapped last month in the name of cost overruns).

The message from the state agency was clear: if the Legislature does not approve congestion pricing, the MTA will have to substantially scale back its ambitions.  read more »

Congestion pricing, a signature defining initiative of Mayor Bloomberg’s second term, managed but two quick mentions in today’s 6,200-word State of the City address. With days left until a state/city commission releases a recommendation on the issue and a looming deadline of March for state legislative approval, this is all Mr. Bloomberg, speaking between mentions of greening existing buildings and a plug for the already approved No.  read more »

At a breakfast forum this morning hosted by the Alliance for Downtown New York and the Downtown Lower Manhattan Association this morning, panelists from city government and the real estate industry professed their undying love for environmentally friendly buildings, saying both landlords and tenants should jump on the sustainability train before it leaves the station.  read more »

Mayor Bloomberg announced today that Brooklyn’s Dreier-Offerman Park is getting a complete makeover. The park, which sits just next to Coney Island, is one of eight parks in the five boroughs that is being redesigned and refurbished under PlaNYC.

There are a slew of improvements that will come with the $40 million project. They include:

• Three new baseball fields

• Six new soccer fields

• Kayak launches

• New picnic areas

• A central lawn

• A bicycle path

• New nature trails

• An amphitheater,

• A new playground

• A recreation center

• A new pavilion

According to a press release, the project will be completed in 2011.

Full release after the jump.  read more »

The City Council approved proposals today for the rezoning of five New York neighborhoods as the Mayor presses forward with the sustainable planning goals of PlanNYC. The neighborhoods affected by the rezoning are Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, Dyker Heights, Fort Hamilton, and the Bronx neighborhood of Wakefield.

The goal of the rezoning is to “catalyze growth on key corridors near transit hubs, fostering nearly 900 units of new housing and strengthening local retail activity,” according to a press release.

Full release after the jump.  read more »

The Times' Empire Zone blog reports:

The Real Estate Board of New York will start running television commercials today in support of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s long-range environmental plan, which includes a proposal to charge fees to drive below 86th Street during peak hours.

Then again, REBNY's always been kind of a Bloomberg fan--despite the ongoing 421-a dust-up.  read more »