David Bragdon. Photo: Randy Rasmussen/The Oregonian.

City sustainability chief David Bragdon offered some more hints about what to expect from April’s update of PlaNYC this morning. Speaking at a livability conference hosted by NYU’s Rudin Center, Bragdon said that the update would eschew large capital projects and feature a larger role for neighborhoods and individuals. In terms of transportation, Bragdon seemed to suggest that a call for a new Hudson River crossing of some kind would be a part of PlaNYC 2.0.

Much of what Bragdon had to say about the PlaNYC update has already been revealed: That the plan will take on solid waste management, for example, or that the administration wants to allow street hails for livery vehicles.

But he did suggest one idea sure to inspire fierce controversy. “We will be proposing to charge people ten dollars,” said Bragdon, pausing for effect, “if they want to have a hard copy of PlaNYC.”

When Bragdon turned more seriously to transportation policy, he offered an intriguing discussion about New York’s connections to the west. Bragdon pointed out that the number of rail crossings underneath the Hudson River, two, hasn’t changed in a century, though in that time the population of New Jersey has tripled while that of New York City has doubled. “We’re still making do with what we have here,” he said, but “doing nothing has a high cost.”

With that kind of talk, it seems that some sort of post-ARC proposal to add rail capacity underneath the Hudson will be in PlaNYC 2.0. Perhaps the return of the Secaucus 7?

In large part, Bragdon focused on the update’s new approach rather than new policies. With the city grappling with the recession’s fiscal fallout, he said, there won’t be any major new capital commitments in the update. Outlays like the $134 million for public plazas, he said, will be maintained but not likely to be repeated. How that commitment could be squared with the goal of new capacity across the Hudson isn’t clear.

Perhaps because of those fiscal constraints, Bragdon said that the update wouldn’t exclusively be made up of city programs, but would seek to enlist both local community groups and individuals. “A greater and greener New York is made up of greater and greener neighborhoods,” he said. That shift is already underway in the Department of Environmental Protection’s announcement yesterday of a competitive grant program that would fund local businesses and non-profits trying to build their own green infrastructure projects.

Finally, Bragdon said that the new PlaNYC would expand the sustainability focus from being about “pure utility for human beings” to include “nature for the sake of nature.” In addition to asking how to fit one million new people in New York City, he said, it would also ask “how many alewife herrings do we want coming back to the Bronx River?”

During his remarks, Bragdon also warned New Yorkers not to over-learn from Portland. The city is far newer, smaller, and more homogeneous than New York. In fact, at 580,000 people, Portland is only as populated as Manhattan was in 1850.

Bragdon did think it important, however, that Portland and New York City were two of the first cities to trade in federal highway dollars for transit. In Portland, they used the money slated for the Mt. Hood freeway, which would have destroyed one percent of the city, to build the first pieces of the city’s light rail system.

New York City, argued Bragdon, saved its transit system by cashing in Westway. Every time you travel on a clean and reliable subway, said Bragdon, “You need to be able to connect the dots on that experience we have every day to the $1.5B dollars, in 1985 dollars, to Mayor Koch and Governor Cuomo coming around and cancelling Westway.”

The green jobs working group presents its recommendations for a PlaNYC update. Photo: Noah Kazis

The Bronx wants to see the next version PlaNYC go further and be more equitable than the original. At last night’s public outreach event for the upcoming revision of the city’s sustainability agenda, dubbed a “Community Conversation,” Bronx residents demanded that PlaNYC 2.0 be far bolder in its efforts to green the city — and especially their environmentally disadvantaged borough. Whether by tearing down the Sheridan Expressway, tackling truck traffic, or eliminating parking minimums, they want the city to step up its sustainable transportation efforts in particular.

The evening began with a staffer from the Mayor’s Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability explaining the benefits that Bronx residents had already reaped from PlaNYC, like 102,000 new trees planted in the borough, the city’s first Select Bus Service route, or shifts away from the dirty heating oils that have contributed to asthma rates among Bronx residents far above those of the other boroughs.

