On Demand
Eco-Trains
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Elliot Sander, CEO and executive director of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, and Jonathan Rose, chair of the Blue Ribbon Commission on Sustainability and the MTA, discuss proposals (like using underwater turbines to generate power from the East River's tidal flow) to make the MTA more environmentally friendly.
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I've got a suggestion, one I never hear mentioned (pardon the joke... you'll understand in a moment)... The beeping tones on buses as they raise and lower themselves are often ear-splitting.
And I do mean EAR-SPLITTING. Their volumes vary, but most are way TOO loud and their sound is piercing!
This is NOISE pollution, probably damaging to people's hearing, especially children's, and I've never heard of anyone being injured by a bus's lifting or lowering action.
If a tone MUST be sounded, could not some less grating, screeching, unnerving tone be found?
The MTA could create a greener New York by expanding mass transit in order to get people out of their cars. Why isn't there any serious consideration of the following.
1. Complete a tunnel across the Narrows to link Staten Island. Sure it would be expensive and difficult to do in a down economy, but much of the subway's expansion occurred through down economies.
2. Merge the various transit agencies in order to reduce costs of overhead and eliminate duplication of processes.
3. Related to #2, why not integrate the PATH system into the MTA. The trains that come into the WTC could, with a short extension, link to and run along the number 6 line. The cars on both lines are similar in size. This would create a lot of convenience and shorter commute times for many people.
fewer people are smoking today than ever.
people addicted to nicotine are no different than other substance obusers, and need therapy.
Millions of children grow up in homes where people are not addicted and smoke in moderation
Laws don't change behavior. Individules do.
Maintenance upgrades!
But the Second Avenue subway? More lines in the outer boroughs? Nahhh.
Well, at least this is something they probably won't fall too far behind schedule on...although I'm sure they can find a way.
This is certainly a great iniciative. Meanwhile the "greenness" of New York city's transportation is certainly based on its compacteness more than anything else. What other cities should follow in NY's example is residential density and focus on areas served by trains.
Necessity is the mother of invention: have the MTA/agencies as a whole ever considered investing in research and then selling the resulting products to other cities around the country/world? This in addition to/as an alternative to just purchasing an energy product from a third party.
Here's an idea: solar-powered subways!
Would you please ask your guest what the MTA is doing to upgrade the lighting systems in the subways to modern systems. The stuff they use is 20 years out of date and is using twice as much energy as needed.
#7
That would probably require that you blanket NYC in a shroud of solar cells.
#7--now THAT'S funny!
#8
The subway routes are so incredibly inefficient too...this is like putting a band-aid on a gigantic wound.
Why don't you improve the service for Hudson Valley beyond Poughkeepsie!
I find the arrogance of your guest who answered the caller from hastings on hudson, by being snide and snotty when he wanted to tell him why he had only heard of his problem now, to be pervasive in the MTA and the way they operate...
Replacing their lighting would repay its capital cost in under 2 years at current costs and save over 150 watts per bulb in the system. There must be hundreds of thousands of bulbs! Watt an opportunity!
I'm happy to hear that finally, after decades of our own pilots and other cities leading the way, we are jumping on the bandwagon.
The new sirens attached to the exit doors will adversely affect the hearing of all the little children whose mothers are wheeling them out, not to mention everybody else who uses them. Mark my words.
I'm glad that FINALLY, after the MTA has repeatedly ignored pleas from the Solid waste advisory boards all through the 1990s for collecting recyclables in their stations, they say they will now do it. This is NOT rocket science. They don't have to invent anything. They have a built-in transportation system for the recyclables. Nuff said?
Sustainability is NOT so narrowly defined. We need to push the MTA to look more holistically.
I wonder... do any of these comments that so many so thoughtfully propose on this blog get to those who are on the program. Does Brian ever get to see this?
I just got back from spain. I have to say just the physical appearance of the NYC subway is medieval and very unpleasant to look at. so far in my travels NYC gets ugliest subway award.
Photovoltaic solar cells are not green. It takes 10,000watts of energy to produce one solar cell. The energy payback period on this is 20 to 30 years. The throwing around of this technology is a farce.
the MTA is at "the forefront of our society"?
Is he joking? Has he ridden the subway lately?
Corroding, dirty, loud, without ventilation, absolutely disgusting and unhealthful (compared with, say, the Tube in London, or the U-bahn in Germany). I don't know anyone who really thinks the MTA gives a damn about riders.
I probably should've said subway TRAINS and it would've been more apparent that I was joking.
