Archived Events

The Rudin Center for Transportation invites you to its upcoming conference, "Alternative Fuel Vehicles Technologies & Infrastructure - Bringing innovation to our streets," that will be held on June 14, 2011 at the NYU Kimmel Center. With the transportation sector as one of the fastest growing sources of greenhouse gas emissions, there is increased public interest in finding cleaner mobility options, including the use of alternative fuel vehicle (AFV) technologies.

Co-sponsored by Con Edison, the New York State Department of Transportation and the New York State Energy and Research Authority, this event seeks to contribute to the public’s understanding of AFV current technologies and innovations, by analyzing their strengths, limitations and the required infrastructure for their broad deployment. Speakers will discuss market conditions and current challenges in promoting these new technologies, including infrastructure investments. The closing panel will discuss policies and strategies that foster the broad deployment of AFV technologies in the United States.

For further information email Rudin.Center@nyu.edu

NYC Taxi & Limousine Commission (TLC) Group Ride Vehicle pilot program
Eric Goldwyn, Columbia
Presented by the Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management

 

In September 2010, The Taxi & Limousine Commission (TLC) initiated its Group Ride Vehicle (GRV) pilot program. Group Ride Vehicles are a flexible transit option that the TLC believed would satisfy unmet transit demand in Brooklyn and Queens. The TLC launched the GRV program in response to Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s (MTA) decision to cancel or re-route 37 bus lines.

This research has two goals. The first goal is to evaluate the GRV program through the analysis of data collected from surveys and interviews with passengers, operators, and TLC staff. We will also develop a transit typology to see how Group Ride Vehicles compare and contrast with other similar modes, such as buses, taxis, commuter vans, and access-a-ride vehicles. The purpose of this typology is to understand what benefits Group Ride Vehicles offer, if any, in comparison to other existing modes of transit. The second goal is to learn why the program failed and how entrepreneurial transportation policies can be better executed. We theorize that miscommunication between operators and the TLC, poor public outreach and advertising, the TLC’s budget constraints, lack of coordination between the MTA and the TLC, and the public’s lack of familiarity with Group Ride Vehicles created intractable barriers to the program’s success.

 

Mimi Sheller, Director of the new Mobilities Research and Policy Center at Drexel University
 
Mimi Sheller is Professor of Sociology and Director of the new Mobilities Research and Policy Center (mCenter) at Drexel University. She also holds a continuing appointment as Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Mobilities Research at Lancaster University (UK) and is founding co-editor of the international journal Mobilities. She is on the international editorial boards of the journals Cultural Sociology, and African and Black Diaspora.

The Center combines interdisciplinary approaches to the study of travel, transport, migration, borders, and mobile communication into one over-arching framework.  The term “mobilities” applies to both the large-scale movements of people, objects, capital, and information across the world, as well as the more local processes of daily transportation, movement through public and private space, and mobile communications.

TLC Commissioner David Yassky will sit down with Mitchell Moss to discuss the future of taxis in New York City.

Prior to his appointment to TLC in March, 2010, Yassky completed eight years of service in the New York City Council, representing the neighborhoods of Brooklyn Heights, Park Slope, Greenpoint and Williamsburg.  On the Council, Yassky sponsored legislation to promote the use of fuel-efficient hybrid cars as taxicabs.  He also authored innovative laws in the areas of affordable housing and economic development, including the City’s Film and TV Production Tax Credit.

The Livability Summit, presented by the Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management will explore two important issues related to efforts to support livability: climate change and how to measure just what is livable.

Keynote speaker Matthew E. Kahn, Professor at UCLA and author of "Climatopolis: How Our Cities Will Thrive in the Hotter Future" will discuss his vision of how cities and their residents will adapt to a hotter world, both in the U.S. and internationally, and how this is relevant to efforts to promote more livable communities.

A panel discussion will follow featuring David Bragdon, New York City's Director of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability.

A second panel will address tools and approaches for measuring livability and how to evaluate and manage trade-offs between the six different livability goals outlined at the federal level.

Access and Outcomes: Transportation, the Urban Environment, and Subjective Well-Being.

