For my project, I am interested in researching urban transportation and the many factors that contribute to its proliferation. More specifically, I would like to compare New York’s historically revolutionary but currently antiquated transportation system with Tokyo’s modern and extremely impressive transportation system. By analyzing the demographics, politics, and geography of these two cities, I hope to gain insight into the main causes of Tokyo’s success and how New Yorkers can learn from this success.

Sources:

https://ny.curbed.com/2017/9/19/16335068/nyc-subway-mta-state-of-emergency-solution

https://www.citymetric.com/transport/what-s-gone-wrong-new-york-s-subway-system-and-how-mta-planning-fix-it-4155

Ever imagined how much electricity is being used for ads on Times Square? Con Edison estimated that The Theater District uses about 161 Megawatts of electricity at once – which is enough to power 161,000 average US homes. One solution could be smart energy floor installation.

European startup Pavegen introduced their energy floor installation that takes in kinetic energy generated from pedestrians walking to provide electricity to nearby street lamps. The founder of Pavegen showed in a video how 5-10 steps on the floor could light up a small sign. Now, imagine the thousands of tourists walking in Times Square and how much energy could be generated through their steps.

Pavegen’s installation of smart floors in Washington DC costed about $200,000, each square foot costing about $75-$160 to install. While the installation prices seem expensive, it could save New York City millions of dollars by installing smart floors that would otherwise go into the power behind billboards, electric signs, and street lamps.

Sources:

www.pavegen.com/washington

www.forbes.com/sites/hilarybrueck/2016/11/18/pavegen-energy-generating-sidewalk/#d49092178da8

www.theworldbyroad.com/2013/07/the-power-to-light-up-times-square/

What if we lived in a more calm and relaxed city? Where the hills can be seen from the city skyline, but also the tallest of buildings? What if we escaped the city life after our 9 A.M. to 5 P.M. shift and went out back into the quiet? No noise, no people, just you and your acres of land? What if I told you that California was the next step in being eco-friendly? From Carbon negative projects, to legislations on housing, and more farming occurring within the land, you wouldn’t even know you were in a major city. In my opinion, I believe the lifestyle of the more relaxed and steady city of Los Angeles is the breakthrough to a more eco-friendly environment. You don’t have to escape the urban life. If anything, you can still live there happily and sound, but there’s a reason that cities like New York, Tokyo, Shang-Hai, Dheli and Mumbai are one of the heaviest populated cities, but Los Angeles isn’t. The fact that you are able to escape the urban life and still live your suburban life is absolutely amazing. It is not comparable to New York’s urban life and then Brooklyn’s suburban life because, from my experience, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx are still very much urban in their transportation, shopping centers and pollution.

Sources:

1. https://breakingenergy.com/2014/05/29/6-ways-california-is-going-green/

2. https://theculturetrip.com/north-america/usa/california/articles/what-are-the-most-eco-friendly-states-in-america-according-to-google/

3. https://www.discoverlosangeles.com/travel/25-green-facts-about-los-angeles

Kevin Hasa

Staten Island. I’ve been living there for the majority of my life, and honestly, the commutes there are terrible. My proposal is one that is for the benefit of the island while also connecting them into the metropolis that is Manhattan. By creating a transit system with subway lines in Staten Island, we can bridge the gap between Staten Island and Brooklyn. There is currently one subway line in Staten Island that runs from Tottenville to St. George where the ferry terminal is. Now if we could expand and create another train line within the island (there are PLENTY of open spaces as well as fields that can be used) we can connect Brooklyn and Staten Island, giving a groundbreaking development in transportation, efficiency, and resiliency to interconnect all the boroughs. Not only by interconnecting, but redesigning our transportation system as a whole. Asia is extremely far ahead in terms of their systems because they are new. Creating new designs and efficiency may help our society as a whole.

Since buildings and skyscrapers have taken the places of trees, we should give them the functions of a tree by turning our buildings into energy efficient ones. Two-thirds of carbon emissions come from buildings. As planting more trees reduces carbon emissions, putting up more buildings should as well. Therefore, each new building must meet a variety of realistic environmental codes before being constructed while old ones should adapt to new standards. These initiatives can include improving insulation using more resilient materials like copper or linoleum, which possesses natural bacteria-resistant properties, installing double pane windows to provide more efficient heating and cooling, and switching to renewable energy with Con Edison’s help. Similar initiatives like these are already put into action, with Goldman Sachs decreasing its greenhouse gas emissions by 40%, but what about the rest of less affluent NYC who cannot afford to retrofit in the short run?

We can expand energy efficiency to private homes, churches, and older buildings by offering private firms and landlords incentives, tax rebates, programs, or subsidies if they  participate in an optional tradable permit program. The Urban Green Council proposed a variety of measures to the NYC Council regarding more energy efficient buildings, namely their 80×50 proposal that worked with stakeholders to hopefully cut 20% in energy use by 2030. Their eleventh proposal allows building owners to trade permits, or “efficiency ‘credits'” to reduce pollution and give owners more flexibility, just like the federal government does with large corporations. This is because more important buildings like hospitals as opposed to a 24/7 McDonald’s, should also be evaluated individually based on their necessary energy consumption because they have higher costs. After all, keeping lifesaving machines running is probably more important than keeping fryers boiling.

