THE W AGNER P LANNER Newsletter of the NYU Urban Planning Student Association View of Verrazano Narrows Bridge from Brooklyn October / November 2004 Photo by Jordan Anderson INSIDE THIS ISSUE TEA-21 Still Months From Passage Profile: Rae Zimmerman State and local transportation agencies are By John M. Richardson, p. 2 living month-to-month on stopgap extensions Public Debates Hudson Yards Plan By Aaron Eckerle, p. 3 By Nicole J. Dooskin The reverse it true for recipient states. Staff writer Western and southern states tend to be Preserving the Eastern European donors, given their newer infrastructure City ederal funding for the nation’s trans- and milder climates. Northeastern states, By Liena Zagare, p. 4 portation infrastructure is in limbo. including New York and Connecticut, and F Since expiring at the end of Septem- plains states like Montana and South Da- ber 2003, the Transportation Equity Act kota, tend to fall into the recipient cate- Review of the Center for Architec- ture Exhibit, “Civic Spirit: Changing for the 21st Century (TEA-21) has been gory. Donor states would like to see their the Course of Federal Design” extended in one-to-two month intervals by rate of return increase in this funding cy- By Jon Martin and Susan Willetts, Congress five times. The current exten- cle, while recipient states are fighting to p. 6 sion, passed in September 2004, is de- keep their fund allocation from decreas- signed to provide $24.5 billion in surface ing. Of all the proposed bills, only the Alumni Profile: Perry Chen transportation programs funding to the Senate version aims to create a more eq- By Colin Drake, p. 7 states until May 2004. What is holding up uitable funding situation between the this key transportation bill and what does states. its delay in passage mean to local trans- The effect of these stopgap measures Editorial: NYC 2012 Needs a Beach portation agencies? can be seen across the country as state By Wouter van Gent, p. 7 The most significant barrier to pas- and local transportation agencies hesitate sage is the inability of the House, Senate, to begin costly transportation projects and White House to agree on transporta- without assurance that federal money will Calendar of Upcoming Events tion funding and allocation levels. The become available. Compiled by Susan Willetts, p. 8 initial Senate bill funded highways and In New York City, the redevelopment transit at $318 billion while the House bill of Fort Totten is one such project. This came in at $284 billion. The Bush Admini- former Army base, located in the Bayside Urban Planning Students at Work and Play stration’s threat to veto any final bill over neighborhood of Queens, is slated to be Photographs by Sarah Kaufman, Nick $256 billion has exacerbated the stale- turned into a 50-acre waterfront park. The Molinari and Harold Pettigrew, p. 9 mate. fort currently houses the 77th United A central issue revolves around the States Army Reserve command and units “donor-recipient” division. A state is con- from the police and fire departments, but Ask the Urban Planner sidered a donor if its contributions to the will be the future home to athletic fields, By John M. Richardson, p. 10 Highway Trust Fund (HTF) outweigh its bike paths, and the headquarters of the share of federal transportation dollars. (TEA-21 continued on page 10) Urban Planning Anytime at: http://www.nyu.edu/wagner/urbanplanning Urban Planning Program Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service New York University 295 Lafayette Street New York, NY 10012 THE W AGNER P LANNER 2 October / November 2004 THE W AGNER P LANNER http://www.nyu.edu/wagner/urbanplanning Volume 2, Issue 1 Profile: Rae Zimmerman October/November 2004 Dr. Rae Zimmerman, Chair of the Urban Planning The Wagner Planner is the independent student program, recently sat down with John M. Richard- newsletter of the Urban Planning Student Associa- tion (UPSA) of the Robert F. Wagner Graduate son to discuss planning, the environment, and School of Public Service at NYU. The Wagner Planner homeland security. is edited and produced by The Wagner Planner staff. All currently enrolled MUP students, alumni and faculty are encouraged to submit material to The By John M. Richardson Wagner Planner. Just send an email to Staff writer [email protected]. JR: Given your position as the head of the Urban This Month’s Contributors Planning Program at Wagner, what do you see as some of the issues now and in the future that you Aaron Eckerle think planning students should be focusing on? Aaron has a penchant for long walks on the beach and candle light dinners. Okay, not really, but he is an avid planner and provocateur. RZ: I think planning students should be focusing on how infrastructure services, often hidden from view, affect our daily lives. We take for granted transportation, picking Colin Drake up the phone, turning on the water and the lights. It