The Big (Green) Apple

Crime rates are lower than 50 years ago, and the city has its highest bond rate ever, a workforce with improving health (after smoking and trans-fats were both banned by Bloomberg) and a public school system with steadily improving test scores and graduation rates. Despite this happy state of affairs, however, the city’s mayor, Michael Bloomberg, is still not satisfied. His aim? To make New York a ‘greenprint’ for sustainable development.

Michael Bloomberg has shown more determination in tackling the issue of climate change than almost any other city leader in America. And little wonder: it is estimated that the population of the city will increase by about a further one million people (to a record nine million) by 2030. In a city where resources and infrastructure are already pushed to the limit, this would be a daunting prospect even without the potentially catastrophic impact that global warming will have on the city. “As a coastal city, we’ve got to prepare for the consequences of the global warming that has already occurred, including rising sea levels and the possibility of more intense coastal storms,” says Bloomberg. “And that has already informed the comprehensive emergency response planning that our City revised a year ago. There are unavoidable costs in adapting to, and reversing, climate change.”

The past few years have seen more and more instances of freak weather. As the temperature rises, these storms, typhoons, flash floods and hurricanes will only increase; if the temperature rises to the extent some scientists are predicting, however, the melted ice water could raise the sea level by enough to submerge Ground Zero.

The long-term sustainability of the city is of vital importance to the mayor, who has presented a 25-year vision for New York’s future: a vision that he hopes will be an inspiration to and model for other cities. The mayor’s ‘greenprint’ for transforming the city is the product of PlaNYC, a process directed by the Deputy Mayor for Economic Development and Rebuilding, Dan Doctoroff. PlaNYC began life as an exercise in strategic land use planning to prepare the city for the challenges presented by the addition of a further million people to its population by 2030. But while attempting to address this problem, Doctoroff and his team discovered that it was inherently linked to a number of other issues: transportation, air quality, energy, global warming. The result was a more comprehensive vision for addressing all of the city’s long-term physical and environmental challenges.

To that end, Bloomberg created a Sustainability Advisory Board composed of leaders from New York City’s private, public and non-profit sectors. Town meetings were held with the city’s residents, detailed presentations were made to civic groups and an interactive website was created. New Yorkers were asked to help develop solutions to the challenges of growth, an aging infrastructure and an increasingly embattled urban environment. To respond to the citizens’ requests, an agenda of 127 detailed initiatives were designed to meet 10 major goals, including creating new affordable housing and open space, responsibly meeting the city’s future energy needs and giving New York the cleanest air of any major city in the United States, amongst other initiatives.

As the process continued, the Mayor and his team noticed that virtually all the proposals – whether encouraging transit-oriented housing, improving natural drainage by greening the city streets, or promoting energy conservation in homes, businesses, schools and city buildings – would also have the added advantage of cutting greenhouse gas production. A good thing too, considering that Bloomberg intends for the city to achieve “a 30 percent reduction in global warming emissions by the year 2030 – including a 30 percent reduction in global warming emissions by City government itself over the next 10 years”.

But it’s not before time. Unless the city acts “aggressively”, the population growth that it anticipates (and the ensuing increase in energy consumption) will raise carbon dioxide emissions 25-30 percent above current levels by 2030. To reach their goal of cutting emissions by 30 percent from current levels, an energy conservation plan has been set out containing three principal elements.

The first starts from the 900,000 buildings in New York City, which account for almost 70 percent of the city’s greenhouse gas emissions. A major focus of the plan’s efforts will be encouraging the use of cleaner burning heating fuels, offering incentives for the use of more efficient heating and cooling systems and appliances, and other measures. Some of his provisions are even more ambitious. To pay for this, a $2.50 monthly surcharge will go on electricity bills. He argues that by spending $30 a year until 2015, every household will save $240 a year after that. This bid for energy conservation would be the broadest attack on climate change ever undertaken by an American city.

A second major source of greenhouse gases is the heavily polluting, highly inefficient power plants that generate the city’s electricity. These will be replaced, and renewable power will also be promoted. Bloomberg estimates this will remove 11 million tons of carbon dioxide out of the city’s air each year by the year 2030.

Third is the effect of transportation-related CO2 emissions, which Bloomberg hopes to influence by reducing the number of vehicles on the streets and highways. That will involve expanding the transit system, combined with a three-year trial of congestion pricing. This highly controversial measure has been met with mixed feelings. Bloomberg – originally a congestion-charge skeptic – was converted by the success that similar schemes have seen in London, Stockholm and Singapore. Congestion pricing alone is expected to raise $380 million in its first year – a major step towards funding the increased mass transport and parks Bloomberg is hoping to furnish his city with.

That is, of course, not all. New York also plans to have the first fully hybrid city taxi fleet by 2012. As part of PlaNYC, new emissions and mileage standards for yellow taxicabs have been announced that will lead to a fully hybrid fleet by 2012: the largest, cleanest fleet of taxis on the planet. The new standards will be phased in over a four-year period and will reduce the carbon emissions of New York City’s taxicab and for-hire vehicle fleet by 50 percent during the next decade, and will also save individual operators an average of $10,000 a year in fuel costs. Yahoo! Has donated 10 hybrid taxicabs in recognition of New York’s leadership in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

“In PlaNYC, we set aggressive goals for the taxicab industry and today we’re going to begin meeting those goals,” said Bloomberg. “Implementing tougher standards for the more than 13,000 taxis in this City will provide the same clean air benefits as removing 32,000 privately owned cars from our streets, which will significantly reduce the air pollution that causes childhood asthma. This will also decrease the fuel costs for taxi drivers, making this a win for the public and operators alike.”

The Ford Crown Victoria, the current workhorse of the taxicab fleet, achieves only 14 miles per gallon (mpg). After October 2008, all new vehicles entering the fleet must achieve a minimum of 25mpg (based on EPA city surface street ratings) and, after October 2009, all new vehicles must achieve a minimum of 30mpg. When fully implemented, the new standards are expected to reduce carbon emissions by more than 215,000 tons. Currently there are only 375 hybrid vehicles in the City’s taxi fleet. By October 2008, the number of hybrids in the fleet will triple.

“We expect these new standards will save 22 million gallons of fuel in the first year, and that is only the beginning of what we will be able to accomplish,” said TLC Commissioner Daus. “Thanks to Mayor Bloomberg’s bold vision laid out in PlaNYC, the New York City taxi fleet’s carbon footprint will be lighter than at any point in its 100-year history. The environmental meter is running, and our efforts are paying the fare for a healthier tomorrow.”

It is estimated that increasing fuel efficiency from 14-30mpg will save the average taxi operator more than $10,000 per year. The new fuel efficiency standards will be accompanied by clear guidelines for evaluating the vehicles emissions performance, and for new vehicle specifications that will ensure both passenger comfort and driver safety. Wheelchair accessible taxicabs being brought into service will be exempt from the new fuel economy requirements.

“In the face of climate change, the old ways of doing things are no longer good enough. Mayor Bloomberg’s PlaNYC is an absolutely essential step toward reversing course on climate change and air quality, and I will work as hard as I can to help turn the Mayor’s plan into reality,” said Council member David Yassky. “I applaud Mayor Bloomberg for acting now to turn New York City taxi cabs from part of the problem into part of the solution. New York City’s 13,000 taxi cabs will still be yellow on the outside, but soon they will be green on the inside.”

Others agree. “Putting more clean cabs on New York City streets is an important step in our fight to improve air quality, especially for the one million asthmatics in our city,” said Louise Vetter, President and CEO of the American Lung Association of the City of New York. “By turning our yellow cabs green, we can put New York City miles ahead on the road to clean air.”