News

NEW YORK, NY April 14, 2008 —The Metropolitan Transportation Authority will use power generated by the East River and winds off of the Rockaway peninsula in the coming years to reduce its carbon footprint. Officials said today at Grand Central Terminal the ideas came out of a sustainability commission that has been meeting since September and will give a final report by the end of the year.

REPORTER: The new initiatives will cost about $11.5 million to implement and $7 million a year to operate.

But MTA policy director Ernest Tollerson says that tools such as new water meters will pay for themselves by regulating just how much water is used to wash buses.

TOLLERSON: Once you put in more meters and you standardize that, you quickly recover the cost of putting in that meter because you are using less water.

REPORTER: The MTA says its goal is to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases the current system generates by 30 percent over the next seven years.