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  Yahoo News 24 Apr 07
NYC pledges 1 million new trees by 2017
By Sara Kugler, Associated Press Writer

Channel NewsAsia 23 Apr 07
New York unveils plan for congestion charge, million new trees

Business Times 24 Apr 07
Towards a greener New York
Thomas J Lueck looks at mayor Michael Bloomberg's visionary plan for growth and the environment in the city

IN a quarter-century plan to create what he called 'the first environmentally sustainable 21st-century city,' Mayor Michael R Bloomberg proposed a sweeping and politically contentious vision on Sunday of 127 projects, regulations and innovations for New York and the region.

The plan is intended to foster steady population growth, with the city expected to gain about one million residents by 2030, and to put in place a host of environmentally sensitive measures that would reduce the greenhouse gases it generates.

Mr Bloomberg also set the parameters for what could be a large piece of his legacy as mayor. In an address outlining the plan on Sunday at the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan, Mr Bloomberg likened it to the first blueprints for Central Park in the 1850s and the construction of Rockefeller Center in the Great Depression.

Many elements of the plan will face political hurdles in Albany and will depend on huge financial commitments from the state and federal governments, not to mention future mayors.

To start, Mr Bloomberg intends to add hundreds of millions of dollars to his proposed US$57 billion budget for the next fiscal year, his assistants said on Sunday. 'Our economy is humming, our fiscal house is in order and our near-term horizon looks bright,' Mr Bloomberg said. 'If we don't act now, when?'

The mayor chose Earth Day to give his speech and to release the details of his proposals.

As widely predicted, the plan calls for a US$8-a-day charge for people who drive their cars into Manhattan below 86th Street. The proposal for 'congestion pricing', which City Hall believes would reduce traffic and auto emissions while raising money for transportation projects, has already been met by harsh criticism from drivers and some officials outside Manhattan.

Other proposals in the plan, dubbed PlaNYC by the mayor's staff, range from building huge capital projects and creating government authorities to implementing relatively benign initiatives in housing, transportation and land use.

One proposal calls for investments of US$200 million a year from both the city and state to create a financing authority that would ensure the completion of major projects like the Second Avenue Subway.

New authorities, with representatives from the city, state and private industry, would push for improved energy efficiency in new buildings and for the replacement of energy-guzzling power plants. The city also would encourage the construction of platforms over rail yards and highways to create land for housing.

In addition, the plan would open 290 school-yards as playgrounds, eliminate city sales taxes on energy-efficient hybrid vehicles, increase the number of bike paths and cultivate mussels to suck pollution out of the rivers.

Admirable goals

Much of the plan, including its most costly proposals, would require state approval. Governor Eliot Spitzer did not attend Mr Bloomberg's address, although another governor - Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, who appeared via videotape on two large screens - introduced the mayor.

Mr Spitzer, in a brief statement released late on Sunday, said: 'The mayor has released a comprehensive plan with admirable goals, especially the commitment to reduce energy consumption, and we look forward to reviewing the plan.'

Mr Bloomberg's initiative could be vulnerable to changes at City Hall and to setbacks in the economy. But several observers praised it as a much-needed master plan for growth and the environment in a city that has let too many decades pass without such a vision.

'How you follow through on this is a huge political question, but it is a good time to be pushing it,' said Diana Fortuna, president of the Citizens Budget Committee. Ms Fortuna was among several hundred people invited to the mayor's speech, many of them associated with the 150 advocacy groups that had provided recommendations to Mr Bloomberg.

The mayor acknowledged that the proposal for congestion pricing was the most contentious, calling it 'the elephant in the room'.

Under the plan, the city would charge US$8 for cars and US$21 for commercial trucks that enter Manhattan below 86th Street from 6am to 6pm on weekdays. The charge would be US$4 for drivers within Manhattan, and several exemptions would apply. No one would be charged on the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Drive or the West Side Highway. There would be no charge for moving cars to comply with alternate side parking, and also no charge for taxis.

A similar system is in place in congested parts of London and Singapore, where Mr Bloomberg said it had been shown to reduce congestion and improve air quality.