That same presentation also tipped off the audience to a few issues that are likely to make it into the updated PlaNYC: the city’s solid waste disposal and food distribution systems. Both rely heavily on truck traffic and impose a particular burden on Bronx neighborhoods.

But the participants in last night’s forum wanted more. The climate change working group, for example, said a 30 percent reduction in greenhouse gases wasn’t good enough. They called for a 50 percent drop by 2030.

The open space group praised new parks like Concrete Plant Park, built on a remediated brownfield. But those parks aren’t worth much, they argued, if the city doesn’t make it easy to reach them. “You want people to walk to a park, but you don’t want them walking under a highway,” said a member of the group presenting its findings.

Concrete Plant Park is separated from all residential neighborhoods by the Sheridan Expressway, which many last night called to tear down. “Decommissioning the Sheridan, it would allow access to the parks that have been developed,” said an environmental justice organizer with Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice.

And in the transportation group, the participants weren’t taking any excuses from the city. After high school student Govin Baichu named the MTA’s service cuts as a top priority for him, the mayor’s office employee pleaded that the city doesn’t control the MTA.

Devona Sharpe, an organizer with the Bronx River Alliance, wasn’t ready to accept that answer, however. “They still make it very easy to drive,” she noted, arguing that the city can prioritize sustainable transportation modes if it wants to. She pointed to low on-street parking costs, the city’s support for large parking garages, and city streets that are designed primarily for private vehicles as three ways the city unduly prioritizes cars.

The transportation group also pushed hard for the PlaNYC update to include a strategy for greening freight transport, not just passenger travel, and for ensuring that environmental burdens are shared more equally across the city. “We get a lot of the trucks transporting things for all the other parts of the city,” said Juan Carlos Ruiz, deputy director of Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice. “There is this mentality that we are the dumpster of the city, and that needs to be addressed.”

Because the goals of PlaNYC are interconnected, transportation issues came up in other groups’ presentations as well. The open space group called for more waterfront greenways, for example. The air quality group advocated not only for cleaner vehicles, whether powered by natural gas or electricity, but also for reducing the speed limit in the city to 20 miles per hour.

There is one more Community Conversation scheduled, for next week, in Queens. After that, community boards will have a chance to comment on the PlaNYC update this winter.

Since the sustainability plan debuted on Earth Day 2007, major transportation initiatives like the launch of Select Bus Service, the expansion of the bike network, and the creation of pedestrians plazas have been pursued under the PlaNYC rubric. The 2011 reboot could reinforce those initiatives and add new ones, like carrying out off-street parking reform or implementing a world-class bike-share system.

The new site, launched by the Mayor’s Office of Long-term Planning and Sustainability and powered by the “All Our Ideas” voting software, works by pitting two different ideas against each other — say, “Increase access to EBT at farmers markets” and “Make delayed green lights for motorists so pedestrians can cross safely.” Click on one or the other, and your vote is logged. If you like both, or neither, there’s also an “I can’t decide” button. You’ll then get two new options. Continue until you get tired; there’s no limit to the number of votes you can cast.

Among transportation-related initiatives, four were tied for first place as of this afternoon. Those were: implementing congestion pricing (got that, state legislators?), building more safe bike lanes, shipping farm goods on commuter rail tracks during off-peak hours, and the vague-but-admirable “Invest in multiple modes of transportation and provide both improved infrastructure and improved safety.”

Overall, the most popular idea is currently to enforce recycling rules in large buildings.

The transportation suggestion with the fewest votes was countdown clocks on crosswalks. That idea, which is already being rolled out at 1,500 locations, had a score only half as high as the earth-friendly but constitutionally dubious “Mandatory Meat-free Monday.”

Important suggestions that could be incorporated into public policies, like “reduce the amount of parking built into new developments,” “develop more bus-only lanes for new Select Bus Service lines,” and “provide better transit service outside Manhattan” ranked somewhere in between.