takes careful planning to provide Colin is a second year urban planning student. these services to people on a regular and reliable basis, and most importantly to avoid Eric Galipo negative environmental and social impacts. There are equity issues as well. I think the Eric gave up his career as a mad scientist bent on strength of Urban Planning is that it exposes students to the breadth of issues so that world domination for the more benign practice of manipulating our built environment. they can look at interrelationships among activities, and how they relate to one an- other functionally and spatially. I believe that issues relating to the provision of public Harold Pettigrew services should be imbedded in a planning context. Harold is from Washington, DC focusing on economic development and real estate. He is currently prez of the Urban Planning Student Association. A second area of focus pertains to the environmental field. Adopting a systems view to balance the various environmental problems we face is critical to make sure that fixing John Richardson one problem does not create another one. Part of the problem set is social equity. Are John’s street name is Hershey. certain people being treated unfairly, not on purpose necessarily? Many people do not Jolene Saul have the resources to fight for kinds of quality factors that other people have. Jolene is a second year urban planning student. JR: Your research and teaching are focused on environmental issues. What are you Jon Martin Jon is a second year urban planning student. currently working on in this area? Jordan Anderson RZ: I am a co-principal investigator for the South Bronx Environmental Health and Pol- Jordan is a friend to all manner of beast. icy Study, funded by the US Environmental Protection Agency, where we are looking at Liena Zagare the air quality impacts of traffic and transportation from waste transfer operations in Liena previously worked as an investment analyst for that area. I have also conducted a large amount of work on global climate change and the World Bank's International Finance Corporation on Superfund hazardous waste sites over the last few years. in Central and Eastern Europe. Nick Molinari JR: You are also the director of the Institute for Civil Infrastructure Systems (ICIS) Nick is specializing in environmental planning. He is which recently received a large grant from the Department of Homeland Security. particularly interested in site remediation, water- front redevelopment, and the design of open space. What are some of the things that you have been able to accomplish since you got that grant from the Department of Homeland Security? Nicole J. Dooskin Nicole is a second year urban planning student. RZ: ICIS was created in 1998 with a $5 million dollar grant from the National Science Olivia Dawn Stinson Foundation, and since that time we have had various extensions and many additional Olivia is originally from Boulder, CO. Her profes- grants. The grant you asked about was for the establishment of the first Center of Ex- sional interests are sustainable re-use and post- cellence for Homeland Security, called the Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of conflict rebuilding in the developing world. Terrorism Events, based at the University of Southern California (USC); NYU is one of Sarah Kaufman the university partners. That started in February of 2004. Since then I have also gotten Sarah focuses on the future of telecommunications an additional grant from the Catastrophe Center for Preparedness and Response, an in cities—particularly intelligent transportation NYU center, on infrastructure and emergency management. systems, economic development and public safety. Susan Willetts Since the USC grant started, we have been working on an electric power case. We are Susan is originally from North Carolina. Witnessing looking at vulnerabilities in the electric power system, and how these vulnerabilities the highs and lows of revitalization in New Jersey sparked her interest in urban planning. potentially affect other activities, in order to estimate risks and economic impacts. Students have been conducting case analyses of failures of electric power systems as Wouter van Gent well as other infrastructure, such as water and transportation, and the extent to which Wouter is an exchange student from the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, studying Metropoli- it cascades throughout the economy to other kinds of infrastructure. The August 2003 tan Studies. His thesis is on 'Planning for Tourism'. blackout is perhaps one of the biggest examples of that kind of a cascading failure. THE W AGNER P LANNER 3 October / November 2004 Public Debates the City’s Hudson Yards Plan By Aaron Eckerle Staff writer ommunity members shared their opinions about the Hud- son Yards redevelopment proposal to the September 23 C City Planning Commission Public Hearing.