UCLA doctoral student Eric Morris will present  Access and Outcomes: Transportation, the Urban Environment, and Subjective Well-Being. His research employs data from Gallup and the American Community Survey to assess the links between transportation access and reports of happiness.

The Presentation of Self in Everyday [Transit] Life: An Ethnographic Study of Los Angeles Bus Culture

In this session of the New Thinking in Transportation and Society Doctoral Research Series, UCLA doctoral candidate Camille Fink will discuss her dissertation research, which uses the lens of ethnography to explore behavior and attitudes on different Los Angeles bus routes.

Featuring HUD Regional Administrator Adolfo Carrión

Increasing efforts to "break down silos" that separate traditional government agencies and growing support for the concept of livability have together drawn attention to the links between the fields of housing and transportation, among other cross-agency connections. This installment of the the Thinking and Doing Series will focus on this intersection.

Adolfo Carrión is the Administrator of the Department of Housing and Urban Development's Region II, which serves New York and New Jersey. Previously Mr. Carrión served as the first White House Director of Urban Affairs and was elected to two terms as Bronx Borough President.

In this session of the New Thinking in Transportation and Society Doctoral Research Series, Columbia doctoral candidate Cuz Potter will discuss his dissertation research, which examines how developing technology and changing political contexts have influenced the location of intermodal transportation facilities and what this means for economic development efforts in general.

Featuring MTA Chairman Jay Walder and Professor Mitchell Moss

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority currently faces tremendous financial challenges with a growing ridership and ambitious capital plans. Professor Moss will sit down with MTA Chariman and CEO Jay Walder to discuss how the agency is managing it's current fiscal shortfalls while working toward a vision of improved service and the implementation of cutting edge technology for the future.

ABOUT THE PARTICIPANTS

Jay H. Walder was nominated by Governor David A. Paterson and confirmed by the New York State Senate on September 10, 2009 as chairman and chief executive officer of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) in New York, the largest transit agency in the United States. Chairman Walder has extensive experience in the public transportation business. He began his career in 1983 where he worked for the MTA, heading its capital program budget office. He most recently served as the managing director for finance and development at Transport for London (TfL), and is credited with the introduction of the system's extremely successful and popular "Oyster card."

Mitchell L. Moss is Director of the Rudin Center and the Henry Hart Rice Professor Urban Policy and Planning at NYU's Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. He served as Director of NYU's Taub Urban Research Center from 1987 to 2003. Professor Moss has been on the faculty of NYU since 1973 and served as Chairman of The Interactive Telecommunications Program in the Tisch School of the Arts from 1981-83. He was voted "Best Teacher of the Year" by Wagner School students in 2002.

Featuring Janette Sadik-Khan, real estate developer Douglas Durst and Professor Vicki Been

In recent years the streets of New York City have been transformed by the Department of Transportation. Changes to the streetscape have had an effect on the real estate market, though the full impact is not yet fully understood.

Professor Vicki Been will lead a discussion with Douglas Durst and Janette Sadik-Khan about the relationship between transportation policy and the real estate and development sector.

ABOUT THE PARTICIPANTS
Vicki Been is the Boxer Family Professor of Law at New York University School of Law and Professor of Public Policy at New York University Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, and is the Faculty Director of the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy. Professor Been teaches courses in Land Use Regulation, Property, and State and Local Government. She also co-teaches an interdisciplinary Colloquium on the Law, Economics and Politics of Urban Affairs.

Douglas Durst is a member of the third generation to run The Durst Organization, one of New York City's most respected real estate developers and management companies and one of the originators of the Green Building Movement. Mr. Durst is a Director of the Real Estate Board of New York, The Landmarks Conservancy, The New School, The Municipal Art Society and Project for Public Spaces.

Janette Sadik-Khan serves as the Commissioner of the New York City Department of Transportation since her appointment by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg in April of 2007. She manages 4,500 skilled employees with wide ranging expertise from engineering to construction finance, to marine navigation, and is responsible for 6,000 miles of streets and highways, nearly 800 bridges, 1.3 million street signs, 300,000 streetlights and 12,000 signalized intersections, as well as the Staten Island Ferry

Presented by the Regional Plan Association, the NYU Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management and the Better Airports Alliance.