If you want to make your voice heard in more traditional ways, the Office of Long Term Planning and Sustainability is accepting ideas for the update through an online form available here. Or show up in person to one of the community conversations, which will be held in Lower Manhattan, the Bronx, and West Queens over the next three weeks.

David Bragdon, the new head of New York City's Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability, announcing a set of regional trails in the Portland area. Photo: BikePortland/Flickr

In appointing David Bragdon, the president of the Portland-area Metro Council, to run the Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability, Mayor Bloomberg turned to an established elected figure with a track record of progressive planning. What will he bring to New York City?

Streetsblog spoke to livable streets advocates on both coasts to find out.

"We're going to be sorry to have him gone," said Rob Sadowsky, the executive director of Portland's Bicycle Transportation Alliance. "He's got a real strong, rooted sense in policy, particularly around transportation, sustainability, and environmental stewardship."

Jill Fuglister, co-director of the Coalition for a Livable Future, agreed. "David's vision and values have been very focused on sustainable transportation," she said.

Fuglister said that Bragdon made transportation one of his two top issues, along with the creation of an interconnected regional park system called the Intertwine, after his 2002 election to the top post in the Metro Council, Portland's regional government and planning organization.

Sadowsky highlighted cycling-friendly achievements under Bragdon's watch, like the creation of a Metro Active Transportation Council, which brings together stakeholders from across the region to support walking and biking. Bragdon also facilitated the expansion of transit in Portland, said Sadowsky, helping the region streamline its efforts to access federal transit funding. As Streetsblog has reported, Metro has also played an integral role in promoting transit-oriented development in the region.

Under the radar, Bragdon has also begun to reshape the way the Portland region writes transportation plans, said Fuglister. His administration at Metro is "at the forefront nationally of trying to reform the way that regions and metropolitan planning organizations function," by trying to move toward an "outcome-based, performance-based plan," she said. If the Portland region sets a goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, for example, proposed projects should be evaluated in terms of their greenhouse gas emissions. "We're far from it still," she said, but called Bragdon "a part of the changemaking." 

Both Fuglister and Sadowsky warned that Bragdon's political instincts may lean too far toward avoiding conflict, though. "Under his leadership," Fuglister said, "Metro has moved away from looking at how you might use regulatory strategies towards a more consensus-based, voluntary approach." While Metro could require local jurisdictions to comply with the regional plan, she explained, Bragdon hasn't used those powers as much as previous administrations. 

Similarly, Sadowsky saw a desire to reach consensus as being at the root of Bragdon's position on the controversial replacement of a bridge across the Columbia River, which would widen the road from six lanes to ten. "There are some parts of the proposal that we'd rather not see," said Sadowsky, which gained traction "because he's bringing freight to the table and business leaders to the table." Of course, he added, that approach could serve Bragdon well in a job that requires coordinating a slew of independent city commissioners. 

Sadowsky expects that advocates will need to hold Bragdon's feet to the fire. "Individuals are only as good as the community that can inspire them and keep them accountable."

New York City transportation advocates praised the appointment, reading it as a sign of renewed support for the goals of PlaNYC within the Bloomberg administration. The city's sustainability agenda is due for a mandated update next Earth Day. "Mayor Bloomberg's appointment of David Bragdon to lead the Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability bodes very well for the continued growth of a greener, healthier New York City," said Transportation Alternatives executive director Paul Steely White. His experience as an elected official, continued White, will serve him well as he takes on the tasks of making New York more walkable and bikeable, improving transit service, and reforming New York's parking policy.

"David Bragdon has impressive credentials," said Tri-State Transportation Campaign Associate Director Veronica Vanterpool, "and his appointment to head the city’s Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability is an encouraging sign. By conducting a nationwide search for the best candidate, Mayor Bloomberg sent a strong signal that PlaNYC will remain a priority in his third term." Vanterpool highlighted transit funding and traffic congestion as among the biggest challenges Bragdon will need to tackle during his tenure. With the state legislature's failure to enact congestion pricing, those issues stand largely unaddressed.

