Streetsblog New York City

This morning, President Obama announced that he would direct the EPA to back off of new ozone standards that would have saved an estimated 12,000 lives [PDF]. They’ll revisit it in 2013.

Obama said the action was taken in the interest of “reducing regulatory burdens and regulatory uncertainty, particularly as our economy continues to recover,” but environmental groups slammed the decision as “a huge win for corporate polluters,” in the words of League of Conservation Voters President Gene Karpinski.

NRDC President Frances Beinecke said, “The Clean Air Act clearly requires the Environmental Protection Agency to set protective standards against smog — based on science and the law. The White House now has polluted that process with politics.” Sen. Barbara Boxer, chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, said she was “disappointed” with the decision.

The decision has a major impact on efforts to reform transportation, NRDC’s Deron Lovaas told Streetsblog.

“It frankly makes our job harder, in terms of reducing pollution from mobile sources,” Lovaas said. “If they had set the standard closer to 60 parts per billion, as opposed to 80, regions and states would have to get really serious about transit, and really serious about smart growth, and really serious about reducing vehicle miles traveled, because the gains couldn’t all be made through better technology.”

Business interests had long lobbied against the tighter standards, and they expressed their pleasure at the president’s announcement. The Chamber of Commerce cheered the move, rationalizing that by waiting for the statutorily-required rule-making in 2013, the EPA “can base its decision on the most recent science, not 2006 science.”

According to the National Review, some Republicans had called the ozone requirements “the single most harmful regulation proposed by the administration” and estimated that the total cost of implementation would have been “at least $1 trillion over a decade and millions of jobs.” House Speaker John Boehner called Obama’s concession to polluters “a good first step” and said he was glad the White House “recognized the job-killing impact of this particular regulation.”

Did we mention it would have saved 12,000 lives?

A new study commissioned by the city finds that air quality in Times Square has notably improved since the 2009 installation of pedestrian plazas on Broadway.

Street-level readings taken by the New York City Community Air Survey, a city-wide air quality monitoring program created as part of PlaNYC, show that “concentrations of traffic-related pollutants were substantially lower than measurements from the year before and were less than in other midtown locations.” From a media statement announcing the findings:

The report confirms that major sources of air pollution generated in New York City are vehicle traffic and buildings burning high-sulfur heating oils. Additionally, in Times Square, concentrations of nitrogen oxide (NO) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2), two pollutants closely associated with traffic, were among the highest in the city. After the conversion to a pedestrian plaza, NO pollution levels in Times Square went down by 63 percent, while NO2 levels went down by 41 percent.

“The new Times Square is a showcase for New York’s vitality and energy, rather than for congestion and pollution,” said NYCDOT Commissioner Sadik-Khan. “The changes here have been big wins for safety, mobility and business. Now we can see that they have delivered great environmental gains as well.”

The city says that some 250,000 pedestrians enter Times Square every day.

Data from the survey were released ahead of the next edition of PlaNYC and will be used to “inform” unspecified new air quality initiatives. The PlaNYC reboot is set for April 21.

Among the fans of the new Times Square are former President Bill Clinton, who joined Mayor Bloomberg today in announcing a merger of their climate groups, the Clinton Global Initiative and C40. Regaling reporters with tales of the Times Square of old, writes City Room:

Mr. Clinton concluded by recalling that when he was a college student, he was agile — and reckless — enough to dodge the cars zipping through Times Square.

Today, thanks to the pedestrian mall, he said, there is no need. “Now you can be my age and walk in Times Square and not get run down. That is pretty cool, too.”

Maybe you commute by train, or maybe you’ve switched from driving to biking. But your stuff is still traveling the country by diesel truck.

Nearly a quarter of transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions come from freight. The movement of goods from port of entry to a store near you throws enough particulate pollution into the air to shorten the lives of 21,000 people each year, according to the Clean Air Task Force.

The freight sector is lumbering under inefficient and outdated systems that cause pollution, public health problems, safety hazards, and delivery delays. There’s never been a coordinated national approach to solving these problems. And with no deliberate strategy, the default approach is often to build more highways.

