Manhattan Flood Zones Under 4-Foot Sea Level Rise | LDEO & Civil Engineering, Columbia University | via transportationnation.org

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 New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA). The document is the result of three years of study into the potential local impact of sea level rise, temperature fluctuation and precipitation increases on infrastructure, economy and public health. The report offers adaptation and preparation recommendations for policymakers, managers and researchers. (Read more in The New York Times.)

Meanwhile, Andrea Bernstein at Transportation Nation points us to Flooded Bus Barns and Buckled Rails, an August 2011 Federal Transit Administration (FTA) report addressing climate change adaptation needs specifically in the realm of public transportation. Bernstein talks with Columbia professor and transit and climate change expert Klaus Jacob, who has worked with the MTA to model some worrisome future scenarios, and MTA Climate Adaption Specialist Projjal Dutta, who is working to implement preventative strategies. Of course, the MTA’s financial woes are well known, and these are costly measures — but Irene’s threat demonstrated that the possible impacts of climate change are closer at hand than we like to believe, and if you think mitigation strategies are expensive, imagine what would happen if we do nothing. According to Jacob, recovering from a full flooding of the subway system could take as long as 29 days, a timespan that would affect economic activity in the city to the tune of $4 billion a day.

photo via civiccenter.cc

BEFORE I DIE I WANT TO…
Candy Chang, public installation artist, designer, planner, TED Fellow, Omnibus contributor and part of the team that designed urbanomnibus.net and our 50 Ideas for the New City posters, has taken her project Before I Die to cities around the world. The project presents a huge chalkboard, painted on a neglected or underutilized wall, repeatedly stenciled with the sentence “Before I die I want to _____”, entreating passersby to fill in the blanks. Chang’s intention is to help people remember what is important to them and, in some small way, to acquaint people with their too-anonymous neighbors. Over the past few weeks, the corner of Adams St. and Fulton Street Mall in Downtown Brooklyn has joined the ranks of New Orleans, Amsterdam, Querétaro, Lisbon, San Diego, Almaty, Ponta Delgada, Portsmouth as temporary home to Before I Die. From the looks of these photos from the Civic Center website (the design firm Chang started with James A. Reeves), Downtown Brooklynites aren’t short on hopes and dreams. Go check it out for yourself while you can and add your own aspirations to the jam-packed wall — the installation, on the construction boards of the future Brooklyn Shake Shack, will only be up through next Tuesday, November 29th.

© Bruce Davidson / Magnum Photos | via todayspictures.slate.com

BUILDING THE VERRAZANO-NARROWS
For the past couple months, Slate has been presenting an incredible series of photographs from the collection of Magnum Photos. This week, we were treated to a series of the construction of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, a vital piece of transit infrastructure whose lasting impact on Staten Island, New York City and the metropolitan region we explored in the third of our City of Systems videos. These shots document the human side of that story, with poignant portraits of construction workers assembling the “142,000 miles of twisted wire… and 8,000,000 bolts and rivets” that made this engineering marvel possible.

IS ROBERT MOSES FINALLY DEAD?
The Verrazzano pictures don’t just chronicle workers toiling on a massive public works project, but testify to an era when infrastructure investment was a political priority. The bridge was one of the final achievements of Robert Moses, whose legacy has been picked over and argued since his less than ceremonious expulsion from power in 1968. Beyond his reputation as power greedy and insensitive to the needs of neighborhoods, no one disputes that he embodied an era of consistent investment in infrastructure on the part of American governments at all scales. The end of that era, argues Matt Chaban in the Observer, begs serious questions about our current political climate’s failure to produce civic works responsive to contemporary needs. He takes Governors Christie and Cuomo to task for what he perceives as short-sightedness, and he calls out other leaders across the country who have done what Moses once thought impossible: they have pulled up stakes on active projects, prioritizing short-term political gain over jobs creation, regional planning and national competitiveness.

EVENTS and TO DOs

SEED AWARDS: The Social, Economic, Environmental Design (SEED) Network, a group of individuals and organizations dedicated to building and supporting a culture of civic responsibility and engagement in the built environment and the public realm, has announced the second annual SEED Awards for Excellence in Public Interest Design. The awards aim to showcase and promote projects that help create socially, economically and environmentally healthy communities, judged according to SEED metrics. Submit a project for consideration before January 16, 2012. Six winners will receive a $1,000 cash prize and an all-expenses-paid trip to present at the Structures for Inclusion conference in March, an annual event dedicated to highlighting the social and economic impacts of design, and will be included in a documentary series by The UpTake. Deadline: January 16, 2012. Find more info here.

WHERE IS NEW YORK?: Last week, Senator Chuck Schumer and NY State Senator Daniel Squadron announced that $14 million had been secured for the redevelopment of Pier 42 into a public park. On Monday, Columbia University’s Urban Planning Program is hosting a panel discussion addressing questions of the future of Pier 42, the role of community plans in urban development and how to activate civic participation. The panel includes three of the authors of the 2009 community plan A People’s Plan for the East River Waterfront, Jason Cheng (CAAAV Organizing Asian Communities), Anne Frederick (Hester Street Collaborative) and Damaris Reyes (GOLES), moderated by Kaja Kuehl (GSAPP). Monday, November 28, 6:30pm. Wood Auditorium, Avery Hall, Columbia University GSAPP. Free and open to the public. Find more info here.

Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in 1969 | via nydailynews.com

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
The Omnibus is signing off until Monday. Have a wonderful holiday weekend!

