Five articles curated by the Wagner Planner staff: Here’s what the Wagner Planner staff is reading.

This week: Efforts to reconnect sections of Buffalo divided by a highway, fare reductions for low-income transit riders in Boston, reflecting on the impact of a sustainable public housing development in the Bronx, preparing NYC public schools for climate change, and a new law in New Jersey that may restrict micromobility users.

A Highway Cap Divides the City It Was Designed to Reconnect (CityLab) “The $1 billion project in Buffalo, New York, promises to replace a stretch of freeway with a park and restore a historic boulevard. Critics say the fix doesn’t go far enough.”

Boston area transit agency to offer half-price fares for low-income riders (Smart Cities Dive) “Up to 60,000 Massachusetts residents could qualify for half-price fares on subways, buses, commuter trains and ferries as soon as this spring, pending approval of a Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority proposal it briefed reporters about on Monday. If approved by the MBTA Board of Directors, the new program would apply to nondisabled riders ages 26 to 64 with incomes that are 200% of the federal poverty line or less.”

Via Verde Was Built to Be an Exemplar of Public Housing. Did It Succeed? (NY Times) “When it opened in 2011, the Via Verde development in the South Bronx stood out as handsome and dignified, an attempt at better architecture and sustainable design that promised value to match the cost. How has the development fared in the 12 years after the first residents of the South Bronx development moved in?”

How Climate Change is Hitting NYC Public Schools (CityLimits) “More than a quarter of the city’s public school buildings are currently at risk from extreme stormwater flooding, according to an analysis by the Comptroller’s Office shared with City Limits. Teachers, students and environmental groups are pushing for more weather-resilient schools.”

Why Every E-Biker Should Be Worried About NJ’s Proposed Micromobility Insurance Law (Streetsblog USA) “A New Jersey bill to require micromobility users to carry a form of liability insurance will be the first step down a “slippery slope” of onerous requirements that could have devastating consequences even for exclusively human-powered modes, advocates say.”

Five articles curated by the Wagner Planner staff: Here’s what the Wagner Planner staff is reading. This week: open streets by the citizens in DC, the efficiency of subsidized transit, riders representation in transit boards, Paris votes for SUV’s fees, and Phoenix’s preparation for a brutally hot 2024 summer.

How D.C. Neighbors Closed a Dangerous Street in Front of an Elementary School (Next City) “Bancroft Elementary in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood of Northwest D.C. is carving a new path to make the street in front of the school safe for students and closed to traffic during arrival and departure times. Here’s how we made this happen and what we learned. Every neighborhood school with dangerous streets out front should consider it.”

Study: Subsidizing Transit Actually Makes it More Efficient (Streetblog USA) “The first thing that most researchers get wrong about the impacts of subsidies on efficiency, Newmark explains, is that they tend to measure that efficiency at the level of the individual transit agency — even in metros with multiple operators that riders move seamlessly between.

“That is not how any rider sees their transit system,” he added. “The Bay Area, for example, has 26 transit agencies; if you transfer from a bus to a BART train using the same fare media, you’re not super sensitive to the fact that those are two separate operators. You see it as one unified system, which is the way it should be.”

Riders Reps Could Be Coming Soon to Some Washington Transit Boards (The Urbanist) “I see that there are many transit agencies that do not realize the full potential of their ridership,” Judy Jones, who serves on the Skagit Transit Advisory Committee, told the House Transportation Committee on Monday. “Many on these boards of authority have never experienced mass transit in a personal way, making decisions without understanding the ramifications to the ridership in their daily lives in the communities they serve.”

Parisians vote for rise in parking fees for SUVs (BBC) “Environmentalists argue that SUVs consume more fuel than other cars and that their construction and use produce more harmful emissions. Supporters of the move also note that tall vehicles are deadlier than lighter cars when they are involved in accidents.”

How Phoenix is preparing for its next brutally hot summer (Yale Climate Connections) “We’ve come to a pretty good agreement in the urban climate community that there are three key drivers of the urban heat island effect. One is the materials that we use to build our cities: asphalt for roads, bricks for buildings, non-reflective roofing are some examples. Many of those materials tend to have more heat-retaining properties than the natural landscape. Then they slowly release that heat into the environment, raising our nighttime temperatures.”

Five articles curated by the Wagner Planner staff: Here’s what the Wagner Planner staff is reading. This week: Nostrand Junction, the State of the State, and gains of NYC’s delivery minimum wage law. 

In Central Brooklyn, a dreaded subway bottleneck grinds trains to a halt (Gothamist) – “This is the Nostrand Junction. A delicate dance happens there hundreds of times per day – and it’s an inconvenience familiar to all who pass through.”

A Moonshot Plan to Fill a Cavernous, Dilapidated Armory in the Bronx (New York Times) – “The estimated $1 billion redevelopment of the armory, a 1917 Romanesque arsenal on about five acres in Kingsbridge Heights that was once home to the National Guard, would be one of the city’s most ambitious projects. The biggest component of the coalition’s proposal is an up to 90,000-square-foot manufacturing space for light industry, such as 3-D printing, coffee roasting or carpentry.” 

Takeaways from Hochul’s 2024 State of the State agenda (City & State New York) – “Although she did not offer specifics, Hochul said that she will “propose to enact legislation” that would serve as a replacement to the expired 421-a developer tax break meant to incentivize the construction of affordable housing. In 2022, she laid out specifics on what that replacement would look like, but after lawmakers rejected it, Hochul last year did not offer her own version and instead said she would work with the Legislature to find a compromise they would support.” 

Labor Gains: Delivery Workers Say New Minimum Wage Lets Them Ride Safely (Streetsblog NYC) – “You don’t have to risk your life to try to save two minutes anymore. You can take your time and ride safely and have a better chance of making it home at the end of the shift” 

Death spiral or new dawn: How did WMATA get here? (Greater Greater Washington) – “The absence of dedicated operating funds form the crux of WMATA’s current financial viability challenge. Without a funding mechanism like a regional sales tax, or road pricing as applied in other regional transit systems like London’s and soon New York’s, Metro has to scramble every year to ensure it’s got the dollars to fund salaries and other non-capital costs.”