In Manhattan, cameras and other equipment at intersections would deduct money from a driver's EZPass account or photograph a car's license plate, with the driver given two days to pay the fee through the mail, online or at certain stores.

The city said on Sunday that it intended to seek state approval for a three-year test of congestion pricing and would need to spend US$225 million to buy and install traffic-recording equipment. Officials said the city and state could jointly apply for grants from the US Department of Transportation to cover those costs.

'The federal government really does want to be helpful,' Mr Bloomberg said, in a rare departure from his prepared text.

Later, Mary E Peters, the US Secretary of Transportation, issued a statement praising the plan as 'the kind of bold thinking leaders across the country need to embrace if we hope to win the battle against traffic congestion'.

The Nassau County executive, Thomas R Suozzi, who has many constituents who commute by car to Manhattan, also was enthusiastic. 'People's first reaction is they don't want to pay,' he said. 'But getting them to switch to mass transit benefits us all.'

Mr Bloomberg also called for improvements in express bus service and other public transportation in neighbourhoods with little access to the subways, and where people are most inclined to drive into Manhattan for work or shopping. He said the city would complete those improvements before anyone is charged in the congestion pricing system.

Cool reaction

Still, the reaction of many officials from outside Manhattan was cool. 'I wonder if it is another hidden tax on working people,' said Adolfo Carrion Jr, the Bronx borough president. 'I worry about people who need to use their cars to get to work.'

Money raised through congestion pricing would be added to the US$400 million a year in combined city and state funds that the plan seeks for the creation of a new financing authority for transportation projects. The Sustainable Mobility and Regional Transportation Authority would issue bonds to award matching grants for projects by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and other agencies.

Mayor Bloomberg said on Sunday that the added financial muscle was needed to close a US$31 billion funding gap in 18 projects that are planned or under way, including the Second Avenue subway.

The new authority would be governed by a board with equal representation from the city and state. But it could provide a mechanism for Mr Bloomberg and future mayors to reclaim some power over planning and capital expenditures by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. It is also a joint city and state agency, but one that has often been dominated by appointees of the governor.

In a prepared statement on Sunday, officials from the MTA said: 'We applaud the mayor's commitment to the transit system and will carefully analyse the city's proposal to understand its impact on the MTA'

Two other authorities, a New York City Energy Planning Board and an Energy Efficiency Authority, would be created to marshal investments that would finance energy conservation efforts and the construction of efficient power plants.

The plan also calls for a surcharge on electrical power customers, averaging US$2.50 a month, with the money used to finance grants and other incentives for retrofitting buildings with energy-efficient materials.

The new energy planning board, governed by city and state officials and utility executives, would make long-term commitments to buy energy from companies or investors who build efficient power plants.

In another measure, the city would plant more than one million trees over the next year. It would offer incentives - intended to capture storm water runoff - for larger and deeper sidewalk tree pits, and green roofs.

The plan calls for zoning changes in many neighbourhoods with access to public transportation that would allow for larger homes and a higher density of housing, although such changes are often resisted in those neighbourhoods.

It pledges that every New Yorker would live within a 10-minute walk from a park, and it calls for small public plazas in each community board district that does not have a park.

It would replace or modernise diesel-powered school buses in the city fleet and offer incentives to get heavy diesel trucks off the road. And it would commit city funds to clean up 3,070 hectares of so-called brownfields, where soil has been polluted by chemicals or industrial materials. Some of the land would become parks.

Besides the introduction by Mr Schwarzenegger, Mr Bloomberg's address on Sunday included videotaped praise by British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who made it clear the initiative was capturing the imagination of urban planners - if not necessarily the support it will need in Albany, Washington and neighbourhoods outside Manhattan. 'This would mark out New York as a global leader in halting climate change,' Mr Blair said. - NYT

Channel NewsAsia 23 Apr 07
New York unveils plan for congestion charge, million new trees

NEW YORK - New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg laid out an ambitious environmental plan for the city on Sunday, including a congestion charge for driving in Manhattan and proposals to plant one million new trees.

In a speech to mark Earth Day, Bloomberg unveiled 127 broad policy initiatives to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent, increase access to parks, reclaim unused industrial land and reduce water pollution.