As Stephen Davis of Transportation for America writes:

If a port is congested or wants to expand, there’s little available
federal money to spend directly on rail or any other mode. Your choices
are highways or highways. When a state or port does spend to improve
operations, there is no accountability to make sure they’re actually
reducing port/freight congestion, moving freight faster, or reducing
air pollution in surrounding communities.

Enter the FREIGHT Act. (That’s the Focusing Resources, Economic Investment and Guidance to Help Transportation Act of 2010, with true Capitol Hill acronym panache.) The FREIGHT Act was introduced in the Senate toward the end of July and in the House a week later.

The bill focuses on areas known as "connectors," said Kathryn Phillips of the Environmental Defense Fund. “All the literature and studies say it’s the connector areas, the hubs, where you have the most congestion and environmental impacts.” The bill calls for troubleshooting at these bottlenecks, where products are transferred “from boat to truck to another truck to rail” and everything gets bogged down. Trucks get stuck in traffic; trains sit on the tracks; ships idle at port.

Communities near international ports pay the price. In Riverside, California, traffic gets tied up at 26 at-grade rail crossings 128 times a day when trains pass. Add to that the noise and pollution nearby neighborhoods must contend with.

Read more…

The New York City Council moved on two big pieces of environmental legislation last Wednesday. One bill was introduced which would require landlords to participate in a major public experiment to reduce asthma rates. A second, which passed the full council, aims to keep dangerous chemicals out of city parks. Both could be important steps forward for preserving our environment and promoting public health, but you just have to ask, what happened to the internal combustion engine?

New Yorkers shouldn't have to live in homes where garbage, mold and rats cause asthma, and they shouldn't have to play in parks where PCBs are 110 times the level considered safe. For the city to have a truly clean and healthy environment, elected leaders needs to do more about pollution from cars.

According to the Environmental Defense Fund, vehicle emissions contribute more than 80 percent of the total cancer risk from air pollution. The health effects of tailpipe emissions are highest within 500 feet of congested major roadways. The homes of two million New Yorkers are inside that high-risk area, according to another EDF report. In Brooklyn, 35 percent of playgrounds are in the danger zone. EDF also estimates that Queens County has the tenth worst diesel pollution in the country.

More than a million New Yorkers have been diagnosed with asthma, and the harm from automotive pollution is felt most acutely in disadvantaged communities. "Communities living close to highways, high traffic volume and congestion tend to have higher asthma rates and hospitalizations," said Soledad Gaztambide, transportation justice coordinator for the United Puerto Rican Organization of Sunset Park. "These communities are mostly low-income communities and communities of color."

Read more...

In a first of its kind report for the city, the Department of Health has issued a wake-up call for New Yorkers of all stripes: Car and truck traffic is killing us, in more ways than one.

Collecting ground-level samples at 150 sites for a community air quality study conducted last winter [PDF], researchers measured for five pollutants emitted by vehicles and buildings. Among the findings: People in areas with higher traffic densities are subjected to higher levels of particulates (27 percent greater), elemental carbon (45 percent greater), and nitrogen dioxide (37 percent greater) than those in areas with less traffic. In addition to triggering allergies and other illnesses that lead to more hospitalizations and work absences, exposure to these toxins has been linked to heart diseases, lung diseases, and cancer.

While the effects on Midtown Manhattan and the Upper East Side make for compelling headlines, neighborhoods that get far less media play but are nonetheless saddled with crushing cut-through traffic, highway traffic and truck traffic, like Washington Heights and Hunts Point, are also hit hard.

"It confirms what we've known anecdotally," says Miquela Craytor of Sustainable South Bronx. In addition to regional traffic on the Bruckner Expressway, tens of thousands of trucks travel to and from Hunts Point weekly. Local residents, for the most part, are collateral damage. "The majority of folks in the Bronx aren't driving to go to work in Manhattan."

Sustainable South Bronx is a member of the COMMUTE coalition, steadfast advocates for congestion pricing and BRT. "Things such as congestion pricing are a great tool that can lead to some behavioral changes that are necessary," Craytor says. "The other thing that certainly needs to happen is that we invest in our transit system. The Bronx still is underserved in many areas."

Yet local and state officials have left the MTA to wither, with the worst possibly to come. Despite the costs imposed by automobile use on the city's economic and physical health, measures like pricing and bridge tolls, which would raise money for public transportation while reducing private vehicle traffic and its attendant pollution, are considered political non-starters. At least for now.

