FLOODED SUBWAYS
When Hurricane Irene was headed towards New York City, the MTA made the bold choice to shut down the entire subway system, anticipating widespread flooding of the tunnels which could cause significant damage to transit infrastructure. Though our subways escaped harm this time, the flood threat looks to be a harbinger of a future norm — unless we make some changes now. Last week, Columbia, CUNY and Cornell released Responding to Climate Change in New York State, a report commissioned by the…

PREFAB YARDS
SHoP Architects and developer Bruce C. Ratner this week unveiled designs for the first Atlantic Yards tower, a 32-story, 350-unit building that will be the world’s tallest prefabricated steel structure. SHoP has worked with ARUP and XSite Modular to develop a bracing structure that will ensure stability and safety for…

MTA NO-BIN EXPERIMENT
New York City residents are deeply skeptical of a new pilot program designed to reduce litter in subway stations. Garbage cans have been completely removed from two stations, the 8th Street N station in Manhattan and the Main Street 7 station in Queens, in a test to see if their absence…

ZUCCOTTI POPS
Jerold S. Kayden has written two opinion pieces about the spatial and legal ramifications of Occupy Wall Street’s use of Zuccotti Park, a privately-owned public space just north of Wall Street (of the type discussed in our conversation with Raquel Ramati and at our potluck with the Design Trust

On Sunday, September 25, UnionDocs and the Metropolitian Transportation Authority (MTA) co-hosted a screening and discussion of videos from the MTA’s YouTube channel. Since its launch last January, the channel has logged over 900,000 views and now features nearly 100 videos surveying MTA operations from many angles. Sunday night’s discussion, titled “Telling Transit Tales,” was…

ADAPTIVE TRAFFIC
The Department of Transportation has announced a new program to combat traffic congestion in Midtown with a $1.6 million real-time traffic management system: Midtown In Motion. Through a system of microwave sensors, cameras and EZ-Pass readers, DOT will monitor traffic congestion in a 110-square block area from Second to…

PRINTABLE SOLAR PANELS
Solar energy has long been touted as a solution to our unending thirst for cheap energy, but traditional panels have always been difficult and expensive to construct and install. Worse yet, they tend to be ugly. Researchers at MIT have now come up with a way to print solar cells on paper, fabric or plastic, with a process that is easy, cheap and…

DIGITAL ROADMAP
As the digital age descends on NYC, the Bloomberg administration has a plan. Rachel Sterne (the recently appointed 27-year old, first-ever, Chief Digital Officer of New York), recently unveiled the Roadmap for the Digital City, a plan that draws on a 90-day collection of dialogue between the tech community, citizens and the city. Providing…