Results tagged “termplanning”

When Mayor Bloomberg rattled off the statistic "Of the New Yorkers who work in Manhattan, only five percent commute by car" during his PlaNYC speech, we were intrigued and wondered how that number was calculated. Now, we have a 166-page PDF to delve into, as the Mayor's Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability has released its technical report.

Despite its size (and irrelevance in national elections), New York City produces about 1% of all of America's greenhouse gas emissions. That's as much as the entire countries of Ireland and Portugal, however considering that New Yorkers account for about 2-3% of the U.S. population, 1% isn't bad. But it's not great either, and Mayor Bloomberg said, "We can no longer deny the science and bury our heads in the sand. Climate change is a real issue with real consequences. And as a coastal city, New York can't just sit back and hope for the best."

Last night's Department of Transportation presentation to Park Slope's Community Board 6 brought out hundreds of residents. Streetsblog has excellent coverage, noting that CB6 rejected the plan to turn Sixth and Seventh Avenues into one-way streets and residents want comprehensive planning, versus "secretive, top-down, traffic engineer-driven planning." Streetsblog also has a bootlegged copy of the presentation that lacks many details.

In this plan you will find nothing about traffic calming, pedestrian counts the numerous activities that take place on the streetscape beyond the movement and storage of motor vehicles. You will find no attempt to measure street performance and neighborhood impact beyond the counting of cars and trucks. You will find no discussion of the transformative development curently underway in and around Downtown Brooklyn and the goals of the Bloomberg Administration's Long-Term Planning and Sustainability initiative. And if you are looking for any response to long-standing community concerns or acknowledgement of the forward-thinking, pro-active planning that our community has undertaken over the last couple of years, you won't find that either. All you will find here is a traffic engineer's monomaniacal focus on moving motor vehicles through a dense urban environment.

Yes, there are many parts of the city where one way streets are a way of life. But why not try to save the ones that aren't?

Mayor Michael Bloomberg met with California Governor Arnold Schwarzengger in the Golden State yesterday, and it was a total love fest. The Governator told reporters:

[Republicans and Democrats in Congress] are frozen. They can’t get anything done in Washington because it’s Democrats against Republicans and Republicans against Democrats, rather than, ‘Let us solve the problems of this country.’ And so this is why I admire him — I admire Mayor Bloomberg. He’s my soul mate. He’s the man.

Aw - we're sure that the Mayor is making sure all his West Coast friends drop a pretty penny into Arnold's campaign chest, as he did head out there for Arnie's fundraisers. (Oh, and to talk about "issues" too.)