Photo via Archpaper

I grew up with boats, canoeing the upper Hudson River and its tributaries, kayaking Maine’s coast, portaging canoes between Adirondack lakes and sailing Vermont’s varied winds. But in seven years of living in New York City, surrounded by water, I never once shipped off shore, save for some ferry rides. Blame it on the difficulty of storing and transporting a vessel while living car-free in walk-up apartments.

One solution lies with the handful of boathouses and clubs offering free kayak programs, tours and rental storage around the city to get more New Yorkers on the water. Another solution lies with creative, inexpensive ways to do it yourself. One friend solved the storage problem by chaining his rowboat to a fencepost on a deserted industrial street near the water. Having earned the property owner’s tacit approval, this free storage system seemed to be working well until a boat thief made off with his metal dinghy one night. Another friend turned to inflatable kayaks as a more maneuverable, less theft-prone alternative. Inexpensive and collapsible, these kayaks pack into duffel bags he can easily store in his apartment and carry by bicycle, bus or subway.

This past weekend, he took me on my inaugural voyage into New York City waters, a cold and windy exploration of Newtown Creek, one of America’s most polluted waterways. We paddled up to the creek’s opening at the East River, observing the plastic detritus that washes up on the shore. From the water we watched runners pass over the Pulaski Bridge, the halfway point of the NYC Marathon. Further down, we explored Whale Creek to the sounds of a trumpet player practicing in the Newtown Creek Nature Walk. His music drifted across the water to the opposite shore where it was drowned out by the sound of dozens of Fresh Direct trucks idling in a parking lot. As we turned back under the bridge, a police officer yelled down, sarcastically reminding us not to drink the water, a joke we had already heard from some passing fishermen that day.

It’s an interesting time in the life of Newtown Creek. Earlier this fall, it was officially designated a Superfund site to remediate a history of pollutants, including an oil spill three times bigger than the Exxon Valdez spill and decades of unregulated dumping. Billions of gallons of raw sewage are still discharged into the creek from combined sewage overflows when storm water overwhelms the antiquated sewer system. These are massive environmental problems that impact hundreds of thousands of people in surrounding neighborhoods and it will require massive resources to address the contamination and hold polluters responsible. Though the process could take a decade, local groups are making plans to reconnect with the cleaned-up creek.

Image of the proposed Greenpoint Boathouse

The Greenpoint Waterfront Association for Parks and Planning, a coalition of more than 40 neighborhood organizations, has put forth a plan to build a new boathouse on the ground floor of the Greenpoint Manufacturing and Design Center, located next to the creek at the north end of Manhattan Avenue. The project would rebuild a crumbling bulkhead and create an esplanade, environmental education center, boat launch, training center and storage facility. The Greenpoint Boathouse is one of 26 projects vying for funding from a $7 million Newtown Creek mitigation fund being administered by the City Parks Foundation. Sometime in the next week, CPF will open a voting process for project funding. But if you can’t wait that long to speak out for access to the creek, the Newtown Creek Monitoring Committee is holding a meeting tomorrow night to discuss the City’s plans to limit recreational boating in light of the Superfund designation.

Although recreational boating may not be at the top of most people’s concerns, access to the water is as important as access to parks and other types of open space. Furthermore, sustaining recreational use of Newtown Creek now and throughout the Superfund process will help further the community support and advocacy necessary to ensure the waterway’s cleanup and redevelopment are carried out with the highest standards.

Photos by Will Sherman

Last week, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie killed the nation’s largest transit project, saying the state couldn’t afford the potential cost overruns of the Access to the Region’s Core (ARC) tunnel. Already under construction, the ARC tunnel would provide a new commuter-rail link to Manhattan, doubling New Jersey Transit service, which currently runs at peak hour capacity. The project was expected to create thousands of jobs, boost property values and support the region’s continued economic growth. The $8.7 billion tunnel had already secured $6 billion in funding, including the highest federal contribution for a transit project in history. Despite the many benefits for New Jersey’s future, Governor Christie decided to kill the tunnel, claiming he was simply looking out for the state’s “long-term fiscal health” by avoiding additional debt. But apparently, Christie is only concerned with saving money when it comes to transit. In the weeks before his final decision to cancel the ARC tunnel project, Christie’s administration borrowed $2 billion for highway widening projects, which have already incurred billions in cost overruns. It’s hard to understand the Governor’s decision to kill this critical transit investment, meanwhile expanding an unsustainable highway system, as anything more than a short-sighted political move. As millions of Americans vote this election day, deciding electoral outcomes that impact the death and life of America’s infrastructure, Christie’s lack of vision and perspective should be a reminder that the future health of our cities and communities is dependent on how well we develop and pursue sustainable long-term solutions now.

A new vision for the Sheridan Expressway by the

The U.S. Department of Transportation has announced the recipients of nearly $600 million in funding for major infrastructure projects. The grants provided by second round of the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) program will help pay for new transit systems, rail improvements, and bridge and road repairs with the goal of supporting environmental sustainability and long-term economic development at local and regional levels.

As with the first round of TIGER grants, demand for funding was high. Nearly 1,000 applications, requesting more than $19 billion in total, were submitted. Only 75 were approved, which Secretary Ray LaHood described as, “innovative, 21st century projects that will change the U.S. transportation landscape by strengthening the economy and creating jobs, reducing gridlock and providing safe, affordable and environmentally sustainable transportation choices.”

In contrast to the Highway Trust Fund, which distributes 80 percent of federal funds for highways and only 20 percent for transit, TIGER II distributed grants more equitably: 29 percent for road projects, 26 percent for transit, 20 percent for rail projects, 16 percent for ports, 5 percent for planning projects and 4 percent for bicycle and pedestrian projects.

Notably, the largest grant, $47.6 million, was awarded to Atlanta for a streetcar line between downtown’s Centennial Olympic Park and the Martin Luther King Jr. historic district. In keeping with TIGER’s objective, the Georgia Transit Connector offers a more energy efficient means of getting around, as well expectations for 40 long-term jobs in operations and tens of thousands more resulting from transit-oriented development. Additionally, $26 million was granted for Salt Lake City’s Sugar House Streetcar, which expects to remove some 800 cars from congested local streets. $10 million will help Orlando connect its LYMMO bus rapid transit to one of the city’s oldest transit-poor neighborhoods.

Even more interesting than construction of better transportation infrastructure is destruction of the worst. Grants were specifically awarded to undo the damage done by urban highways: unwalkable streets, isolated neighborhoods, destroyed home and businesses. New Haven, Connecticut received $16 million to begin replacing nearly a mile of downtown highway with boulevards and a reconnected street grid. Similarly, planning grants were awarded to study removal of the Sheridan Expressway in the Bronx and the Claiborne Highway in New Orleans as options to reunite divided neighborhoods. Along with the complete list of grant recipients, these projects reflect a more holistic approach to funding that not only prioritizes sustainable transportation systems, but communities as well.