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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 the modular building at a reasonable cost. The use of prefabrication reduces waste, costs and construction time — which all sounds good, except to workers who might see fewer jobs or lower wages than promised, adding more friction to the project’s already contentious debate about jobs. Though the research and technological development of this bracing system is sure to change the game for the application of modular construction moving forward (the tallest prefab structure currently standing is 25 stories, in Wolverhampton, England), Ratner may still choose to build this first tower using more conventional methods — though the Times reminds us that there are fourteen more buildings planned for the site, including a 50-story structure expected to be the second tower built, any or all of which might be constructed modularly. For more, see The New York Times, with more renderings on CurbedNY, and more questions about time frame, affordable housing and jobs raised by this latest announcement on Atlantic Yards Report.

The 10 megapolitan clusters and 23 megapolitan areas of the contiguous 48 states by 2040 | Adapted for Places from map by Grace Bjarnson, Metropolitan Research Center, University of Utah / Brookings Mountain West

MEGAPOLITAN AMERICA
Is the U.S. a nation of megapolitan regions? This week in Places, Robert E. Lang and Arthur C. Nelson question the misconception that America is a low density country in an effort to argue for planning policies that more accurately reflect our nation’s settlement patterns. By excluding park lands and areas that are totally unpopulated from the density calculations, they’ve identified ten megaregions that encompass the majority of the population, and are continuing to grow, with densities that rival Western Europe and even Asia in parts. Recognizing these clusters of economic activity and population density for what they are, the authors argue, calls for a reexamination of resource management, transportation planning and regional governance. Read the full piece.

Subway Construction | photo by Flickr user MTAPhotos.

MTA BLITZES
NYC Transit and the MTA are offering a new option to subway riders annoyed by weekend service delays and re-routings due to maintenance and construction. The MTA, in a plan being presented to their board’s transit committee next week, wants to experiment with shutting down full line segments on consecutive weekday nights (10pm to 5am) for repair “blitzes” that would concentrate and shorten inconvenience while speeding up construction time, improving worker safety and reducing costs. It’s a drastic change for a city used to 24/7 subway service, but a few nights of suspended service compared to weeks or months of weekend service changes seems like a reasonable tradeoff. Read more in the Daily News and on 2nd Ave. Sagas.

MAKING ROOM and THE GRID EXTENDED
Last week, Fred Bernstein published a review of our recent Making Room symposium. Continuing the coverage this week, Michael Kimmelman published a follow up in The New York Times‘ Critic’s Notebook. He reviews a couple of the projects more intensely, but focuses primarily on the work of Jonathan Kirschenfeld in the Bronx. He uses Kirschenfeld’s most recent Single Room Occupancy (SRO) project as a lens through which to view the difficulties of building an SRO in the city, the necessity of this housing type, as well as the neighborhood’s reaction to SROs. Read the full article here, and check out the videos on the Making Room website of the symposium if you didn’t make it.

Another of the Architectural League’s special projects that will surely capture the interest on all the urban enthusiasts reading the Omnibus these days is the League’s upcoming exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York (MCNY), The Unfinished Grid: Design Speculations for Manhattan. Eight visionary proposals, selected by a distinguished jury from over 120 submissions to the League’s international Call for Ideas, will be on view from December 5th, in a show that complements MCNY’s historical exhibition The Greatest Grid: The Master Plan for Manhattan: 1811-2011. While we get ready to contemplate the grid’s impact on the past, present and future of New York, ExtendNY has been busy applying the grid’s locational logic to every single point on the surface of the Earth. Imagine, as in the image below, if the ordinal system of streets and avenues made it all the way to Houston:

The Intersection of S 23,441 St and 5,484 Ave in a hypothetical extension of the Manhattan Street Grid

EVENTS and TO DOs

URBAN SUSTAINBILITY IN THE AGE OF CLIMATE JUSTICE: Drawing from his personal research in the metro Phoenix area, Andrew Ross, professor of Social and Cultural Analysis at NYU, will discuss issues pertaining to sustainability in core urban centers. Focusing on key concepts related to eco-friendly design in cities such as water management, urban growth, pollution and energy supply, he will show that solutions to climate change and efforts to create sustainable communities are fundamentally social rather than technical. Tonight, Friday, November 18, 5pm, at The Cooper Union.

BLOCK BY BLOCK: NEW YORK STREET HISTORIANS: On Sunday, UnionDocs will present a conversation among some of New York’s “modern-day storytellers… [whose] work is part of a tradition of ‘unofficial,’ ‘informal,’ underground’ and ‘alternative’ histories” of the city. The panel, curated by Nathan Kensinger, will include author Kevin Walsh of Forgotten New York; location scout Nick Carr of Scouting NY; urban explorer Moses Gates of All-City New York and walking tour guide Cindy VandenBosch of UrbanOyster. Sunday, November 20, 7:30pm, at UnionDocs.

GUIDE TO CONTEMPORARY NEW YORK CITY ARCHITECTURE: Author and architect John Hill, best known for his blog A Daily Dose of Architecture, has published a new guide to more than 200 new buildings that have come to New York City’s streets in the last decade or so. To celebrate the launch of the Guide to Contemporary New York City Architecture, Van Alen Books will host a party on Monday, November 21st. But first, Hill is offering a free copy of the book to the winner of his architecture trivia quiz on his website. Today’s the last day to enter — take the quiz by 11:59pm to qualify. Monday, November 21, 7pm, at Van Alen Books.

