Recent Events

Technology and Urban Mobility: Perspectives from the Front Lines

Presented by Rudin Center for Transportation Policy & Management

Transportation is vastly changing as infrastructure becomes smarter. How are transportation managers incorporating technologies into our cities’ streets, vehicles and transit networks, and what are the outcomes, successes and pitfalls? How do these solutions affect mobility?
Join us for a look into technology’s influence on mobility management in New York City. Panelists include:
• Ernest Tollerson, Director, Environmental Sustainability & Compliance, Metropolitan Transportation Authority
• Monica DaCosta, Supervisor of Operational Programs and Strategic Initiatives, Port Authority of NY & NJ
• Brian Ferris, Software Engineer, Google Transit
• Jeff Maki, Principal, Transportation Group at OpenPlans
• Adam Ernst, Software Developer & Creator, iTrans

Short Talks, Big Ideas: Transportation at the Tech Frontier

Presented by Rudin Center for Transportation Policy & Management

How is cutting-edge technology bringing us into the new frontier of transportation? Join us for a fun, engaging, fast-paced event, with several speakers making short presentations about their tech-enabled and optimistic projects and theories, followed by networking and refreshments. Confirmed speakers include:
• Anthony Townsend, Institute for the Future/Rudin Center: Limits of the Untethered City
• Andrew Mondschein, The Rudin Center: Social Travel in the Era of the Smartphone
• Frank Hebbert, OpenPlans: The Collaborative City Plan
• Sophia Choi, NYC DOT: Taxi GPS Data and The Breadcrumb Project
• Mark Krawczuk, WeMakeCoolSh.it, L Train Notwork
• Elizabeth Paul, MTA: The Future of New Fare Payment Systems
• John Geraci, faberNovel: Getting Around Cities
• Lizzy Showman and Kathleen Fitzgerald, School of Visual Arts: I Heart M15

Rudin Center for Transportation Presents "The Five Borough Taxi Plan: A Discussion with NYC Taxi and Limousine Commissioner David Yassky"

Announced by Governor Cuomo in December 2011, the Five Borough Taxi Plan is a Taxi and Limousine Commission approved bill that will issue 18,000 permits to livery cabs, which will allow them to pick up street hails in: Brooklyn, Queens (airports are not included), the Bronx, Staten Island, and Manhattan above East 96th Street and above West 110th Street.

The new permit holding vehicles will be equipped with special markings for easy identification, a roof light, a meter, a credit card reader, and GPS tracking. In addition, the plan will require a specific percentage of the permits to be issued to wheelchair accessible vehicles. The bill also allows for the Taxi and Limousine Commission to sell 2,000 additional taxicab medallions.

Join us for a conversation with Commissioner Yassky about these and other aspects of the new Five Borough Taxi Plan.

David Yassky is the eleventh person to serve as Commissioner/Chairman of the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission. Previously, Commissioner 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, he sponsored legislation to promote the use of fuel-efficient hybrid cars as taxicabs and authored innovative laws in the areas of affordable housing and economic development.

Rudin Center for Transportation Presents "A Conversation with Council Member James Vacca"

Council Member Vacca’s involvement in public service and transportation policy began early in life at the age of 13 when he organized his fellow JHS students to rally for better bus service from the MTA. Before long, he was fighting for stop signs, traffic lights, the fixing of potholes, and other local issues that affected his community.

In 1980, at the age of 25, Mr. Vacca became the District Manager of Community Board #10, where he served until he took office as Councilmember of the 13th District in January of 2006. For 26 years as District Manager, he fought for one of the most diverse districts in the borough. At Community Board #10, Jimmy Vacca was constantly in the vanguard on issues facing the residents of his district. Since he started fighting against graffiti and other types of "quality of life" crimes in the 1980's, his former community board district benefited from his proactive stance by being rated both the safest and cleanest in the Bronx for many years. Over the past several years, he has been the voice of the community in its efforts against rampant overdevelopment, and through his leadership, City Island, Throggs Neck, and Ferry Point were recently rezoned to stop the rapid growth in these neighborhoods.

Today, Mr. Vacca represents the Bronx’s 13th Council district which includes the areas of Pelham Parkway North and South, Pelham Bay, Country Club, City Island, Throggs Neck, Allerton, and Morris Park. As chair of the New York City Council Committee on Transportation, Mr. Vacca plays an integral role in the transportation and infrastructure policymaking.

