Streetsblog New York City

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.

Comptroller William Thompson and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer want the city to enforce a law mandating that sightseeing buses reduce harmful emissions. Meanwhile, a citizen group called "Tour Buses No -- Tourists Yes" also wants the buses off residential streets.

In separate letters issued this month to the Department of Environmental Protection, Thompson and Stringer present lists of unanswered questions pertaining to Local Law 41, adopted by the City Council in May 2005. The law required that all tour buses with engines that are at least three years old be retrofitted with best available technologies to reduce diesel particulate levels, and gave companies until January 2007 to either do the retrofits or apply for waivers.

Over three years later, only one company, Gray Line, has brought any of its buses into compliance. According to a DEP report, as of last August just 61 of the 204 tour buses on New York streets meet the law's requirements. The report, Thompson wrote, "shows a very disturbing lack of progress and, in fact, a widespread non-compliance with the law."

According to a 1999 study referenced in a recent New York Post article, a typical Gray Line bus "emit[s] about 25 times more diesel particles than the average bus."

Read more...

A new report from Transportation Alternatives comparing carbon emissions for NYC transportation modes finds that drivers account for 60 percent of the city's transportation-related CO₂, while accounting for just 31 percent of all commuting trips.

"Rolling Carbon: Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Commuting in New York City" [PDF] reveals that the average New York City commute generates about seven pounds of carbon dioxide per round-trip, for a total of 1,750 pounds of CO₂ annually. Though this ranks us among the "greenest" US commuters in the aggregate, the report notes that individual impacts vary widely, depending on mode and distance. To that end, "Rolling Carbon" breaks down per-mile emissions for public and private conveyance, from Escalades, taxicabs and Priuses to trains, buses and, of course, bikes and feet.

Other report findings include:

• Driving alone causes the emission of about five times the amount of CO₂ (over 4,000 pounds per year) as is caused by taking the subway (about 820 pounds per year).
  
• If just 5% of all people commuting by private car or taxi switched to transit, walking or cycling, the result would be a decrease of 150 million pounds of CO2 emissions per year -- the equivalent of planting trees on an area 1.3 times the size of Manhattan.
  

Accompanying the report is a new killer app: RollingCarbon.org features a personalized Carbon Calculator for New Yorkers to determine emission levels generated by their commutes, and how many annual tree plantings would be needed to offset the trip. As illustrated by the chart above, pedestrians, cyclists and skaters are in the clear.

Yesterday, several planning and environmental organizations joined Transportation Alternatives on the steps of City Hall to tout the release of "Suburbanizing the City" [PDF], the new report that critiques New York City's off-street parking policies. The coalition is similar -- but not identical -- to the array of groups that pushed for congestion pricing earlier this year. Their testimony highlighted the range of benefits that off-street parking reform would deliver, from mitigating tailpipe emissions to reducing housing costs.

Planning advocates recommended doing away with parking requirements and "unbundling" the cost of parking from the price of housing. "There's no reason for parking to be paid for by people who don't own cars," said Tri-State Transportation Campaign director Kate Slevin, adding that the construction of parking should be "a choice rather than a necessity."

Minimum parking requirements are especially ill-suited to affordable housing developments, said Elena Conte of the Pratt Center for Community Development (pictured at the mic). "[A parking minimum] really makes no sense at all for communities where less than 20 percent of households own cars, because it drives up the cost of housing and takes up valuable space that otherwise could be used to create additional units or public space."

Read more...

"If only this street were completely jam-packed, I'd be having so much fun!!!"

It's too soon to evaluate this year's Summer Streets events, but I've noticed that the recent car-free days on Montague Street and Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn have been catching a bit of flack on Curbed and various other blogs for "not packing them in." On Saturday, the Brooklyn 11211 blog wrote that Williamsburg's main drag "lacked that manic aspect that Bedford often gets on the weekends." Curbed seemed to interpret that as failure. Last week, a Brooklyn Heights blogger snapped a photo of Montague Street around 3 pm with a light rain falling (on July 4th weekend, with the half of the neighborhood out of town) and sarcastically headlined the item, "Crowds Throng Montague." Brownstoner picked up on the photo and spread news of the "underwhelming" event.

Forgetting the fact that photos taken earlier in the day on Montague showed a pretty lovely and well-attended scene, what's with this idea that for a Summer Streets event to be considered successful, it needs to attract a "throng?" Jamming large crowds into small spaces has never been a big challenge in this town. The whole idea of Summer Streets, as I understand it, is to give New Yorkers a bit of room to breathe and space to walk, bike, play or simply sit down and relax. You want a throng? Try Midtown.

Here's a modest proposal for evaluating the success of a Summer Streets event...

Read more...

Last week, the New York City Council approved a special permit granting developer Glenwood Management the right to build a 400-car parking garage at 310-328 West 38th Street. The decision was not unexpected, as the permit had already been approved by the City Planning Commission earlier this month.

The garage, situated near the mouth of the Lincoln Tunnel, will add more traffic to the already-congested streets of Hell's Kitchen, but its approval has strengthened calls to review similar permits more carefully in the future. "There are some positives," said Christine Berthet of the Clinton/Hell's Kitchen Pedestrian Safety Coalition (CHEKPEDS) in an email message. "The Borough President's office, the City Planning Commission, and the council all have special permits on their radar, and the commission indicated they are ready to do 'something about parking.' The Speaker is also interested in a long term action."