BRACKET CALL 3 – CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: As part of their mission to encourage new forms of thinking revolving around cities, Bracket is constantly inviting the public to contribute to a platform of ideas based around the intersection of architecture, environment and digital culture. Their third issue, entitled Extremes, will explore the architectural, technological and infrastructural mechanisms that enable cities to function and, crucially, to manage an increasing variety and frequency of economic, ecological, infrastructural and social crises. February 20, 2012, is the deadline for submissions, via Bracket’s website.

The Roundup keeps you up to date with topics we’ve featured and other things we think are worth knowing about.

CityBench | photo via streetsblog.org

BENCHES!
Weary pedestrians take note. This week, DOT commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan introduced CityBench, a PlanNYC project to install 1,000 new benches on the sidewalks of New York City. The benches will strategically be located adjacent to major transportation nodes that mostly attract seniors and mobility impaired or physically disabled individuals. They also will enable social encounters across local communities and will bring people together in a collective effort to improve their own neighborhoods, as local residents can help determine the location of the benches simply by calling 311. Meanwhile, as part of their “Building of the Day” series, the folks at the Archtober blog reminded us of the Rogers Marvel-designed flood mitigation streetscape installations, already in place in certain locations around the city. In response to subway shutdowns caused by intense storms back in 2007, the MTA and the DOT were charged with finding a way to prevent similar service interruptions in the future. The benches serve a utilitarian double function as they manage overflow depths and provide outdoor seating for pedestrians.

Photo by Flickr user SpecialKRB | via secondavenuesagas.com

7 TRAIN TO SECAUCUS
Mayor Bloomberg has generated some buzz this week with his apparent support of a proposal to extend the 7 line, under the Hudson, to Secaucus, New Jersey. The plan was first floated after New Jersey Governor Chris Christie killed plans for the ARC Tunnel last year. Details are still fuzzy, with the city’s plan only in draft form and not yet formally released to the public, and though city officials claim funding could be shared by the City, the State, NJTransit, the MTA and the Port Authority, some of those parties are already distancing themselves from the idea. The $10 billion plan is already drawing criticism and skepticism, even though nothing concrete has been announced. Check out Second Avenue Sagas, which has been keeping a close eye on the topic, for the latest.

PARKING REFORM
Streetsblog has been reporting this week on some potential parking reforms under consideration at the Department of City Planning that would tighten loopholes in the policies that determine parking maximums in Manhattan’s core. Parking maximums were implemented in response to a series of lawsuits brought against the city after the passage of the Clean Air Act in 1970. But the research studies come from DCP appear to be flawed, weakening the agency’s argument, and any proposed parking reforms will no doubt be challenged by opponents, such as the Real Estate Board of New York, which lobbies for the removal of parking limits already in effect. Meanwhile, in a seemingly contradictory move, the DCP has also expressed interest in removing the link between the existing parking maximums and the Clean Air Act, a connection that Noah Kazis describes as “the ultimate guarantee that the parking rules will remain in place and be upheld.” For more about parking reform and the potential future of the DCP plan, stay tuned to Streetsblog.

EVENTS AND TO DOs

The Civilians — Tonight at Joe’s Pub: Tonight, Friday, October 28, theater company The Civilians (whom Omnibus readers might remember from Brooklyn at Eye Level, a production about Atlantic Yards in 2009) will perform a one-night-only cabaret of monologues and songs on the topic of Occupy Wall Street. The Civilians team has been down at Zuccotti Park “talking to the 99% about the current demonstrations, our government, the economy and the future,” and tonight they’ll turn those conversations into a performative investigation of “the current exercise of democracy that will mark our nation’s history.” Buy tickets here or watch a livestream of the event here.

Urbanized at IFC: Last month we spoke with Gary Hustwit about his new film Urbanized on the eve of its US premiere at the closing night of Urban Design Week. For everyone who was unable to make that screening, the film is returning to New York for a week-long engagement at IFC Cinemas, until November 2nd. Don’t miss this chance to see this inspiring overview of some of the innovative thought and action addressing some of the most complex challenges facing our cities and our planet.

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screengrab of Examining MetroCard Usage from wsj.com

EXAMINING METROCARD USAGE
The Wall Street Journal has sifted through a year’s worth of data about MetroCard use, recently released by the MTA, to see what they could find out about how people move around New York. By breaking down what kinds of cards (unlimiteds, pay-per-rides, senior discount) are used where, patterns emerge across demographics and neighborhoods. A high percentage of senior discount MetroCards swiped at a station suggests an older population, and the variation in use of 30-day-unlimited cards versus pay-per-ride cards tells a story of where commuters go as opposed to visitors. The dataset also coincides with the most recent fare hike, which allows for additional analysis into how the cost increase has affected ridership city-wide as well as ways it has disproportionately affected people of lower income levels. Read more about the analysis here, or head straight to the interactive map to explore for yourself.

EAST RIVER FERRY EXCEEDS EXPECTATIONS
When East River Ferry service launched early this summer, the city was optimistic that New Yorkers would take to the waters for a more pleasant commute away from subway crowds and service changes, but detractors claimed that waterborne travel was a flash in the pan, noting a drop in ridership once a month-long free pilot period ended. But now, word is that ferry use has exceeded expectations, drawing twice as many riders as anticipated (on weekends, ridership is six times higher than projected). Ferry operators are eager to expand service in response to enthusiasm and demand from both residents and tourists, and both the operators and the City agree that ferry service has the potential to bring economic activity and aid development in areas along the route. But city officials cite limited financial resources as a significant obstacle, and some are waiting until cold weather sets in to determine whether adding capacity year-round makes sense. Read more in The New York Times and The Brooklyn Paper.