"We need to start meeting the challenges we'll face as we grow by nearly one million people" in the coming two decades, he said.

The pilot congestion pricing plan would involve charging those entering Manhattan from the north eight dollars during weekdays between 6am and 6pm if they pass south of 86th street in uptown Manhattan. Those entering by bridges and tunnels already face similar charges. Special rules would apply for residents, Bloomberg said, without elaborating, while taxis would be exempt from the fee.

The changes would affect only five percent of the New Yorkers who work in Manhattan, he said. "I understand the hesitation about charging a fee. I was a sceptic myself. But I looked at the facts, and that's what I'm asking New Yorkers to do," Bloomberg said. "The fact is, in cities like London and Singapore, fees succeeded in reducing congestion and improving air quality."

He said the fee had to be high enough to encourage people to use public transport but no so expensive as to prove onerous for those who needed to drive. "We believe that an eight dollar charge would achieve these goals."

"As a test run, we will seek state authority for a three-year pilot project, and we are very optimistic that, in working with state officials, we will secure hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding for it," he said.

Other headline announcements included a plan to plant one million new trees in the city over the next decade -- a quarter of them along roadsides -- and to reforest some 900 hectares (2,000 acres) of parkland.

The "street-greening" initiative would also involve cleaning up around 3,000 hectares of brownfield -- or former industrial -- sites in the city.

Bloomberg has already committed the city to cutting greenhouse gases and said energy conservation and a shift to cleaner and more efficient power plants would meanwhile saving seven million tons of carbon dioxide every year.

"Climate change is a national challenge, and meeting it requires strong and united national leadership," Bloomberg said. "That means we can't -- and we won't -- wait for Washington. The time to act is now." "The science is there. It's time to stop debating it and to start dealing with it," he said, adding that global warming could not be separated from issues such as transportation policy, air quality and energy use.

New York City has led much of the United States in some public health and environmental policies since Bloomberg became mayor in 2002. In 2003, the city brought in a tough anti-smoking law that was considered by many at the time to be draconian, but which has been copied by cities around the world.

Last year, the city banned restaurants from using artificial cooking oils known as trans fats, in an attempt to improve residents' health and help tackle heart disease and obesity. - AFP/ir

Yahoo News 24 Apr 07
NYC pledges 1 million new trees by 2017
By Sara Kugler, Associated Press Writer

One million new trees will join the urban landscape of New York City by the year 2017 to reduce air pollution, cool temperatures and help improve the city's long term sustainability, officials said Saturday.

The tree program is one of 127 environmental proposals that Mayor Michael Bloomberg was set to outline Sunday in a speech at the Museum of Natural History, timed with the observance of Earth Day.

His administration has been working for more than a year on the package of ideas, which is also expected to include a controversial plan to charge motorists extra for driving into certain parts of Manhattan, as a way to cut down on traffic congestion and pollution.

Bloomberg, whose second term expires at the end of 2009, has a goal of reducing New York City's carbon emissions by 30 percent over the next two decades.

He has said that the population is likely to grow by another million in that time--up from 8.2 million today--and that the city needs a plan now to deal with the strain on infrastructure and the environment.

The effort was put together by the mayor's Office of Long-term Planning and Sustainability. On Saturday, city officials announced the tree program, which is to begin this July.

For the next 10 years, the city will plant 23,000 trees each year along city streets, to reach a goal of having a tree in "every single place where it is possible to plant a street tree," Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff said. The remaining will be planted in parks and public lots, while the private sector will also be encouraged to plant trees on their properties as well.

A number of different species will be planted. For each case, foresters assess the sun and shadow levels and other factors to determine the best type for that spot.

Today, New York City has 5.2 million trees, or 24 percent canopy cover. By comparison, Chicago's canopy cover is 11 percent and the rate for Atlanta is 37 percent.

The city said the increase in trees will help cool temperatures, because trees over roads help decrease the near-surface air temperature by 3.5 degrees. They also remove air pollution and reduce ozone, officials said.

The Bloomberg administration will commit another $37.5 million annually to forestry programs, up from $11 million currently, officials said.
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