Joan Byron, who runs the Sustainability and Environmental Justice Initiative at the Pratt Center for Community Development, saw promise in two pieces of Bragdon's resume. "He has a background in freight," said Byron, referring to his five years working at the Port of Portland, "which is an area that a lot of us are hoping that the next PlaNYC will pay attention to." The Cross-Harbor Rail Tunnel, which would connect Jersey City and Brooklyn, "would be the biggest thing we could do to make a dent in truck traffic," she said.

What's more, running Metro meant Bragdon was in charge of the Portland region's urban growth boundary, which strictly regulates where growth can occur. "There's a lot that is really laudable in PlaNYC," explained Byron, "but it's not really a plan. It's really a checklist. It doesn't make hard choices." Portland's plan, in contrast, actually forbids development in some places. Bringing in that perspective -- knowing how to craft a plan with teeth -- could help push an updated PlaNYC toward a more comprehensive and enforceable form, she argued.

David Bragdon, the new head of the mayor's sustainability office. Photo: Metro

Bragdon has led Metro, the only directly elected regional planning organization in the country, since 2002. As president, he's managed a broad portfolio with many parallels to PlaNYC: regional planning, including the administration of Portland's urban growth boundary; recycling; the preservation of natural areas and water quality; and parks. According to Jonathan Maus at Bike Portland, Bragdon paid special attention to parks and trails and strongly supporting walking and cycling.

Bragdon's appointment comes at a critical moment for the sustainability office. PlaNYC is due for a mandated update next year. Whether by ratifying or expanding on previous commitments or by including missing pieces, such as off-street parking reform, the update provides an opportunity to set New York City's sustainability goals even higher than before. 

We'll have more on this appointment in a later post. 

An illustration of how Boston will make its transportation system greener. Image: City of Boston

"Folks, you ain't seen nothing yet," Mayor Bloomberg told an Earth Day crowd yesterday. "The best and greenest days are yet to come." The PlaNYC update coming in 2011, he implied, would have a slew of new initiatives to make our city more sustainable, and he's taking suggestions. 

He could get some good ones from Boston Mayor Thomas Menino. Released on Earth Day, "Sparking Boston's Climate Revolution" [PDF], is that city's answer to the greenhouse gas reduction targets in PlaNYC. Many of the ideas -- green buildings, new bike infrastructure -- will look familiar to New Yorkers. But on one crucial green measure, Boston could be poised to leap ahead of New York: using parking policy to reduce driving. 

Boston's plan calls for charging more for on-street parking. In commercial areas, meters would charge higher rates and stay in effect longer. In residential neighborhoods, Boston intends to start charging for residential parking permits for the first time. Over just the last two years, the city distributed 100,000 permits for free. The Boston plan also calls for charging much higher rates for every additional permit given to each household. So owning a second car will come at a higher price.

The higher meter rates and permit fees would not just disincentivize driving, but also raise revenue that Boston intends to use to fund pedestrian and bike improvements.

For years, Boston has had a freeze on building off-street parking in three neighborhoods, similar to Manhattan's Clean Air Act-driven zone below 60th Street. As in Manhattan, however, developers can obtain permits to skirt the restrictions. The Earth Day report calls for cracking down on those permits and looking into the possibility of expanding the parking freeze in new neighborhoods.  

In contrast, PlaNYC contains almost nothing about parking policy: just a promise to increase the use of muni-meters and reduce the impact of surface lots on water quality. While DOT's pilot ParkSmart program has experimented with pricing on-street parking more efficiently in a handful of neighborhoods, the planning department and NYCEDC promote driving through zoning rules and RFPs that demand large amounts of off-street parking. Rather than try to expand the zones where parking restrictions are strongest, New York has fought in court to evade its existing regulations. (To be fair, Bloomberg would need Albany to pass legislation in order to enact a residential parking permit program like they have in Boston.)

In the race to have the "greenest, greatest" city, Menino is making Boston a contender.

Ed Skyler. Photo: HuffPo.

So, what should livable streets advocates look for in his replacement?