Image by Massachusetts Institute of Technology via theatlanticcities.com

CAT SCANS FOR CITIES
Improved energy efficiency and reduced environmental impact are topics that dominate contemporary discourse about our built environment and urban spaces. Now, cities have a new tool to properly identify existing problems and better understand how to address them. A group at the MIT Field Intelligence Lab is advancing the use of “energy diagnostic imaging,” inspired by medical diagnostic scans like MRIs and CAT scans. Infrared cameras capture differences in energy use in the urban landscape in “thermal portraits” that divulge where insulation is failing or excess energy is being produced. Pinpointing the source of the inefficiency allows for more accurate and effective solutions, and a healthier city. Read more on The Atlantic Cities.

NEW ZONING FOR NEW YORK
The 1906 and 1916 zoning ordinances in New York City were landmark policies that combined use zoning and form zoning, and were incredibly forward thinking for their time, setting the standards for cities around the country. But our zoning ordinances, which have enormous impact on determining the form of our built environment, haven’t been comprehensively rethought for 50 years. Last week, during the Municipal Art Society’s second annual MAS Summit for New York City, a panel of zoning experts convened for “A New Zoning Resolution for the 21st Century: Its Necessity and Potential” to discuss the ways New York’s regulations don’t align with the changing needs of its residents and what could be done to make them better. Touching on land use codes, environmental review processes and contextual zoning, the conversation also focused on housing issues, such as the restrictive definition of what a “family” is according to zoning code. These topics were highlighted by panelist Jerilyn Perine, the executive director of the Citizens Housing & Planning Council (and our partner in Making Room, the project we introduced earlier this month to address how we can make New York’s housing more responsive to the ways we live now). For more coverage of the panel, check out Streetsblog.

Video of “Rebuilding Crumbling Infrastructure” with Chris Ward, Vishaan Chakrabarti and Madelyn Wills from masnycsummit201

REGION IN CRISIS
Also at the MAS Summit, outgoing Port Authority Executive Director Chris Ward expressed some big ideas for New York. Calling the New York metro area a region in “economic and environmental crisis,” he emphasized the need for the city to wean itself off its dependence on truck transport and instead advocated the expansion of freight rail service — a topic we explored in depth earlier this week. Equally transformative was his vision for the Brooklyn waterfront and Governors Island. According to Ward, the success of Governors Island rests upon moving the activity of the Red Hook Container Terminal further south, to the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal, and rethinking the use of different portions of Brooklyn’s waterfront, focusing instead on recreation and transportation to spur development. For more on Ward’s ideas from the Summit, as well as a recap of frequent Omnibus contributor Vishaan Chakrabarti’s thoughts on the advantages of intense densification for New York from the same session, click here. And to learn about Patrick Foye, Governor Cuomo’s choice to run the Port Authority when Ward steps down at the end of this month, click here.

MTA MANUFACTURING
Chris Ward’s proposal to shift industrial use out of Red Hook doesn’t mean the city is ready to abandon industry in the five boroughs. In fact, efforts are strong to restore manufacturing capabilities to some key sites. Building the Future, a conference organized a few weeks ago by “a coalition of union interests, policy organizations and sustainable-living advocates,” met to discuss options for encouraging the return of manufacturing to both New York City and State. One proposal: manufacturing for the MTA. The city’s public transportation system is in a constant state of disrepair — as many things that are loved and used constantly often are — but the production of repair parts and new vehicles is increasingly contracted to facilities out of state. Returning MTA manufacturing and repair to New York would be a boon for the economy and the job market, so what’s holding the MTA back from staying local? The buildings still exist, the workers are still here, but the money isn’t. Both the city and the state have decreased funds towards the MTA in the past three decades, and the proposals set forth by Building the Future would require unavailable public funds. Read more in The New York Times.

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L-R: Jeremy Soffin, JP Chan and Chi-hui Yang at Telling Transit Tales | Photo by Aubrey Gallegos, courtesy of UnionDocs

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 organized and moderated by curator and film scholar Chi-hui Yang and included MTA Director of Media Relations Jeremy Soffin and Manager of Strategic Initiatives and Chief Videographer JP Chan.

Soffin and Chan have integrated the role and purpose of the YouTube channel with the MTA’s larger public relations overhaul. Working on a modest budget, they conceptualized and created what they term “leaner” videos. Moving the MTA away from more corporate documentary styles, Chan and Soffin replaced the talking heads with whomever was in charge of the specific project, be it disaster clean-up or changing the lights in the ceiling of Grand Central Station. They place an increased value on cinematic aesthetics, shooting only in HD and at 24 frames per second, and capitalize on the MTA’s expansive resources both in content and dramatic location. They hope the feel, length and watchability of these pieces will set them apart from other video content that the MTA has produced in the past, and corporate video more generally, expanding the audience and increasing transparency into the bureaucracy of the MTA.

The conversation was arranged in three sections, each following a large theme within the MTA’s body of work. The first section of films was entitled “Why Things Are.” These offer an opportunity for the MTA to visually explain new policies and introduce new key-figures to the public. When Jay Walder, the new (at the time) CEO took charge, he used an MTA video as a way to discuss both his background and his specific vision for the future of the MTA. This type of video is also used for direct and at times apologetic explanations for shifts in service. A recent example came after Hurricane Irene, when Chan traveled north to meet with Frederick Chidester, the line superintendent for Metro-North Railroad’s Hudson and West of Hudson Lines. The visual narrative paired with Chidester’s explanation becomes an incredibly successful method of explaining why the tracks on the Port Jervis line will take months to fix.

