Center for Local and State Solutions
Other Resources--Neal Peirce Column

Category: Article (Journal or Newspaper)
Jurisdiction: City/County Government, International
Management Issues: Catalytic Government, Community Based Strategies, Community/Economic Development
Policy Area: Cities/Counties

For Release Sunday, April 29, 2007


© 2007 Washington Post Writers Group

BLOOMBERG’S PATHBREAKING “PlaNYC”:
A MODEL FOR URBAN AMERICA?

By Neal Peirce



NEW YORK -- Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s revolutionary proposal for “congestion pricing” -- road fees for private vehicles entering Manhattan’s business district during business hours -- has dominated news coverage of the “PlaNYC” for “A Greener, Greater New York,” that he unveiled in a major Earth Day address.

But it’s the breadth of “PlaNYC” that really ought to grab Americans’ attention.  Bloomberg is tieing response to climate change with investment strategies for imperiled air and water quality, better land use, energy supply, and expanded public transit.  It’s arguably the most comprehensive 21st century plan any American state or city has formulated.

Skeptics have been fast to note how tough it may be to get competing power-wielders, from outer borough politicos to the New York State Legislature, to agree to the vast investment portfolio Bloomberg is proposing.

But the more relevant question could be: What’s New York’s future without it?  The city is far past the years when its dangerous streets, graffitied subways and abandoned housing were national symbols of urban decay. It’s recovered in spirit and economy since the 2001 terrorist attack on Lower Manhattan.  Its unemployment rate is at an all-time low.  Crime rates are dramatically lower, subways and streets cleaner than in 30 years. Billions are already pouring into new and refurbished schools, a new water tunnel and the decades-delayed Second Avenue subway line.

But huge capacity questions are looming. The city is anticipating another 1 million people and creation of 750,000 jobs by 2030.  Yet nearly 3,000 miles of roads, bridges, tunnels, and a majority of subway stations, are in need of repair.  Estimates of yearly traffic congestion costs already run as high as $13 billion. Some of the electric power grid dates to the 1920s and power plants rely on outmoded, heavy-polluting technology.  One result: asthma hospitalizations are twice the U.S. average.  And during hard rains, outdated sewers send billions of gallons of untreated sewage into the waterways.

Inflated housing costs mean vast numbers of New Yorkers already pay over half their income in rent.  One hundred of the city’s 188 neighborhoods have inadequate playgrounds, meaning it takes 10 minuters or more for a resident to reach one by foot.

Climate change is especially worrisome.  New York City is an archipelago, extraordinarily exposed to a rise in sea level.  Forecasts indicate Category 2, 3 or 4 hurricanes might well have disastrous impact.  And the city’s in the bull’s eye for urban heat island effect.

To deal with these intricately interrelated challenges, Bloomberg’s PlaNYC aims (using existing technology) to achieve the cleanest air of any big U.S. city by reducing the city’s global warming emissions 30 percent by 2030 -- rather than the currently projected 25 percent increase.  It would put all city roads and transit lines in good condition for the first time in history. 

All of New York’s power plants and all the city’s contaminated brownfields would be cleaned up, helping create vast new areas for an added 250,000 housing units.  To put recreation space in reach of all New Yorkers, the city will open 290 schoolyards as public playgrounds and create public plazas in every community. 

Roadways would be landscaped and 1 million trees planted. “Green” building standards would be required for all new structures.  And perhaps most significant of all, an array of financial incentives would be created to spark broad-scale energy rehabbing of existing structures (shown in a pathbreaking citywide carbon inventory to account for 75 percent of New York’s greenhouse gas emissions).

And while all this is called a “sustainability” agenda, it’s projected to more than pay for itself in reduced utility bills, plus enormous anticipated paybacks in public health.

Bloomberg’s first (and toughest) sell may be congestion pricing for Manhattan, which he reluctantly embraced out of fear the economy of the city and region could be paralyzed by a projected 20 percent increase, by 2030, of traffic into the already clogged island. 

The $8-a-day fees (charged electronically by E-Z Pass transponders in vehicles) would go to financing vast subway improvements and expansion, plus increased commuter rail connections into the city.  And -- to assuage critics -- there’d be improved transit, express buses included, from outer borough neighborhoods that have the highest levels of auto use and highest proportion of commuting into Manhattan.

Bloomberg’s broad new plans should get the attention of mayors nationwide on two counts.  First his method -- marrying climate, transportation, energy and open spaces, housing and health.  Second, this has been no “top-down” or “insider-deal” invention.  While Bloomberg’s Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability was in charge, 20 other city agencies and a broad array of scientists, academics, business leaders, energy specialists, environmentalists -- and citizens through 11 town hall meetings, a web site and other outreach -- were consulted.

“This is a profile in courage moment,” notes New York Regional Plan Association president Robert Yaro, one of the plan’s lead supporters.  “We’re not Berkeley or Cambridge.  This is New York City -- America’s world city -- moving out in front.”

Comments may be addressed to npeirce@citistates.com