Global Perspectives of Road Safety: A conversation with public health expert Dr. Kelly J. Henning, Director of Public Health Programs for Bloomberg Philanthropies

Presented by NYU's Rudin Center and the Wagner Alumni in Philanthropy Affinity group

Join us for a discussion with Dr. Kelly Henning, Director of Public Health Programs at Bloomberg Philanthropies, as she discusses road safety in a global perspective. Dr. Henning will talk about the current state of road safety in low- and middle income countries, and share information about the Bloomberg Global Road Safety Program.

With more than 20 years experience in epidemiology and public health, Dr. Henning was the Director of the newly formed Division of Epidemiology at the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene from 2003 - 2006 before joining Bloomberg Philanthropies in January 2007. Currently, Dr. Henning directs all public health programs at Bloomberg Philanthropies, including the $375 million Bloomberg Initiative to Reduce Tobacco Use -- a global project aimed at curbing the tobacco epidemic in low and middle income countries, and the $125 million Bloomberg Global Road Safety Program, a global project aimed at decreasing road traffic deaths and injuries, and improving mobility and road infrastructure in 10 low and middle income countries.

Concrete State of Mind: How Great Streets Can Make Us Happier and Healthier

Presented by NYU's Rudin Center, Transportation Alternatives, the Urban Planning Student Association and the Wagner Transportation Association

It's obvious that when streets are built for walking and biking, it's easier for New Yorkers to be active. But did you know that streets designed for active transportation can also improve mental cognition and neighborhood social bonds? And how do designers reclaim iconic streets like Broadway in Times Square as places for people? Find out more over breakfast and a panel discussion with experts in health, transportation, and urban design.

Panelists:

Claire Fellman, Times Square Project Manager, Snohetta AS

Dr. Mindy Thompson Fullilove, Professor, Columbia University

Andrew Mondschien, Research Scientist, NYU Rudin Center for Transportation Policy & Management

Moderator: Matt Seaton, Editor, The Guardian

Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) Capital Construction Projects: An update from Dr. Michael Horodniceanu, President, MTA Capital Construction Company

There has been a great deal of focus on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority Capital Construction Company’s (MTACC) mega-project which is the largest transit construction program in the nation with over $17 billion dollars invested in expansion and improvement of the downstate region’s transportation network.  

Join us for an exciting update from MTACC President Michael Horodniceanu, Ph.D., P.E. Listen as he outlines the history, engineering challenges and progress of MTACC Mega Project’s including East Side Access, Second Avenue Subway, 7 West Extension, and Fulton Street Transit Center.

In order to face the challenges of urban sustainability and to meet the opportunities of information technologies, transportation systems are undergoing a full paradigm shift. The meanings and values of our “mobile life” are changing. If the 20th was the auto-mobile century, the 21st will be the body-mobile one. Intelligent, augmented, connected; our body is the “new mode” for a modern sustainable urban mobility.

Presented by the Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management, Georges Amar hosts and informal luncheon to disucss the challenges of urban sustainability and what they mean to transportation systems and understanding of mobility.

Georges Amar is the Director of Prospective and Innovative Design at the RATP (the Parisian regional transit authority). Mr. Amar has spent the majority of his professional life as an engineer, graduating from Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Mines in Paris. He has focused on urban transportation in various aspects, which he further explores in his latest book, Homo Mobilis – the new age of mobility.

Join the Rudin Center for a discussion with OpenPlans and New York City Streets Renaissance founder Mark Gorton as he examines and questions the role of the automobile in New York City. 

For more than 100 years New York City government policy has prioritized the needs of the automobile over the needs of any other mode of transport. Working under the faulty assumption that more car traffic would improve business, planners and engineers have systematically made the City's streets more dangerous and less vibrant places. 

As a cyclist, pedestrian, neighbor, and parent, Gorton will question why we have allowed automobiles to transform our streets from dynamic places full of play, human interaction, and commerce, into dangerous, stress-inducing thoroughfares. He will outline and refute the key myths about cars in the city, offer a vision of life in New York City after a comprehensive adoption of livable streets principles, and discuss how technology can empower citizens in the planning process.