The second section, “How Things Work,” explores unsung and inaccessible spaces and topics by tapping the knowledge of MTA employees. This ranges from an animated short that explains the origins of the subway annotation system to a number of city symphony-style pieces that explore the city. This series, Chan noted, is where he tries to bring a narrative bend to the films. For example, by closely documenting the progress of the Second Avenue subway, Chan reveals the nuts-and-bolts story of how subway construction happens while also informing viewers about the MTA’s broader service expansion plans.

The final section, “The Culture, History and People of the MTA,” includes archival films, character studies and event pieces. Whether atop the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge banding young Peregrine falcons or tracing the route of the New York City Marathon, this series opens windows into the wide variety of activities that take place in MTA-controlled spaces. When asked about these pieces, Chan lit up, promising that more character studies are in the works and will explore topics in greater depth. He listed the archival films as his personal favorites, citing their ability to let the MTA show a lighter side, and noted that they are among the most popular videos on the channel — an educational video about the consequences of graffiti vandalism from the 1980s is the second most-viewed entry, and has been frequently re-blogged (often by pro-graffiti websites, and often commenting on its near-ridiculous message and soundtrack).

At the end of the day, the MTA’s YouTube channel is all about being “cheap and cheerful” and bringing a more intimate understanding of one of New York City largest and most important agencies. That importance was something both the audience and the panel spoke of often, and not just because so many of us rely on the system to travel through the city. New Yorkers identify themselves with the subway lines they use, and track neighborhood transition by when they’ve frequented which stops. What does it mean to live off the L line today as opposed to 20 years ago? How do you experience the city differently if you travel across a bridge every day rather than take the train? The MTA helps define how we live and move in our city, and the agency’s effort to make the mechanics and motivations of their work accessible through a platform like YouTube is worth noticing.

Meg Kelly is a researcher and designer. As a Fulbright Fellow, she recently completed “Tracing Shifts of Place: Migration, Identity and Landscape in Dharavi,” a year-long oral history project that investigated and documented the physical, political and cultural landscape of one of Asia’s largest and most complex informal communities through the eyes of its youth. She is a former project associate of Urban Omnibus and a current collaborator at UnionDocs. 

Correction: An earlier version of this article misattributed comments about past video content produced by the MTA to JP Chan. 

The views expressed here are those of the author only and do not reflect the position of Urban Omnibus editorial staff or the Architectural League of New York.

In late 2013, the MTA will complete a 2-mile extension of the 7 line, from its current terminus at Times Square to 34th Street and 11th Avenue. Improving transit access to the far west side of Manhattan is part of a far-reaching City plan to activate the Hudson Yards area, an “under-utilized” neighborhood in Manhattan roughly bounded by West 43rd Street, West 28th Street, Eighth Avenue and the Hudson River, with commercial, residential, cultural and public space development. The area is currently served by buses — including the M42, which received the shameful Pokey Award last year for being the slowest bus in New York — but subway access is as far away at Times Square or Penn Station. But in a time of limited financial resources and other pending transit projects that would serve already-bustling communities with comparable transportation expansion needs, how was the decision made to extend the 7 line?

In spring 2011, Alexandra Woolsey Puffer and Jeff Maki, as teaching artists for the Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP), posed that very question to a group of ninth, tenth and eleventh graders. CUP is a nonprofit organization that uses art and design to improve public participation in shaping the places where we live. Fast-Tracked is the latest in CUP’s “Urban Investigations,” a series of project-based after-school programs that ask high school students to explore fundamental questions about how the city works and translate their findings into multimedia teaching tools for audiences in the arts and social justice professions. For Fast-Tracked, they worked with students from the New Design High School on the Lower East Side of Manhattan who are participating in College Now, a free City University of New York program designed to prepare New York City’s public high school students for success in college. Over the course of 15 weeks, the students, led by the team from CUP, investigated how transportation planning works by talking to stakeholders, researching policy and financing, and pounding the pavement. Here, Woolsey Puffer and Maki share their students’ story of the 7 line extension and what they learned about who determines the shape and flow of our public transportation. — V.S.

Students design a subway system for aliens (L) and for pirates (R)

WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES A SUBWAY MAKE?
What’s the connection between subways and (re)development? Which comes first, the subway or the people? And why doesn’t the bus get any love? These are the questions that formed the basis of our CUP Urban Investigation in collaboration with ninth, tenth and eleventh grade students who are part of the College Now program at the New Design High School.

We began our investigation by exploring the fundamentals of mass transit. We posed the question to our students: is a subway system built for aliens the same subway system a pirate would want to use? Different riders want to visit different places, and everyone has his or her own idea of the path the subway should follow and the stops it should make. With 8 million people living in New York, there is no easy solution. Because transit needs to serve so many different types of riders, the name of the game is tradeoffs.

Access to transit, for businesses and for residents, is access to opportunity. Subways bring people to places they need to go — for work, for fun, to eat, to get home — and living close to transit increases options for all of those activities. But the longer the journey takes, the less practical it becomes, especially early in the morning or late at night, when transit service is less frequent.

By analyzing where subway stations are located in their own neighborhoods, how they are used and how they impact their surroundings, the students recognized the importance of efficient, reliable public transportation in everyday life. From that basic understanding, we began to look closely at one new subway development currently underway in New York: the extension of the 7 train westward, from its current final stop at Times Square to 34th Street and 11th Avenue.

