Submitted by George N. Spitz, Apr 23, 2007 04:30

All the good work that Mayor Bloomberg is doing to protect the environment of New York City could be lost by insufficient oversight over the proposed 2nd Ave subway. The Mayor may have been deceived by the unanimous support for the 2nd Ave subway by the Manhattan Eastside political culture consisting of Community Planning Board 8, the Lexington Democratic Club, Lenox Hill Democratic Club, Eastside Democratic Club in the Metropolitan Republican Club. These organizations smothered any discussion of harmful effects created by the seven-year first phase 2nd Ave subway construction process including not only a potentially dangerous environmental impact to all of New York City but also available environmentally desirable 21st-century transportation alternatives particularly light rail. Needless to say these organizations generally act together like Tammany Hall in other arenas, collaborating to frustrate political opposition at the Board of Elections and in the Judicial Selection Process.

As a consequence, Mayor Bloomberg's Environmental Protection Agency and the his representatives on the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) apparently overlooked the following scary paragraph buried deep in the MTA Environmental Impact Submission: "Because of the large scale and extended duration of the construction required for the Second Avenue Subway, the construction could potentially increase regional concentrations of ozone precursors-NOx and VOCs-as well as fine particulate matter (PM2.5), all of which are pollutants of concern on a regional basis. The regional effects of the project's construction were assessed in two ways: 1) the total amount of these pollutants throughout the region that would result from transportation of spoils was calculated; and 2) the concentrations of PM2.5 that would result from the project's trucking and construction site activities were computed on a regional basis. The concentrations of ozone precursors (NOx and VOCs) that would result from construction were not predicted on a regional basis, since these pollutants are of concern because of their role in the formation of ozone, but that process is very complex and there is no reliable way to predict a project's effects on ozone.

Mayor Bloomberg should consider protecting his reputation as an environmentalist by withdrawing environmental, traffic and construction permits for the 2nd Ave subway project until the MTA is able to guarantee that there will be no increased regional concentration of ozone precursors-NOx and VOCs-as well as fine particulate matter (PM2.5) during the seven-year projected first phase of construction.. Even the MTA, if not Manhattan East Side Democrats, Republicans and Community Boards, recognizes that these are "pollutants of concern." The Mayor can further rescue his desired and heretofore deserved record as an environmentalist by opening up discussion on non-polluting alternatives to a subway on 2nd Ave, particularly light rail. For the cost of the eventual 6 miles of 2^nd Ave subway, 60 miles of desirable non polluting light rail could be built in New York City and there are serious unmet transportation needs in Eastern Queens, South Brooklyn, Northeast Bronx and Staten Island. Advanced cities around the world such as Barcelona (installing 200 miles of light rail), Lisbon, Munich, Tampere, Vancouver, Toronto, Jerusalem, Denver in the US etc. are going the light rail instead of the subway route. Light rail is late 20th and early 21st century technology to meet transportation needs, while subways are more and more recognized as early to mid 20th century solutions.

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