This breakfast forum will feature three case studies that will explore how airports in Chicago, London and San Francisco dealt with capacity and delay issues, and what New York can learn.

The Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management is pleased to announce High Speed Rail: Leveraging Federal Investment Locally, a symposium to be held on June 16th, 2010.

Following the January 2010 rail funding announcement by the U.S. Department of Transportation, interest in rail investment – and what it means for American communities – has continued to expand. Conversations are taking place across the country, bringing in new participants as well as experienced professionals from around the world to discuss the new corridors. In focusing on how to implement new rail corridors there is a risk of overlooking the need to manage the regional impacts of the nodes that comprise these systems. Leveraging Federal Investment Locally will enhance the national dialogue on high-speed rail investment through a focus on how new facilities will be linked to existing regional transportation infrastructure and economic development efforts. In addition, there will be an examination of the political context of establishing new rail infrastructure in a democratic nation where land use is controlled locally.

Presenters included:

Polly Trottenberg, Assistant Secretary for Transportation Policy at the U.S. Department of Transportation (Keynote Speaker)
David Levinson, University of Minnesota
Anthony Perl, Simon Fraser University
Frank Zshoche, Managing Director, Civity Management Consultants, Hamburg Germany

Pannel Discussions with:
Arthur L. Guzzetti, Vice President for Policy, American Public Transportation Association
David Carol, Vice Presdient, HRSR, Parsons Brinkerhoff
WIlliam Wheeler, Director of Special Project Development and Planning, MTA

Petra Todorovich, Director, America 2050
MaryAnne Gilmartin, Executive Director for Commerical and Residential Development, Forest City Ratner
Tokumbo Shobowale, Chief of Staff, Office of the Deputy Mayor for Economic Development, New York City
Eugene K. Skoropowski, Director of Rail and Transit Services, HNTB Corporation

Melissa Lafsky, Managing Editor, Infrastruturist
Stan Rosenblum, Jacobs Engineering
Michael Evans, Chief of Staff, Office of the Lt. Govenor, New York State


The event was co-sponsored by Parsons Brinckerhoff and presented in Partnership with the American Public Transportation Association (APTA).

Gian-Claudia Sciara, Planners and the Pork Barrel: Metropolitan Engagement in and Resistance to Congressional Transportation Earmarking

Since passage of the 1991 Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA), U.S. transportation policy has gradually strengthened metropolitan authority over federal transportation investments. Federal law requires metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs)—composed of local elected officials, transportation agency leaders, and public stakeholders—to plan and program federally funded improvements in urban regions. Yet members of the U.S. Congress have increasingly used funding bills to “earmark” funds to specific transportation projects. Derogatively called pork barreling, the practice can transfer discretion over transportation finance from metropolitan officials to members of Congress, who may hand-pick projects for funding whether or not they reflect regional transportation needs or priorities articulated in their MPOs’ long range plans (LRPs) or transportation improvement programs (TIPs).

Mike Smart, PhD Candidate

Since the liberalization of federal immigration policy in the late 1960s, immigrants have comprised an ever-larger share of the U.S. population. Currently, roughly one in eight residents of the United States was born abroad, and—despite a massive economic downturn—that share continues to grow. Researchers have shown that immigrants travel differently that the native-born, using carpools, transit, and non-motorized modes significantly more than their native-born counterparts. Even after controlling for covariates such as income, residential location, and auto availability, immigrants’ exhibit a significantly increased propensity to use these “alternative” modes.

Building Sustainable Communities: The EPA Agenda

A conversation with Judith A. Enck, Administrator of Region 2 of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

EPA Region 2 covers the incredibly diverse territory of New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and seven federally-recognized Indian Nations, home to a total of more than 31 million people. The Administrator will discuss her agency's efforts to promote healthy communities and ecosystems throughout the region, and touch on implications for transportation systems.

In a career devoted to public service, Ms. Enck has served as Deputy Secretary for the Environment for New York State, Senior Environmental Associate with the New York Public Interest Research Group, and Executive Director of Environmental Advocates of New York.