By December 2013, this $2.1 billion 7 line extension will take riders to Hudson Yards, a 26-acre “under-utilized” area on the far west side of Manhattan. If you visit the area today, you’ll find check-cashing stops, parking lots, car repair garages, the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel and the Javits Convention Center. Few people live there and at first there does not appear to be strong demand for a new subway station. “This is the middle of nowhere,” summarized Shadiq Williams, a student at New Design High School. But a proposed redevelopment of the area will transform the MTA’s West Side Rail Yard into a multi-use residential and commercial complex — and improved access to transit is a key part of the redevelopment plan.

The Hudson Yards redevelopment area. The current/future route of the 7 line (solid/dashed yellow) and the newly redeveloped High Line (green).

WHO DECIDES WHERE THE SUBWAY GOES?
So, did (re)development follow from the plan to extend the subway, or did the subway follow the development? We turned to four people with markedly different viewpoints on transportation planning and real estate development to find out how the decision was made to extend the 7 train to Hudson Yards — and ended up with many different answers to the questions of who decides where the subway goes and how those choices are made.

Steven Spinola, president of the Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY) and a former deputy mayor of economic development, told us about the tradeoffs politicians are required to make when allocating limited financial resources. “Do we spend it on police? On education? On infrastructure? You spend it on all of them,” he explained, “but in what proportion? It’s a judgment call, but that’s what government people are elected to do.” When deciding how much to spend on improving mass transit, politicians must consider the broader implications of the proposed project. For Spinola, the redevelopment of areas like Hudson Yards and improved subway access to the neighborhood help create what he referred to as “another infrastructure” — namely, office space — and can generate construction jobs during a tough economic climate.

Students interview REBNY President Steven Spinola (L) and Pratt Center for Community Development Director of Policy Joan Byron (R)

We got a very different perspective on the issue when we talked to Joan Byron, Director of Policy, and Elena Conte, Organizer for Public Policy Campaigns, at the Pratt Center for Community Development in Brooklyn, where transportation is a social justice issue. “The short answer is that the MTA decides. But the bigger question is, who wields the most influence over the MTA?” Byron said. “Who has power over legislators? Those folks have the most input.” Byron and Conte noted that lower-income residents of the city typically don’t have a strong voice in transportation planning issues, particularly in comparison to real estate developers, and are often left with slower, less-reliable transit options.

An imbalance in efficient transit access is one of the reasons Byron and Conte are strong supporters of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT). BRT is bus service that acts like a subway, with dedicated travel lanes and platforms for efficient entry and exit. Just like the subway, you pay your fare before getting on the bus. BRT is more practical and cost-effective to build and operate than the subway — $1 million per mile to build here in New York City, as opposed to an approximate $1 billion per mile cost to build a subway — so why isn’t there more BRT in New York?

To investigate why the MTA prioritizes specific transit modes for certain sites we turned to Mark Schiffman, vice president of MTA Capital Construction, the department responsible for “mega projects,” such as the 7 line extension, the Fulton Street Transit Center and the Second Avenue subway. Mark showed us renderings of the proposed development for Hudson Yards and maps of where the subway is being extended underground, and addressed some of our questions about the new station and the process of deciding where the subway goes.

Students meet with MTA Capital Construction VP Mark Schiffman (L) and DCP consultant Sandy Hornick (R)

“It used to be that one individual, such as Robert Moses, would determine in large measure where a public works project would go,” Schiffman told us. If that one person preferred highways and bridges to public transit, for instance, then priority was given to building roads. Today, it’s harder to figure out exactly who decides; it is a process with many players and multiple steps. One key piece of the process is the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), which, as its name suggests, identifies the potential effects a project will have on the environment of the city — traffic flow, patterns of light and shadow, ecology, infrastructure and more. An EIS is required by the federal government for any project that receives federal funds. But, Schiffman pointed out, no federal funds are being used for the 7 line extension. The MTA saw an opportunity to fast-track the development by financing the project with bonds. Yet the MTA still chose to undergo the EIS process, a decision made, Schiffman told us, “to prevent one individual from playing king.”

Sandy Hornick, a consultant to the New York City Department of City Planning, elaborated on what Mark Schiffman introduced to us: the EIS process, ULURP (the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, a public review process for zoning changes), and the “creative financing” of the project that, as Schiffman described, would “fast-track” its development. Hornick explained that the 7 line extension is being funded through municipal bonds rather than state or federal monies, which come with restrictions and long-term financial unpredictability. Distilling the complex financial processes down to their essence, Hornick summarized: “All of this development will generate a lot of revenue. And we can borrow against this future revenue and use those bonds to pay for the subway.” Other transit projects that are funded by the federal or state government receive money over a certain period of time, after which they have to hope that funding will continue so that they can proceed with construction. With this project, as Schiffman said, “the money is in the bank, so we have certainty that we’ll be able to build.”

Creating the timeline

BACK IN THE CLASSROOM AND OUT ON THE STREET
Back in the classroom, we had our field notes, the recordings and transcriptions of our interviews, and an understanding of a new vocabulary we had encountered when talking to our interviewees. Now, we had to make sense of it all. What did our stakeholders tell us about the decision-making process? What are the issues at play? The alternatives? What can we do as citizens to affect the process?

To put things in perspective, the students created a timeline. From the transcripts, we cut out process-related quotes from each of our four interviewees and sorted them chronologically, from the very beginning of the project to the present, to help us understand what actually happened across organizations and from different perspectives.

Newly informed, we decided to revisit Hudson Yards and visualize the complete process of the 7 line extension in real space. We identified “six steps” to the project: Planning, Analysis/Scoping, Financing, Rezoning (ULURP), Agreement/Memo of Understanding, and Construction. With student-drawn placards that illustrated these six phases in hand, we organized a “process-ion” along the path of the subway extension — starting at 8th Avenue and 41st Street, continuing across 41st Street to 11th Avenue, and then turning south to 11th Avenue and 34th Street. We marked each of the six steps above ground, while tracing the path of the new subway tunnel beneath our feet.

