By Beth Morrissey
People attending an open forum in Bedford-Stuyvesant on PlaNYC, Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s sustainable development plan for the city, expressed concerns that new fare increases for public transportation are at odds with the city’s environmental goals.
Participants in the forum said the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) board’s recent decision to increase fares on subways, buses, and commuter trains discouraged use of public transportation, thus contradicting some of the goals of PlaNYC, which the mayor launched in 2007.
“Two-fifty, that’s five dollars going back and forth. That’s crazy,” said Tyesha London, 22, who works for the Green City Force, a program that teaches urban youth age 18 to 24 how to make New York City more energy efficient.
“It’s crazy because you want to make New York City a more sustainable place, but how can you do that if you making the pay rate for transportation inconvenient?” said London. The approximately 85 people who attended the PlaNYC meeting were asked to participate in moderated discussions of particular PlaNYC-related topics, including housing, food, air pollution, and transportation. Participants in the transportation group included residents of Brownsville, Bedford-Stuyvesant, East New York, Flatbush, Bushwick, and other non-Brooklyn neighborhoods.
Henry Butler, Chairperson of Community Board 3, raised questions in the transportation group regarding congestion pricing, a PlaNYC proposal strongly, but unsuccessfully backed by the mayor, in which cars entering Manhattan on weekdays during business hours – with a few exceptions – would pay an $8 daily fee.
“To me he’s caught in a catch 22,” said Butler of the mayor. “Because he can’t control the board but he’s trying to reduce cars into the city…and with that you have to increase transportation.”
The transportation group also talked about other ideas like improving street safety, adding bus lanes to city streets, and making trains and stations cleaner. Petra Todorovich, Brooklyn resident and urban planner with the Regional Plan Association, suggested that the transportation department could work with the police department to improve street safety. Shanika Sutherland, also of Green City Force, said the MTA could save money by using more energy efficient light bulbs in subway stations and installing solar panels on the above ground stations.
“I think there were about three or four ideas that came out almost immediately that we hadn’t considered as goals that are really critical,” said Steve Caputo, a policy advisor at The Long Term Planning and Sustainability Office who moderated the transportation discussion. “Like having safer transportation, and making it something that all people can use like young people and old people and everyone in between.”
At the end of the meeting, attendees were encouraged to send more ideas via text message to 917-791-3064 and post ideas on the website www.allourideas.com/planyc.
“I thought it was awesome…they wanted to hear what everybody had to say,” said London, adding that she hopes the city will incorporate ideas from the meeting into PlaNYC. “I want to see them actually…put it into motion to make that effort to use the New York people’s ideas.”
The meeting, which took place last Thursday in Bedford-Stuyvesant’s Restoration Hall, is the first in a series of similar events that will be held in all five boroughs by the Long Term Planning and Sustainability Office to obtain community input on the mayor’s initiative to green the city, update its aging infrastructure, and make accommodations for the estimated 1 million additional people who will be living in New York City by the year 2030.
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