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Environment

While serving as Chief of Staff to Assembly Member Jonathan L. Bing our office received an honor from the New York League of Conservation Voters for introducing environmentally friendly legislation that helped enable the MTA's Select Bus Program.

As someone who grew up in New York City and State the environment including our City and State parks, greenways such as running and bike paths, and waterways are of integral importance. As a child I grew up playing in Carl Schurz and John Jay parks, and as an adult I've hiked in our State parks with Surprise Lake Camp, biked over 75+ miles of our greenways with Transportation Alternatives, swam across the East River with NYC Swim and in the Hudson River with the New York City Triathlon, and trained everywhere with the Asphalt Green Triathlon team.

As an avid user of our City and States natural resources, you won't find a better advocate for our environment. After all what other candidate would fight to keep the City's rivers clean enough to swim in?

Solution for Environment: Reduce emissions and improve the environment by phasing in congestion pricing.

Submitted by kallos on Sun, 02/05/2012 - 1:01pm
Issue: 
Environment
Solution: 
Reduce emissions and improve the environment by phasing in congestion pricing.
Explanation: 

Phasing in congestion pricing would vastly improve transportation in New York City while we wait for infrastructure improvements to catch up with growth. The Partnership for New York City estimates that eliminating excess traffic congestion would add as much as $4 billion and 52,000 jobs to the regional economy, along with reducing losses of $2 billion in revenue and 8,674 jobs in the manufacturing sector, on an annual basis. Let's renew our effort to bring congestion pricing to New York by allowing Albany legislators greater say in how it is implemented.

Source: 
Former New York City Public Advocate Mark Green, "Change for New York: 100 Ideas for a Better City," 2009.
http://markgreen.com/100#30
Organization: 
Mark Green for New York Public Advocate

Solution for Environment: Improve regional public transportation by keeping infrastructure up to date with regional growth.

Submitted by kallos on Sun, 02/05/2012 - 1:01pm
Issue: 
Environment
Solution: 
Improve regional public transportation by keeping infrastructure up to date with regional growth.
Explanation: 

Even with the most recent bailout, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority will face budget shortfalls in the future. Meanwhile, our transit system continues to carry one-third of the nation's transit passengers who, according to NYPIRG, pay nearly twice as high a percentage of system operative costs than the national average. We must (a) base funding decisions on current ridership, future ridership and perspective City growth, (b) create a dedicated funding stream so that money people think is going to infrastructure improvements does not get spent elsewhere, and (c) give the City and State Comptroller the power to do full audits of the MTA's finances and records.

Source: 
Former New York City Public Advocate Mark Green, "Change for New York: 100 Ideas for a Better City," 2009.
http://markgreen.com/100#31
Organization: 
Mark Green for New York Public Advocate

Solution for Environment: Provide notices regarding traffic delays and service changes.

Submitted by kallos on Sun, 02/05/2012 - 1:01pm
Issue: 
Environment
Solution: 
Provide notices regarding traffic delays and service changes.
Explanation: 

Transportation 2.0 would use technology to provide commuters and businesses with live information regarding traffic delays and service changes. Bringing technology to our transit stations would provide the added benefit of increasing safety by providing cell service in subways; so in the absence of working pay phones on most platforms, if someone sees something, they can say something. And we may not be able to get the trains to always run on time, but imagine if a train sent you a text message or a visual on-platform message that it was running 15 minutes late – or not at all due to flooding or an accident – you could stay at work generating more revenue for your family, business and the economy.

Source: 
Former New York City Public Advocate Mark Green, "Change for New York: 100 Ideas for a Better City," 2009.
http://markgreen.com/100#32
Organization: 
Mark Green for New York Public Advocate