Walking the Line, the 7 line process-ion

Fast-Tracked “Process-ion” by the Center for Urban Pedagogy

The final installment of our Urban Investigation was to share the story of the 7 line extension with a larger audience. We created a newspaper to inform others about what we had learned. We included quotes from our stakeholders, our own thoughts on the project, and the drawings we created to represent the six steps of the process. The newspaper — “This is a Story of the 7 Line Extension and the Hudson Yards Redevelopment Project” — will be distributed along the 7 line and beyond. (Click here to download a PDF copy.)

Printing the newspaper

Our exploration of transportation planning in New York City was full of surprises. What surprised our students the most was the fact that there is no public vote. The messiness of real-world politics, as we learned from each interview, was a lesson in the constraints and tradeoffs that need to be made in government and public policy.

More, though, than the process of figuring out who decides, we learned that behind government process there is an entire team of dedicated public servants (and lobbyists and advocates) who are willing and even excited to talk about their work. At a stage in life where the students are trying out their adult selves, it is important to find ways to practice the role of “engaged citizen.” Elected officials really do owe us all their time and accountability — especially in cases where public input is often limited to community boards composed of appointed officials.

One student remarked that transportation issues became more legible to her when she traveled from Queens to Red Hook for a summer internship at Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez’s office. She said that the trip took longer than she had hoped it would each day, and there weren’t adequate transportation options. Her participation in this investigation into transit planning had heightened her awareness of the gaps in efficiency in her own commute and helped her imagine how to create change. We hope that by helping our students understand public process a little better, they will be more likely to take an active role in their own communities and help ensure that a diversity of voices and interests are represented as our city’s policies and plans are made.

Fast-Tracked is a collaboration of CUP Teaching Artists Alexandra Woolsey Puffer and Jeff Maki with CUP staff and students from College Now at New Design High School: Sarai Arroyo, Kharee Boyd, Lawrence Daise, Juan Garcia, Steven Meijas, Isaiah Ortiz, Dahyana Santos, Aldo Sorcia, Ronex Tse and Shadiq Williams. We’d like to thank our student crew who spent 15 weeks after school to find out who decides where the subway goes.

Creating materials for the newspaper

Presenting the final newspaper at the High Line

All photos courtesy of Jeff Maki and Alexandra Woolsey Puffer for the Center for Urban Pedagogy.

Jeff Maki is an artist-programmer in New York City and a principal collaborator with Publicworks Office. Jeff writes about the legibility of urban infrastructure and advises public and private organizations on the future of digital cities.

Alexandra Woolsey Puffer is an artist-designer in New York City and a principal collaborator with Publicworks Office. Her interests include social systems and symbolic capital.

The views expressed here are those of the authors only and do not reflect the position of Urban Omnibus editorial staff or the Architectural League of New York.

High Line Rink | Image via Friends of the High Line and UNIQLO

HIGH LINE ROLLER RINK
What do you with an empty lot that’s the terminal point of an extraordinary, linear park? You build a roller skating rink! At least that’s what James Corner Field Operations and Diller Scofidio + Renfro have created, in partnership with HWKN and UNIQLO. This temporary 8,000-square-foot roller rink will last through the summer, featuring old-fashioned roller skate rental, themed events and night-time DJs. The High Line Rink will be open from July 28 through September 26. Admission will be $10 for kids, $12 for adults. See more details here.

HUDSON RIVER OUTFALL
Stay out of the Hudson! Due to a massive engine fire at the North River Wastewater Treatment Plant yesterday, raw sewage has been redirected to 56 outfall sites which pour directly into open water. Since the plant’s shut-down, 120 million gallons of raw sewage have entered the waterway. Officials have banned canoeing, kayaking, swimming and fishing in the Hudson River, including advisories for Midland, Cedar Grove, Seagate and South Beach today. Harlem’s Riverbank State Park, located next to the plant, was shut down until further notice. See more coverage from The New York Times.

MTA CHIEF RESIGNS
Jay Walder, MTA Chairman since 2009, resigned on Wednesday to take over Hong-Kong based transportation company MTR Corporation. Transportation Alternatives’ Paul Steely White commented on Walder’s contribution to the city: “Facing a daunting fiscal situation brought on by the Governor and State Legislature’s repeated budget raids, Walder kept our trains and buses serving millions of New Yorkers 24 hours every day.” The Wall Street Journal pointed to the dramatic pay bump Walder will receive — in Hong Kong he will earn more than $900,000 as base salary, a 157% increase above his current $350K salary at the MTA. Denise Richardson of General Contractors Association of New York noted that his departure really “says more about our collective unwillingness to properly fund our transportation network than it does about new opportunities for his career.” Benjamin Kabak of Second Ave. Sagas analyzed some of the probable driving forces behind Walder’s departure and continues to post updates on the latest news.

Screengrab of MyBlockNYC.com

BLOCK PARTY
What if you could explore and interact with user-generated video that captures each unique, interesting and sometimes crazy moment around New York City’s 90,000 blocks? That’s the mission of MyBlockNYC.com, a site dedicated to bringing the experience of exploring New York to the Internet. What separates it from other video sharing sites is that MyBlockNYC’s clips are superimposed on a map, infusing the typically static Google Streetview with a certain liveliness. Anyone can contribute content, from residents to tourists to professionals. Co-creator Alex Kalman wants to give users “the most intimate and human way to explore New York City without being here.” The team behind the site was recently invited to set up an interactive exhibition at MoMA’s new exhibition Talk to Me: Design and Communication Between People and Objects. Read more about the site on Design Observer.