Our global atmosphere and ocean have been observed to warm moderately over the past century, and are reliably projected to warm more significantly over the coming century.  The vast amounts of ice stored in the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets are thereby under threat of partially melting and significantly raising global sea level over the present century and beyond, potentially flooding low lying cities like New York and Abu Dhabi.  A scientific research program is outlined that seeks to transform our present ignorance of basic earth science processes relating to ice sheets and sea level into a fundamental new understanding and predictive capability. David Holland Professor of Mathematics, Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences and Director, Center for Atmosphere Ocean Science, NYU

Lingqian Hu, Urban Spatial Transformation and Job Accessibility:  Spatial Mismatch Hypothesis Revisited

My research tests whether changing urban structure has affected low-income job seekers’ labor market outcomes differentially by impacting their job accessibility. The relatively poor labor market outcomes of minorities are well-documented in the Spatial Mismatch Hypothesis literature which claims that the unequal labor market outcomes are partly caused by the spatial barriers between minorities’ residences and their matching job opportunities. This research aims to expand the demographic, geographic and temporal scopes of the Spatial Mismatch Hypothesis by studying low-income job seekers’ job accessibility in the Los Angeles metropolitan area in 1990 and 2000.

Jen Petersen, Whose Streets? Paving the Right to the City.

This paper argues the case for a human--‐scaled mobility right to the city. Beginning with a brief review of current threads in the Lefebvrian right to the city debate, I argue the conceptual case for streets as public mobility spaces. The role of streets as human--‐ scaled residential, vending, and First Amendment--‐preserving spaces have been well explored on the one hand, and automobility’s infrastructural, political, and cultural costs to urban life have been tallied on the other. But an explicit right to move ourselves, guiding the post--‐automobilic city’s development, has yet to be conceptualized.

The Role of Transportation in Advancing Economic Development Goals:

A conversation with New York City Economic Development Corporation President Seth Pinsky and NYU Wagner Professor Mitchell Moss

As the links between infrastructure and economic systems become more apparent, New York City’s dense built environment and transportation network make for a unique case study in the interplay of these systems. The New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) has long recognized the importance of infrastructure investment in efforts to advancr the vibrancy and strength of the city’s economy.

Join us to learn more about initiatives underway at NYCEDC with President Seth Pinsky, when he will discuss his organization’s work with one of NYU’s most prolific professors, Mitchell Moss.

Performance Driven: A New Vision for U.S. Transportation Policy

This is a critical time where there is extraordinary opportunity for revitalizing America’s surface transportation system.  The Bipartisan Policy Center's (BPC) National Transportation Policy Project (NTPP) has begun dialogues across the country highlighting recommendations of its recent report "Performance Driven: A New Vision for U.S. Transportation Policy."  These discussions help influence the direction of federal surface transportation policy, bringing together state transportation officials, federal and state legislators, academics, the business community, and other key transportation stakeholders and interest groups in a conversation about the need for reform in the next federal surface transportation bill.

Speakers and panelists include:
- Timothy Gilchrist, Senior Advisor for Infrastructure and Transportation, New York State
- Joseph Marie, Commissioner, Connecticut Department of Transportation
- Janette Sadik-Khan,  Commissioner, New York City Department of Transportation
- Kate Slevin, Executive Director,  Tri-State Transportation Campaign

The NYU Wagner Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management is pleased to join the BPC hosting a New York City event as part of this important series.  The BPC was formed in 2007 to develop and promote solutions that can attract the public support and political momentum to achieve real progress. The BPC acts as an incubator for policy efforts that engage top political figures, advocates, academics, and business leaders in the art of principled compromise.

Innovative Approaches to Parking and Land Use in Urban Areas:

A conversation with UCLA’s renowned parking expert Donald Shoup and Sandy Hornick, the New York Department of City Planning Deputy Executive Director for Strategic Planning.

There has been a great deal of discussion about free parking and its economic and quality-of-life implications in recent years. Increasing stakeholders’ awareness and understanding of the issue in order to modify existing policies is complex and demands significant rethinking of typical American approaches to parking.