As a 2005 re-zoning leads to a surge in development around the West Side railyards, adopting stricter standards for the approval of special permits could prevent a concurrent boom in parking. The leniency of the current approval process, said Berthet, flies in the face of the city's goals for air quality and traffic reduction, and approving a flurry of permits now would saddle the neighborhood with parking facilities for years. "The special permit is like radioactive material," she said. "It remains toxic for a very long time."

Photo of traffic on 10th Avenue: SarahNYC/Flickr

State lawmakers reached an agreement yesterday allowing the city to move forward with plans for a recycling transfer station on Manhattan's Gansevoort peninsula near 14th Street. The step may do more to reduce traffic than any other measure passed during the latest legislative session, which wrapped up this morning.

The Gansevoort station is part of the city's Solid Waste Management Plan. By requiring each borough to handle its own trash, the plan is projected to reduce truck traffic within the city by about 3.5 million miles per year, in total. Areas that handle a disproportionate amount of the city's waste and the attendant truck traffic -- and suffer higher asthma rates as a result -- stand to see the greatest relief. As Mobilizing the Region noted last month, the opening of a Manhattan recycling station will mean fewer trucks fanning out to the Bronx, Brooklyn, and New Jersey.

Because the Gansevoort station is slated for a site on the Hudson River Park, state approval was required. Speaker Sheldon Silver had blocked the station last October at the behest of three Manhattan Assembly members. This time around, provisions were included to set aside future park funding and assure public access to the Hudson River Greenway during construction.

Photo: anazzarophotography/Flickr

Two weeks ago Streetsblog reported on the glut of public parking garages being built in Hell's Kitchen, which threatens to worsen traffic conditions in one of New York's most congested neighborhoods. The City Planning Commission could have set a precedent last Friday by denying a developer's request to build a 400-car public garage as part of a mixed-use project at 310-328 West 38th Street. Only 232 parking spaces would have been allowed without the special permit.

Instead, the commission approved the request. Despite the objections of community representatives, the only restriction imposed was to reserve most of the spaces for monthly parking. In its report [PDF], the commission asserts that streets near the new building "will be adequate to handle the traffic" generated by the garage. The analysis fails to consider the aggregate amount of parking in Hell's Kitchen, and flies in the face of DOT's efforts to improve the neighborhood's streets for pedestrians, says Christine Berthet of the Clinton/Hell's Kitchen Pedestrian Safety Coalition (CHEKPEDS).

"It's particularly egregious considering what we know about 37th Street," which carries cars heading toward the outbound Lincoln Tunnel, she adds. "The mitigation proposed as monthly parking demonstrates they have no clue on the science of parking, as monthly parking attracts commuters and discourages shoppers -- the worst case scenario."

Read more...

More parking, more problems: A garage proposed for 38th Street would disgorge even more cars onto the intersection of 37th and Ninth during peak hours.

If there's one thing a neighborhood overrun by traffic doesn't need, it's more public parking garages. But that's exactly what New Yorkers who live by the mouth of the Lincoln Tunnel will get if the City Planning Commission allows current development patterns to continue.

Case in point: In January, the developer Glenwood Management requested permission to build a 400-car parking garage attached to a new residential property in Hell's Kitchen. The application -- for 310-328 West 38th Street -- is the latest in a string of special permit requests to build parking in the area. It is currently pending before the City Planning Commission, which is scheduled to render a decision on June 6th. If the commission turns down the application, it could signal an important shift in the ongoing redevelopment of Hell’s Kitchen, which has seen a wave of new construction since a 2005 rezoning took effect.

The last time Streetsblog looked at the parking situation in Hell's Kitchen, local activists were fighting a provision in the new zoning that enabled substantially greater quantities of accessory parking -- spaces intended for building residents or commercial tenants. That battle is still playing out in court. The recent rash of permit requests represents another front in the effort to keep cars from overwhelming the neighborhood's streets.

A number of new buildings include plans for parking that exceed the amount allowed for residents. Glenwood Management, for instance, is only permitted to build 232 spaces for residents -- 114 under the pre-2005 zoning, according to local activists. The additional spaces will then be used by the developer as a public garage. At issue throughout Hell's Kitchen, in essence, is whether the city will allow developers to include public parking garages in new buildings without restriction.

Read more...

This recent constituent e-mail shows that Council Member Jessica Lappin's lukewarm support for congestion pricing seems to have turned into full-fledged support now that the proposal has no chance of being implemented (taking a page out of Assemblywoman Joan Millman's book). In Lappin's defense, she did vote for pricing when it came before the council. But it might have been helpful had she found her voice a few months -- or even weeks -- before the plan went to Albany.

Thank you for contacting me in support of Mayor Bloomberg's congestion pricing proposal. As you probably are aware, on March 31, the City Council approved a home rule message authorizing the state to approve Mayor Bloomberg's plan. The vote was 30 members in support and 20 against. I voted in support of the proposal. However, neither the State Assembly nor the State Senate acted in time to move this plan forward.

Anyone who drives in New York understands that congestion is a major problem, particularly in the Central Business District (CBD). Heavy traffic doesn't just anger and inconvenience drivers. It impacts our economy and environment as well. It is estimated that congestion costs the city $11.6 billion worth of lost business revenue, productivity, operating costs, and fuel and vehicle costs. In addition, because of our poor air quality, New York City asthma hospitalization rates are more than twice the national average.

Read more...