Skyler's successor will be in a unique position to coordinate between different city departments, said Transportation Alternatives director Paul Steely White. "Since improving street safety is such an interagency task, the deputy mayor for operations is the only one who can really bring different agencies to the same table," he said. "We'd like to see someone who has a good understanding of NYPD and has their respect. We can be hopeful that we'll get someone who saves lives by engendering interagency cooperation on traffic safety."

Skyler will be moving on at the end of April. Liz Benjamin reports that "the safe money is on someone within the administration moving up, or a sort of power-sharing agreement with the deputy mayors who remain."

New York City is not looking to create infrastructure for charging cars on city streets. Image: theqsqueaks via Flickr.

"Electric vehicles are here. They're coming, and they won't stop." Last night, DOT Deputy Commissioner Bruce Schaller opened a panel discussion on electric car adoption in New York City with an implicit message: We should be prepared.

At a meeting that brought together representatives from the mayor's office, two electric utilities, and General Motors, there were two big takeaways for livable streets: The city is working to keep electric vehicle adoption compatible with the goal of reducing personal vehicle use, and on-street space isn't going to be given over to charging stations.

A variety of plug-in hybrids and all-electric cars are expected to hit the market in the next two years, presenting both challenges and opportunities for sustainability-minded cities. Schaller began the evening by noting that, nationally, widespread adoption of plug-in hybrids could take the greenhouse gas equivalent of 82.5 million cars off the road. With numbers like that, New York can't help but take notice.

"In 2007, electric vehicles were just a glimmer in our eye," said Neal Parikh, who leads transportation initiatives at the Mayor's Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability. "Now we think it's a real opportunity." He believes that if New York is to meet its PlaNYC goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from transportation 44 percent by 2030, electric cars have to be part of the solution. Parikh was the lead author of the city's recent report on electric vehicle adoption.

While moving toward EVs will require action from the city and other players, including car companies and utilities, Parikh forcefully rejected any measure that would take away from PlaNYC's other transportation goals. While Britta Gross, a GM manager in charge of electric and hydrogen vehicle development, repeatedly claimed that allowing EVs into carpool lanes and offering them free or dedicated parking have proven effective at speeding EV adoption, Parikh said not to expect those offers in New York City. One of his slides put parking incentives directly under the heading "Won't Work."

Parikh's reasoning was simple. He neither wants to give superfluous perks to those who will buy EVs anyway, nor offer incentives that will put more cars on city streets. The city will help educate drivers about EV opportunities and expedite the permitting process for installing a high-voltage charging station, for example, but not offer financial incentives to buy EVs.

"We need to balance moving people into more efficient vehicles, and into walking, transit, or bikes," said Parikh. He also reaffirmed that PlaNYC was "very clear that we wanted to reduce the single-occupancy vehicles on the street." Parikh even cited Copenhagen's outsized EV incentives as a model for what not to do, echoing a theme Charles Komanoff recently explored on Streetsblog.

The panel also answered a common question about electric cars. Where would New Yorkers charge them? The answer: at home or at work, not on city streets. "We're not going to adopt an extensive public charging infrastructure," said Parikh. If someone really wants to drive an EV, he added, and "they're parking on the streets, where they won't have access to charging, they'll change where they park."

An electric car in London. Image: exfordy via Flickr.

As a sustainability initiative, the merit of the proposal depends on whether trips in these new electric cars will replace trips powered by internal combustion or trips by foot, bicycle, and transit. According to the report, electric vehicles charged on New York's grid would emit as little as a quarter as much carbon per mile as conventional automobiles. "Electric cars are cleaner than conventional vehicles," said Natural Resources Defense Council vehicles analyst Luke Tonachel, "but walking, biking, and transit are all cleaner still." 