The City Council will hold hearings on new rules for tour bus operators next Monday.

Int. 742 would have companies switch from open-air amplification of tour guides to headphone-based systems in buses with unenclosed upper decks or open windows. Int. 836 would require submission of operating plans, including routes, trip times and frequency, to the Department of Consumer Affairs, which would forward the plans to council members and community boards in affected districts.

Though it isn't spelled out in the bill, Int. 836 is ostensibly intended in part to minimize bus traffic on narrow residential streets, increasing pedestrian safety and, like Int. 742, reducing the buses' negative impact on neighborhoods.

Both bills are supported by the group Our Streets Our Lives (formerly Tour Buses No -- Tourists Yes), which worked last year to prod the Department of Environmental Protection to enforce tour bus emission standards. Group member Barbara Backer says most licensed tour buses are now in compliance with those rules. Of the new proposed regs, Backer says: "With re-routing no one will lose one job, tourists will still be able to visit the same businesses, and the re-routing will mean less disruption for local residents. Buses can use their hop-on-hop-off feature on major thoroughfares and still convey the same number of people to the same areas they do now."

Monday's hearing, a joint session of the council's consumer affairs and transportation committees, gets underway at 10 a.m.

As of this writing, the Committee on Environmental Protection is considering Int. 622, which would require school buses to be fitted with filters to reduce kids' exposure to diesel exhaust, and would mandate that buses be retired after 16 years. The Natural Resources Defense Council has been tracking the measure, and has background here.

For a 77-year-old nonprofit group with substantial Washington clout, the American Highway Users Alliance keeps a pretty low profile.

Its members are not listed on its website, but interested parties are asked a few questions: "Are you outraged by the deaths of 120 people each day on our roads? Are you pro-environment AND pro-highway?" Average commuters might be lulled into thinking they could join with the click of a mouse.

But the Alliance has a specific agenda -- which is on full display in the lobbying filings of Greg Cohen, its president and CEO.

During the first half of this year, Cohen reported working to "support additional supplies of domestic oil," "oppose the placement of tolls and congestion pricing on existing toll-free roads," and "support maximum funding for highways," among other goals.

That maximum cash for highways, in the Alliance's view, should continue to relegate transit to 20 percent of federal aid. If Congress' upcoming six-year transportation bill "starts looking more negative on highways," Cohen warned last month, "there is potential that the whole bill could be slowed down here."

Moreover, the Alliance mobilized to oppose the climate bill passed by the House last month and lobbied against Senate legislation that would set national transportation priorities such as emissions reduction and transit expansion.

Cohen also reported lobbying in favor of government loans for U.S. automakers -- an appropriate priority given that the Alliance's 2007 directors included senior lobbyists at Ford, GM, and Toyota, according to its tax returns.

The Alliance has been called many things, from "a leading nonprofit, nonpartisan group that advocates for improved mobility and safety" to "an advocacy group representing a wide range of motorists," but its true identity is best described as a card-carrying member of the road lobby.

Ever heard an anti-idling rap? Or Seen the "Funky Pollution Dance?" Tune in to this video to see what Livable Streets Education students are up to at MS 51 in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

The Municipal Art Society came out with a report yesterday urging New York State to start analyzing greenhouse gas emissions in its environmental review process (SEQRA). MAS argues that the policy could be adopted without changing existing laws, which raises an interesting question to ponder on this Earth Day afternoon: Would the State Senate's latest MTA funding plan pass muster if it were subject to an EIS that factors in climate change?

The MTA rescue package does not, in fact, fall under the purview of SEQRA, even though it's probably the most important piece of climate policy that the state legislature will consider this year. The Senate's latest stab would keep the trains and buses running for a few more months, but it's an eco-stinker compared to the Ravitch plan and any other package that includes road pricing or tolls on currently free bridges.

Let's go back to the spring of 2008. Remember all the carping from Richard Brodsky and other state legislators about congestion pricing not going through the SEQRA process? That was regarding a policy projected to take 112,000 cars off the road each day. Now we have an MTA funding plan getting serious consideration that would create worse traffic bottlenecks and more incentives to drive, but so far not even a peep about environmental consequences from Albany.