Tokyo has become the first urban city in the world to adopt this “cap-and-trade” program. It has covered 1,300 large buildings and they reduced their carbon emissions by 23% by the second  year of the program. Maybe NYC can apply a similar approach to its buildings.

As is the case in many cities, vehicular congestion in New York City is a substantive problem that effects air quality and energy consumption. One European city has been quite successful in solving it. Barcelona’s “superblocks” exemplify how urban planning can be applied to make cities more pedestrian friendly and achieve remarkable change to pollution and fuel use. These “superblocks” are an innovative way for directing traffic throughout congested areas, by grouping together sets of nine blocks. Heavy traffic such as buses and trucks are restricted to the perimeter of these “superblocks”, and all traffic on interior streets is either very limited in speed, or eliminated from certain streets altogether. This approach has created pedestrian space and helped the city reduce emissions from vehicles.

My idea is to apply the same strategy in New York City. I am far from the first person to propose this and a quick google of “NYC superblocks” yields a great many results. It seems this policy can be fairly straightforward in application, as New York streets are already arranged in a grid pattern. Interviewed for New York Magazine, Architect Norman Foster, when asked what his dream project for the city would be, envisions the transformation of many streets into pedestrian plazas similar to the piazzas in Italy, one of which he draws here as an extension of Madison Square Park. The New York Times has already imagined what this would look like if applied to Manhattan’s grid pattern.

There are of course challenges and issues to be wary of. For one, the term “superblock” has been used in New York’s urban planning history during the practice of “slum removal” of the early twentieth century. This involved the removing and replacing of many residential blocks with new commercial constructions that continuously span several streets, also called “superblocks”. Lincoln Center is one such “superblock”. This program, a part of “Urban Renewal” policies, so disproportionately harmed low income communities of color, that James Baldwin coined for it the term “Negro Removal”. That is not what I am talking about here, but the association of the two can be a problem.

Another critical challenge to this plan could be the lack of good transportation alternatives to walking, as the subway continues to fall into disrepair. Clearly the success of this plan is reliant on investment in the subway system. Also important to consider are the ways weather patterns in New York City can be prohibitive of pedestrian travel during parts of the year. Still, I think this pattern of traffic arrangement can be a good solution to car congestion and can encourage more people to seek sustainable methods of transportation.

Sources:

Vox – Superblocks: How Barcelona Is Taking City Streets Back From Cars

NY Times – What New York Can Learn From Barcelona’s ‘Superblocks’ 

New York Magazine – 9 Top Architects Share Their Dream Projects To Improve NYC

Museum of The City of New York – The Greatest Grid: The Master Plan of Manhattan

A central problem in NYC is the extreme amount of trash output. It creates not only a terrible scent but has its negative implications far beyond what we could imagine. It has an impact on animal habitat, pollution, and even the decomposition of waste which not only gets impacts the oceans of the world but also agricultural fields and the foods we eat. Consequently, the government needs to enact initiatives such as using technology already available which converts waste into useful material, recycling, and slowly using “green” and natural material.

On June 2, 2017, Mayor DeBlasio issued a Climate Change Executive Order that expressed a commitment to the Paris Agreement, and a call to action to prevent climate change from rising above the 1.5 Degree Celcius point globally. New York City is committed to sustainability, at least under his administration, even if the rest of the nation has plans to withdraw from the Accord.

The full plan, 1.5C: Aligning New York City with the Paris Climate Agreement, has the lofty but not unachievable goal of having NYC be a carbon neutral city by 2050. Several cities have already put forth efforts to become carbon neutral. Together, they comprise the Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance.

Copenhagen plans to be the first of these cities, having set the goal of carbon neutrality by the year 2025, but if there is progress to be made, surely we as New Yorkers should take part in leading it. My project would address such issues as cutting emissions, increased reliance on renewable resources, as well as smaller but still significant changes like green rooves, sustainable planning, curtailing overpopulation, infrastructure, and STEM education.

This project would focus on two to four main changes that New York City must make in order to go into depth in those few areas and not merely skim the surface of many aspects of sustainability. I am looking forward to exploring the future of New York City through tangible changes we can make today for a better tomorrow.

A major problem that has been plaguing New York City for many years is its excessive trash output. New York City produces 12,000 tons of solid waste that mostly ends up in landfills in Pennsylvania, Virginia, or Ohio. As a result, New York City should strive to replicate San Francisco’s zero waste program. Like San Francisco, New York City should try to enact initiatives such as composting, using reusable items, and the installation of 3-way chute diverters in apartment buildings to allow for recycling, composting, and landfill material. With these initiatives, New York City can significantly reduce its trash output.

Sources:

1. https://www.zdnet.com/article/top-10-cities-leading-in-urban-sustainability/
2. https://thoughtcatalog.com/roxanne-earley/2014/09/the-5-problems-facing-nyc-what-you-can-do-about-them-today/
3. https://sfenvironment.org/zero-waste-faqs#what-is