Switching to electric cars also does little or nothing to improve street safety, decrease congestion, or promote good urban design -- impacts that also benefit more sustainable modes of transport. Which seems to have been overlooked elsewhere, even in countries with enlightened transportation policies. As Charles Komanoff wrote on Streetsblog in November, Denmark's roughly $40,000 tax on conventional automobiles doesn't apply to electric vehicles, and EVs get free parking in downtown Copenhagen -- big perks that will lead more people to drive and fewer to bike or use transit. So is New York City planning to subsidize electric cars the same way they're doing in Denmark?

Thankfully, the PlaNYC report doesn't recommend using financial incentives to push people toward electric vehicles. "The absence of endorsements for such subsidies is a strong signal that the Bloomberg administration does not intend to follow Denmark’s mistake of subsidizing EVs in ways that would encourage more driving," said Komanoff. "This is very good news."

Instead, the report offers policies that mainly remove barriers for people already willing to pay a premium to own an electric car. The recommendations are pretty mild, like educating potential buyers about electric vehicles and then assisting them in finding or installing charging equipment. (The report also includes some fascinating insights into the psychology of early EV adopters. Because "not only do early adopters want to be the first on their block to own the latest vehicle technology, they would like everyone else on their block to be aware of this fact as well," it suggests recognizing early adopters, perhaps by planting trees in front of their homes.)

The big policy choices will come when or if the city decides to promote electric vehicle usage beyond the small set of early adopters. If electric vehicle production scales up in the next few years, the report suggests that the city should expand its focus to a new set of consumers. The city's response targeted at those consumers is the one to watch out for.

"Streets to Live By" marshals data from several cities to make the case for investing in livable streets in New York.

Today Transportation Alternatives released "Streets to Live By" [PDF], the report previewed last week in the Observer. It seeks to define what makes a street livable and to synthesize a broad range of data, culled from numerous cities, on the effects of policies that put pedestrians first.

This doc is a big one, and we're still sifting through it. An early impression: The evidence gathered here related to economic development, health, and social wellbeing suggests that a number of city agencies should be shepherded into the livable streets fold. From the report's recommendations:

Improvements that support livable streets, whether through new construction, street rebuilding or zoning amendments, should be the standard. Coordination and creative problem solving between these agencies, including the Department of City Planning (DCP), Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Department of Design and Construction (DDC), Economic Development Corporation (EDC), Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), and Department of Sanitation (DOS) would be best led by the DOT and the Mayor’s Office of Planning and Sustainability.

The report also names the Department of Health and the Department of Small Business Services as agencies that can forge stronger ties to a livable streets agenda, and calls for a livable streets training program aimed at the city's community boards. "We recognize that the jurisdiction of each agency only goes so far," says T.A.'s Shin-pei Tsay, "and we hope there can be greater collaboration between them."

It rained yesterday, sending stormwater streaming down New York City streets and through sewer grates. The runoff mixed with wastewater in the system and overloaded treatment facilities, causing raw sewage to spill into the city's waterways.

Sound like an ecological disaster? It can be triggered by as little as one tenth of an inch of rainfall in one hour. Called Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO), this toxic broth also contains chemicals leached from roofs and pavement. 27 billion gallons of CSO pour into city rivers and bays every year. Until recently, there was no concerted effort to prevent it.

One of the more unsung PlaNYC initiatives aims to drastically reduce CSO, in part by managing streets more wisely. Certain traffic calming measures, it turns out, can not only make streets more ped-friendly, but also help make the city's rivers clean enough to swim in. To accomplish this, PlaNYC calls for retooling the Parks Department's Greenstreets program, and we are starting to see the results.

At their best, Greenstreets -- the pint-sized green spaces that Parks began planting in 1996 -- have served as modest traffic-calming measures, displacing asphalt with patches of greenery that send cues to slow down. The new breed goes a few steps further: They combine advanced stormwater capture techniques with more overt traffic-calming devices, like neckdowns and bulb-outs.

You can find one of the first new Greenstreets at 110th and Amsterdam in Morningside Heights. It occupies a long, wedge-shaped sidewalk extension along the southwest side of Amsterdam, widening from mid-block to occupy two traffic lanes at the intersection. This feature is called a "blockbuster," and it prevents southbound traffic from driving the wrong way down Amsterdam, which runs one-way below 110th.

