5 articles curated by the Wagner Planner staff:
The Official Brooklyn Bus Redesign is Out (Pedestrian Observations) – “The frequency in the proposed system is, frankly, bad. The MTA seems to believe that the appropriate frequency for urban mass transit is a train or bus every 10 minutes. This is acceptable in the suburban neighborhoods of Berlin or the outermost parts of New York, like the Rockaways and the eastern margin of Queens. In denser areas, including all of Brooklyn, it is not acceptable.”
A Hotel Was Set to Become Affordable Housing. Then the Union Stepped In. (New York Times) – “The Hotel Trades Council ranked among the top independent spenders in the election cycle of 2017, when all 26 City Council candidates endorsed by the union won. Some of these officials ended up on powerful land use and zoning committees, giving the union influence over important building decisions in New York.”
What Happens When Police Show Up for Mental Health Calls? (THE CITY) – “The number of cops who’ve received Crisis Intervention Training (CIT) related to handling mental health calls has dropped dramatically over the two last years, to the point where nearly two-thirds of active duty officers remain untrained.”
What If We Treated the MTA Like the Essential Service It Is? (Hell Gate) – “Reliability—is this train going to come in three minutes or 20 minutes?—is key to usage. And right now, the MTA’s unpredictable service, especially outside of rush hours, isn’t cutting it.”
LA Loses Much More Affordable Housing Than It Gains (LAist) – “The biggest losers in terms of new construction were households whose incomes were considered moderate, falling somewhere between $64,000 and $96,000 per year as of 2021. The city reported granting fewer than 1,000 permits for housing affordable for these households.”
You can reach the authors of this newsletter, Manal Bawazir and Edwin Jeng, at: mb7086@nyu.edu & ej737@nyu.edu
You can reach the editor of this piece, Patrick Spauster, at: ps4375@nyu.edu