This "greening" of the MTA is an absolutely ludicrous feel-good initiative designed to garner positive publicity. The MTA should be spending money on improving service and extending service. Getting more people to use the system by improving service and increasing access will do much more to help the environment than adding solar panels to bus stations (or whatever).
I am ashamed whenever I take a foreign visito on our subways. They and the stations are filthy and noisy. The trains are effectively unpoliced with aggressive panhandling and homeless taking shelter there. The trains suffer endless "unaviodable" delays. Construction projects like the 50th st station go on and on for years. I'm told that in Tokyo, you can eat off the floors of the trains. Am I the only one who thinks our system is a disgrace?
By the way, Tokyo has the most extensive rail system in the world, and the commuter rail lines actually serve the city too--at shockingly decent prices. So, on top of the subway service, you have at least 7 other private services all running in harmony. Granted it might get a little crowded, because virtually everyone in the area uses mass transit, it's still something to consider when MTA officials try to brag about how great really aren't.
we really aren't *
There might be lots of opportunities to harness tidal power along the east river and up near Astoria Park heading out into Long Island Sound. The current goes fastest where it is the most narrow. (re: above the tide is very fast at the Verrazzano narrows and that might affect a tunnel construction or maintenance)
If I may put on my 'foamer'(Transit Buff) hat, the greenest Bus still uses fossil fuels to some extent, so, as a long term plan, Light Rail and Trolley Bus should be considered. Re: comment 20 - as long as the MTA is subject to the boom and bust cycles inherent in NY's economy, long range planning (cf: 2d Avenue Subway) will never be a sure thing.
Paulo, I thought it was funny. Then again, I'm pondering the several ironies that the pope was welcomed with a 21-gun salute.
Keep up the good humour.
I am a life long New Yorker and was smug about our transit system until after having lived in Tokyo for two years. Now I'm ashamed of our transit system - loud, dirty, inefficient - 19th century technology, and I’m sorry to say transit employees who could care less and take no ownership of their system.
In Tokyo the subways, during the peak of the morning rush hour, arrive every 90 seconds. The reason that the frequency of arrival is not less than 90 seconds is not a technological one but the length of time it takes to clear the platforms of passengers exiting the station. Compare this to the 10~14 minutes waiting for an L train at 8:00am M-F. The Tokyo subways run an average of 5 minutes apart the rest of the time including weekends.
Shame on you! MTA Chairman Hemmerdinger – your authority has had decades to become a best in class operator and you only striven for mediocrity.
#21, just curious--how much of this situation do you think is connected to an oft-expressed American mentality of "it's my right to drive." With decades of the focus being on the car, private transportation vs. mass transit, etc.; public transportation has and will take a back seat.
This is also evidenced in many towns and cities throughout the US that have no real mass transit at all. The Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area of NC had a huge battle a few years ago over a propsed light rail system. It never made it off the planning table because of those cities' councils and the NC General Assembly.
28 david
staters are selfish, we don't like to share and we think we are special. and some of us want to go when we want to.
we don't think long term.
also the oil companies like it when he give them money.
I have several ideas that MAY be more important to most commuters than GREENING:
SUBWAYS ONLY
1) How about signs on the platforms that tell us when the next train is arriving. I think NYC is the only major city transit system in the world that does not have them.
2) Clean the trains
3) Stations above 116th street that are not falling apart - could you fix those before we placate the upper class that don't ride mass transit.
4) How about brightly lit, clean and better serviced more friendly designed stations.
5) And lastly better scheduling so that standing on the 116th platform waiting for a uptown train one does not wiat longer than 10-15 mintues for a packed train when 2-3 empty or semi-empty trains pass on the express line????
6) Fix some of the service issues and you'll get more people to ride mass transit thus lowering the use of fossil fuels and in effect green probably in a more sigificant way than what is proposed.
30, rob
use the L train
1 we have sighs telling went the next train is coming. i assume they are coming to other lines also.
2 at 8th ave stop there are train cleaner that sweep and mop EVERY train (at least at rush hour, sometimes weekend)
3 there's a lot of work need to bring subways up to par. call the governor let him know.
this is a follow up comment from jack from nassau county.
not only should you consider allowing the creation of safe bicycle paths alongside LIRR tracks, consider the same for metro north and coordinate this with the growing number of bicycle paths i have seen in nyc.
by providing an alternate to the automobile, people can go to work, school etc, and get some healthy exercise as well. other cities provide bicycle racks on their city buses (seattle for example)
perhaps the mta can have designated crosstown streets and north/south avenues in manhattan strictly for zero emission buses and bicyclists (absolutely no cars allowed) as a further incentive to promote safe bicycling. thanks again for an excellent show.
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