Stormwater is captured by a drainage pipe on the north side of the blockbuster (right), where it is channeled under the sidewalk and into the soil of the planting bed. Any excess is stored in a chamber beneath the soil, where the plants can soak it up in times of drought.

"That's less water that our sewer system has to deal with," says Bram Gunther, the head of Forestry and Horticulture at Parks, who has been instrumental in implementing the new Greenstreets. He points out that by storing the water for later use, this Greenstreet won't require Parks to send a water truck out on the street to keep it maintained. "Anytime you get to recycle water, that's a good thing."

Gunther's team began work on stormwater-capturing Greenstreets about two years ago. When PlaNYC was announced in 2007, he says, "it dovetailed perfectly, and the scope of [the project] increased by an order of magnitude."

Because stormwater capture requires construction that goes deeper than previous Greenstreets -- and because the new Greenstreets entail more sidewalk extensions -- a host of city agencies have to cooperate, including Parks, DOT, Environmental Protection, and Design and Construction. The PlaNYC mandate minimized red tape and allowed construction to ramp up.

The site at 110th and Amsterdam before the Greenstreet was built.

"It's kind of exceptional," says Dr. Paul Mankiewicz of the Gaia Institute, an expert on stormwater capture who has consulted for the city. "You've got real cooperation between the agencies."

This spring Mankiewicz will lead an evaluation of the first batch of "greener" Greenstreets, measuring just how well they capture runoff. There are now between 10 and 20 of them to look at, with 30 to 50 more in development.

Mankiewicz says Greenstreets will play a big part in the city's overall stormwater capture strategy, which also includes building green roofs, laying down permeable pavement, and planting a million trees. By his estimates, Greenstreets could eventually handle "somewhere greater than 10 percent of all excess stormwater, maybe much more."

In addition to Greenstreets, new surfaces can absorb stormwater and mitigate the urban heat island effect, which reduces condensation and runoff (image from Chicago DOT's Green Alley Handbook).

The program has been lauded by environmental advocates. Carter Craft, director of programs and policy at the Waterfront Alliance, thinks the early returns are promising.

"Tying stormwater capture with traffic-calming makes absolute sense," he said, "because you won't get another chance [to tear up the street] for five to ten years."

Craft has been helping the Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability determine sites that can be used to intercept runoff. While pleased with the progress on stormwater capture to date, he's reserving final judgment. "It's a success story if all the public agencies can maintain their focus and keep it going. Many of us are optimistic, but it's too early in the implementation phase to judge."

As we were reminded this morning, not every neighborhood welcomes a new Greenstreet. But the City Council took a big step toward advancing the concept two weeks ago, when it passed a resolution to create a citywide stormwater management plan based on the outline in PlaNYC. Mayor Bloomberg is expected to sign the bill into law.

New York still has a lot of ground to cover to catch cities like Seattle, which captures 90 percent of its excess stormwater. Although we get hit by bigger storms, explains Mankiewicz, we also enjoy a geological advantage. "There are huge amounts of sand and gravel under the soil," he said, perfect for absorbing stormwater. "We need to make a connection between the surface and the deeper soil beneath."

Following in the footsteps of Bruce Schaller and Jon Orcutt, Project for Public Spaces vice president and transportation program director Andy Wiley-Schwartz is heading over to 40 Worth Street where he will be reporting to Deputy Commissioner Schaller at DOT's new Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability. There they will be working to implement the transportation and public space objectives set out in Mayor Bloomberg's PlaNYC.

Wiley-Schwartz starts at DOT on Monday. While there has been no official announcement of his hiring or his title, word has it Wiley-Schwartz will be working on new public space initiatives, which seems like a natural fit, given his experience at PPS. With DOT's recent focus on reclaiming under-utilized bits and pieces of street space as public plazas and with tremendous grassroots energy in places like Hell's Kitchen, SoHo, Gansevoort, Grand Army Plaza, Williamsburg and even the occasional, random on-street parking spot -- it seems like "public space initiatives" could be a pretty exciting job description at DOT right now.