EVENTS & TODOs:

ReinventNYC.gov | Courtesy Social Media Week

REINVENTNYC.GOV: As part of the City’s constant efforts towards transparency and abiding interest in crowdsourcing, the NYC Office of Media and Entertainment and the NYC Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications in partnership with General Assembly have announced the City’s “first ever digital programming event”: Reinvent NYC.gov. Teams of designers, engineers, copywriters, photographers, interface designers, web developers and product managers can enter, by submitting a profile and examples of their work, to participate in a two-day “hackathon” to make NYC.gov more accessible and fun to use. The hackathon will take place from July 30-31, but all entries must be submitted by today, July 22! Find more information here.

MAPPING THE CITYSCAPE: Manhattan has seen many changes since 1811, but one thing that has stayed constant is the grid. It’s the foundation on which the city has evolved and grown– layer by layer. Just as intrepid cartographers explored and documented the island’s landscape in its nascent days, modern mappers are returning to the grid, armed with new technology to compile information about how the contemporary urban landscape has developed and how it can be further utilized. Mapping the Cityscape, the exhibition currently up at the Center for Architecture, celebrates a history of mapping NYC through a graphic examination of, “the ways in which mapping influences our perception of the environment.” Mapping the Cityscape is on view through August 27th.

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Paper solar panels | Image via MIT/Patrick Gillooly

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 brimming with design potential. Akin to the silver coating inside potato chip bags, the printed cells have impressive endurance, retaining much of their structural integrity in the face of heat and wear. The efficiency of the paper units are still only at 1% (enough to power a small gadget) but the lightweight, printable cells have endless possibilities for practical application.

TIE THE KNOT
Pop Up Chapel, Architizer and The Knot have teamed up to celebrate last month’s historic passage of marriage equality legislation in New York. On July 30, the first weekend after the law takes effect, Pop Up Chapel will host an all-day wedding ceremony in a NYC park. They will provide officiants, photographers, witnesses and wedding cupcakes. What they need now is a wedding chapel. Architizer and TheKnot.com have launched a design competition to create two temporary structures — pop up chapels — for all that nuptial bliss. Submit your designs by July 21st. Read the competition brief here, and visit PopUpChapel.com for news and updates.

WEEKEND RIDE
New York City has used and maintained the same subway system for over a hundred years. MTA repairs have traditionally been done on the weekends, when ridership was at its lightest. But today, the MTA is faced with the heaviest weekend ridership in decades, partially due due to an overall rise in ridership stemming from the unlimited Metrocard, lower crime rates and newer cars. But this increased demand for weekend and late night access to trains is also indicative of changing work patterns as the city turns more towards a service economy and a work week that no longer excludes the weekend. Of course, increased use means heightened frustrations when service is suspended or rerouted. But when can the MTA complete repairs and renovations if not on nights and weekends? Read more about this conundrum in The New York Times.

Seanna Sharpe performing on Williamsburg Bridge | photo by Flickr user several seconds

AERIALIST ANTICS
On Monday night, aerialist Seanna Sharpe took to the skies, or rather to the upper reaches of the Williamsburg Bridge, for a 15-minute, mid-air performance without safety harnesses of any kind. Sharpe claimed no allegiance to larger political or social movements, but was motivated instead by a wish to “face [her own] fear and to inspire others to face their fears.” Claiming that she chose the Williamsburg Bridge because she would be obscured from the sight of drivers below, and thus would be less likely to cause traffic accidents, Sharpe was surprised to be hit with felony reckless endangerment charges that could leave her with seven years in jail. Read more on this from The Wall Street Journal and watch video of the event here.

TO DOs and EVENTS:

Weightless Pull, Public Summer 2011 | Image via SUPERFRONT

PUBLIC SUMMER 2011: This Sunday, July 17th from 3—6pm, make your way out to Sunset Park to see SUPERFRONT’s Public Summer installation, designed by architectural duo CO (Christina Ciardullo and Naomi Ocko). The installation will occur between two warehouse buildings hosting public art and performance all summer (July 23rd — August 28th) at 2nd Ave between 35th and 36th Streets in Brooklyn. See more info here.

FROM SHOETOWN TO BREWTOWN: On July 19th, Shoe Town to Brew Town: Craft Brewing Meets Green Development, will be held from 7:30-10:00pm at the Brooklyn Brewery in Williamsburg. Over food and drink, Paul Mankiewicz of the Gaia Institute will lead a discussion on how breweries can be the centerpiece of a sustainable regional development plan. Tickets are $40, buy them here.

PUBLIC SPACE POTLUCK: The Design Trust for Public Space is hosting their next Public Space Potluck at West Harlem Piers Park on Wednesday, July 20. A former parking lot, this 2-acre site was transformed into a waterfront oasis in 2009, bringing new open space to West Harlem and providing the final link in the Hudson River greenway. The group will meet at Fountain Plaza at 131st Street. RSVP via Facebook or rsvp@designtrust.org.

MTA APP CHALLENGE: Want to improve your subway ride in a meaningful way? The MTA and Challengepost have just announced a new competition for programmers and designers to create apps that improve travel experience and give the public more and easier access to information. The submission period ends September 24th, so check out MTAAppQuest.com for more information about the competition, or read more of the coverage at 2nd Ave. Sagas.

.MTA App Quest Competition | Image courtesy of MTA/Patrick Cashin

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