Join us for a discussion with UCLA Professor and leading parking scholar Donald Shoup, author of the influential book The High Cost of Free Parking, and Sandy Hornick, of New York’s Department of City Planning. Listen in as they discuss the opportunities and constraints presented by parking policy reform and land use regulation in urban areas like New York City.

“World-Class Streets for a World City: a conversation with DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, Department of City Planning Chief Designer Alexandros Washburn, and NYU professor Hilary Ballon”

 

November 25, 2009

Breakfast starts at 8:00 am.  Conversation runs from 8:30 am to 9:45am.

295 Lafayette Street.  The Puck Building, 2nd Fl.

(Rudin Family Forum for Civic Dialogue)

New York, NY 10012-9604

Join us for a discussion led by Professor Hilary Ballon with Commissioner Jeanette Sadik-Khan and Alexandros Washburn, the Department of City Planning Chief of Design, on New Visions for the City’s Streets. 

 

For decades, the city restricted itself to a utilitarian design approach to its streets.  Commissioner Sadik-Khan and the City's Chief of Design, Alex Washburn, are bringing new and more sophisticated approaches to the challenge of urban design in constrained fiscal times.   Together with Professor Hilary Ballon, they will discuss recent and upcoming proposals to establish new guidelines for creating world-class city streets that are tailored to the varied and complex conditions of New York City.  Listen in on a conversation among these leading thinkers and practitioners about the unique opportunities that are generated when limited resources, pressing infrastructure needs, and a passion for great design merge together to create new and invigorating public spaces for New York City.

Funding Mass Transit: A Conversation with Honorable Richard Ravitch, Lt. Governor of New York State and NYU Professor Charles Brecher

 

It was just last April that Richard Ravitch, after a storied career in the public, private, and non-profit sectors in New York, was asked by Governor David Paterson to develop a new financing plan for the MTA.   He deftly crafted a package that would provide long-term financing for mass transit in the New York region for generations to come, much as he had done years ago when he led the agency out of decades of decay into a period stability and even growth, the fruits of which we still see today.   While the Ravitch package was not fully adopted by the State Legislature, his leadership led the Governor to ask him to serve New York yet again, this time as Lieutenant Governor of the State.   The Rudin Center is pleased to announce that Lieutenant Governor Richard Ravitch will join us for a discussion of transportation funding, the future of mass transit, and the context of the State budget.   Professor Charles Brecher will lead a conversation with this extraordinary leader of a state during one of the most challenging in his history.  

Strategic Issues Facing the Ports of New York and Dubai: New York

Professor Asaf Ashar, Director, National Ports and Waterways Institute, University of New Orleans

The Story of the Highline: A Conversation with Robert Hammond and Professor Ingrid Gould Ellen

The Highline represents a radically new example of adaptive re-use of infrastructure in an urban environment, and sets a new bar for creative greening of cityscapes. While New Yorkers and visitors gain unique park space, local developers and businesses lose the eyesore of rusting, obsolescent infrastructure and the City develops the prospects of economic revitalization and property value increases.

This dramatic public-private solution did not manifest, despite its win-win promises, without tumult and challenge. Join the NYU Wagner Rudin Center and Professor Ingrid Gould Ellen for a conversation with Robert Hammond, co-founder of Friends of the High Line. Listen in on a dialogue covering Robert’s storied history with the Highline, from his brainchild through the recent opening of its first phase, covering the policies, politics, workarounds, and innovations that took the project from near disaster to success.

Mega-Projects: New York

Building Big: A Critical Examination of the Planning of Mega Urban Transportation Projects 
 
Professor Harry Dimitriou, Director of the Omega Centre at the University College of London, will outline a unique approach to the use of story-telling in its investigation of decision-making in the planning and delivery of ten urban transport mega-projects from around the world.   He will highlight some of the key research findings from the use of this methodology as applied to the Centre's first UK Case Study of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link.  His remarks will include comments on how these findings apply to other mature established areas such as New York as well as newly developing cities such as Abu Dhabi. 
 
This is the first is several talks to be given by leading thinkers from around the world addressing issues of common concern to New York and Abu Dhabi, the anchors of NYU's Global Network University.