Wiley-Schwartz has been a contributor here at Streetsblog. At PPS he specialized in working with Departments of Transportation and community groups all across the U.S. on downtown street enhancement, traffic calming and bicycle and pedestrian projects. He is a national lead in the Context Sensitive Solutions movement, an articulate advocate and just a really pleasant guy to work with. Here is an excerpt from his PPS bio:

He specializes in helping communities rebuild their neighborhoods and cities by leveraging transportation funding into the development of public spaces, including streets and other transportation facilities, in part by focusing on strategic partnerships and programming.

Andy's current projects include PPS's New Jersey Smart Choices program: an outreach, education and training program to help municipalities plan and make sustainable land use decisions in partnership with the New Jersey Department of Transportation. He is also working with the Times Square Alliance in New York City, the City of Elmira, NY to revitalize the area under and around a railroad viaduct downtown, and advising the City of Indianapolis on their plan to build a "Cultural Trail" through their central business district.

And, no, this is not an April Fool's prank. It's June, people.

Some light reading from the Christian Science Monitor before tomorrow's rumored Office of Long-Term Planning & Sustainability conference:

The city's Department of Environmental Protection, which manages the city's freshwater supply and wastewater -- 13,000 miles of pipe, total -- formed a task force to look at the long-term effects of climate change. Among other things, the DEP was concerned by the damage storm surges might inflict on a city surrounded by water. Although city officials declined to discuss concrete solutions for this article saying they were still in the "assessment" phase, scientists foresee potential fixes ranging from raising key infrastructure and building dikes, to flood gates and temporary seals over tunnel entrances. One group proposes raisable flood barriers large enough to protect all of Manhattan Island.

And the winner of a recent competition for engineers and architects to envision New York City in 2106, ARO, doesn't attempt to keep the water out. Rather, they envision building in, on and around it.

There are high hopes that tomorrow's public unveiling, whatever it may show, begins to lay the groundwork for a serious traffic reduction program in New York City, perhaps in the form of London-style congestion charging. With this year's elections out of the way there is no longer any worry that the inevitably difficult public discussion of congestion charging might force a gubernatorial candidate into a corner. Governor Elect Spitzer's vow to raise subway fares only as a last resort almost guarantees an MTA fiscal crisis in the coming months. Might a fiscal crisis also serve as the impetus for a congestion charging push? Among political insiders there is a feeling that the only possible way to sell congestion charging to New York is in response to a serious crisis. In other words, the Doctor needs to make it clear that the patient is sick and needs to make dificult, but ultimately fulfilling, lifestyle changes.

We have heard that the Partnership for New York City's secretive, years-long congestion charging study is far along in its analysis and modeling. The project is being masterminded by Janette Sadik-Khan at Parsons Brinckerhoff (pictured right). A serious candidate for DOT commissioner when Michael Bloomberg was first elected mayor, Sadik-Khan's resume includes a stint as the Director of the Mayor's Office of Transportation for New York City during the Dinkins Administration. Transportation consultant Bruce Schaller is also working on a congestion charging study for the conservative think tank, the Manhattan Institute.

All of which leads us to a more pressing issue: Can anyone out there come up with a better name for it than "congestion charging?"

Traffic Relief Zone, anyone?

Long-term sustainability is of course right up Streetsblog's alley. Correspondent Charles Komanoff donned his policy-wonk hat last week and came up with an Economist's Agenda for a Sustainable NYC. These recommendations draw heavily on the concept of creating financial incentives and disincentives to encourage people to make the right choices as they consume energy and natural resources. We're hearing through the grapevine that the advisory board is paying close attention.

Komanoff's recommendations:

• Price Peak Power
• Unbundle Electricity
• Price the Roads
• Price the Curbs
• Abolish Privileged Parking
• Universal Bottle and Bag Deposits
• Tax Carbon, Not Commerce

Details are on the other side of this link.