The first presenter for this Community Voices Event was Wiley Norvell from Transportation Alternatives (TA). What this organization calls for are complete streets, which includes equal protection for walkers, bikers, cars, and public transit. Their goal is to keep the city moving and focus on moving more than just car traffic, but to adapt a more comprehensive view of New York City’s crowded streets and incorporate street design to increase the efficiency of other forms of transportation. The design of these complete streets includes separate lanes for cars, public transit, bicycles, and pedestrian refuges and plazas. Wiley explained that the city they got the inspiration from was Copenhagen, the capital city of Denmark, which is considered one of the world’s most environmentally friendly cities. Their green bicycle routes and green ways have encouraged 36% of their citizens to commute to work by bicycle.
Next, he gave us a time line of events in terms of how the city has improved its streets by altering street infrastructure to encourage cycling and walking and move away from the city’s long-term culture of automobile transportation. In 2003, 8th Avenue was filled with congested car traffic carrying northbound traffic on the West Side of Manhattan. In 2006, bike lanes were created and bicyclers were protected from traffic. Not to mention, cycling became the fastest way to travel uptown. In 2009, pedestrian refuges were added to help make it easier for citizens to cross the street in two safe segments rather than rush quickly down the wide avenue, which creates wide opportunities for pedestrian injuries. The simple installment of bike lanes and pedestrian refuges alone has increased cycling by 57% and decreased injuries and crashes by 50% and 41% respectively. As a secondary effect, $3 million dollars of medical bills have been saved because of the decrease in accidents. Wiley explained to us that each accident costs about $100,000 due to the cost of emergency responders, healthcare costs, and liability costs.
The second example was 42nd street, Times Square. As one of New York’s most iconic areas of tourism and commercial business, this location is the perfect location for accidents to happen because of its inefficient street infrastructure. Just this year, 2010, a pedestrian plaza was created, eliminating the congestion of cars and allowing people to sit and relax in the center of Times Square without being surrounded by automobile exhaust. Though this created a problem for many drivers in the area, injuries have decreased by 63% and pedestrian traffic has increased by 11%. Overall, according to the people, the project has achieved a 76% approval rate.
Finally, the project that TA is currently trying to achieve is select bus service for 1st and 2nd Avenue. Wiley described these avenues as the “basket case of NYC transportation”. If you’ve ever been a passenger on the infamous M15 bus, you would know that it takes incredibly long to travel up and downtown by bus. That is why they want to separate the avenue into lanes: one for buses, another for lanes, bike lanes (physically separated from traffic), and pedestrian refuges in the middle of the street. Wiley strongly expressed the need for “shrinkage” which is a modal shift away from driving. Our city is too focused on the use of cars but Transportation Alternatives is trying decrease the use of automobiles because they burn too many fossil fuels and exacerbate air pollution. Encouraging the use of bicycles, public transportation and walking promotes a healthier, cleaner future for the people of New York City.
The second presenter was Chris Neidl from Solar One, a relatively new organization dedicated to advocating the use of renewable energy. Their goal is to have 30% of the city’s energy be powered by renewable sources by 2015, making us the second most energy efficient city, second to Rhode Island. Their second goal is to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 80% by the year 2050. To get people to invest in renewable energy, they need to be provided financial incentives. Neidl explains that there are rebates, tax credits, and renewable energy payments (REPs), also known as feed-in tariffs, that can be redeemed in exchange for selling energy back in the grid. REPs allow people with renewable technology to sell their energy to the utility grid.
The project he is working on is called the Empire State Renewable Energy Project, which provides a 20 year contract for people who want to sell the electricity generated by their renewable technologies for a profit. The payments vary by the types of clean technology. Solar power comes first, followed by wind, natural gas and lastly hydropower. The costs of REPs are spread out among rate payers and they will decline as more people sell into the grid. Neidl suggests that this project helps provide long term stability because the price that you sell it at in the beginning is fixed for the 20 years that you are entitled in that contract. This makes it a low risk investment because in the long run, you can gain back all that you spent on the technology as well as profit from it. He proposes a whole 11.6 billion in savings for the city, and that’s not including health benefits.
Right now, renewable energy costs are lowering because of innovation, scale, and experience. We are inventing better technologies, diminishing the size of these technologies, and improving on each one as we found out what works and what doesn’t. The thing that Neidl stressed the most from his presentation what that our city needs policy change, and lots of it. Without the influence of legislation and policy makers to push for energy efficiency, no investments will be made for REPs.
I enjoyed both the presentations and I felt that I learned a lot about how our city could make changes to its infrastructure to be more energy efficient. Personally I liked Wiley’s presentation more because I feel like it is something we can see having results. This is already evident with Times Square, as I have seen it transform from a bustling area of people and automobile traffic, it has now become a more spacious and pleasant place for pedestrians to walk and tourists to look around. Chris’ presentation sounds promising but I don’t think it convinces a lot of people to invest immediately. I think it easier to convince people to ride bikes than to tell them to invest a large sum of money into renewable technology now to be paid back after many years.
