So far my group and I have a set outline for our article. We’re still trying to organize it better and decide what exactly we want our audience to know. We have done some research about gentrification and how it has changed Brooklyn, but for the most part I believe that we will probably speak more from our experiences. We also plan on including some images that show the change in the neighborhoods we live in to hopefully have more of a lasting impact on our readers though visuals.
Month: April 2019
System Fighters- Info Update
So far while researching the mta’s old and new problems it seem like the old is affecting the new in this case. Technology plays a huge part in the development and pace of things we run like trains. We must update our phones because if not we’ll be stuck with old software that will go slow, break down repeatedly or even give up all in one. Governor Cuomo does not fix anything not does he find help for these system problems; All he does is play puppet master.
So far for unit three, I’ve gathered a lot of research on a specific community problem that involves the MTA. To be specific, I found useful information that discusses why trains get delayed and how this problem could possibly be avoided. In my research, I came to a conclusion that signal malfunctions are a huge cause for train delays. With this information, I’ve decided to write an open letter to the board members of the MTA which will go more in depth regarding signal malfunctions and it’s affect on commutes. For better understanding, I read examples of letters written with similar issues so that I could have an idea of what to include in the letter. I started off the letter very briefly and to the point so the members could know that what they’re about to read is serious. Although I struggled with figuring out if I should include some information in the beginning of the letter or not I managed to make a list of what I wanted to include in the beginning, middle, and end of the letter eventually. This allowed me to see where information would sound the most appropriate in terms of the topic I chose. Even though I created this list, I still might have difficulty knowing what to add and what not to add in the letter. For example, I don’t want to be repetitive but maybe that’s what the board needs to see to actually realize that change needs to happen. On the other hand, maybe that’s just what the boards needs to see to not want to read anymore and throw the letter out. I wouldn’t know. But if it was me, I wouldn’t want to read something too repetitive so I’ve decided to add information from the beginning of the letter to the end but in different words. Lastly, for the conclusion of the letter, I’ve also decided to write mainly about the steps that could lead to solutions which for starters involves writing the letter to the board members. I’m not too sure if most of the information I found are steps to solutions or just simply solutions. Most of it just seems like possible solutions. This isn’t too much of a difficulty but it could become confusing because I’m not sure if were supposed to add steps to solutions as well as the solutions or just the steps.
Noise Pollution Memo – Latrell Greene
Latrell Greene
ENG 1121
Dr. Hall
4/4/2019
Noise Pollution Memo
Noise pollution being ever-present in big cities like NYC, can lead to health effects that range from levels of both physical health effects, to psychological. A multitude of studies have been conducted on the effects of noise pollution on the human mind and body, which goes to show how prominent the problem is.
According to a study 2011 study from the German Department of Environmental Health, “Noise from transportation is by far the most widespread source of noise exposure, causing most annoyance and public health concerns.”
A 2000 study conducted research on the effects of noise pollution on humans. The effects included, “Noise Induced Hearing Impairment”, “Stress Related Health Effects”, “Sleep Disturbance” and “Effects on [Cognitive] Performance”
A study from 1995 by Journal of Hypertension featured conducted research on the effects of urban noise pollution on blood pressure and heart rate in preschool children, and concluded that “the group mean blood pressure and heart rate values of preschool children from quiet areas contrasted with readings for those from noisy environments. This indicates a positive association between the level of traffic noise and a possibly increased role of sympathetic cardiovascular regulatory influence. ”
Noise pollution’s effects could be solved by targeting policies, or policy makers, since the policies are what can control the level of noise in a city. A reasonable noise threshold that can be upheld by law/policy would be very beneficial for people since people can be affected.
Sources
- http://www.noiseandhealth.org/article.asp?issn=1463-1741;year=2011;volume=13;issue=52;spage=201;epage=204;aulast=Babisc
- https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/cms/attachment/2122895a-7860-45ef-8a1e-c7b2ccb08c1b/ehp.00108s1123.pdf
- https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Valeria_Regecova2/publication/15570548_Effects_of_urban_noise_pollution_on_blood_pressure_and_heart_rate_in_preschool_children/links/5a51575aa6fdcc769001ff4a/Effects-of-urban-noise-pollution-on-blood-pressure-and-heart-rate-in-preschool-children.pdf
For Tuesday
Hey everyone– good work today!
For Tuesday, I would like you all to work on Unit 3– your “Community Problems” projects. On OpenLab, please post a brief “progress report” that lets me know what you’ve done so far and how you’re doing with the unit.
Some important dates:
Tuesday, April 16: Revision of essay 1 (education narrative) is due
Thursday, April 18: Unit 3 is due.
Please note that these are pretty close together. If you ignore these dates until the last minute, you’re gonna feel a WORLD OF PAIN! (Or just be super stressed.)
MTA Research Memo
On June 2017, New York governor Andrew Cuomo declared New York City’s transit system (mainly the city’s subways) to be in a “state of emergency.” Stating that subway “delays are maddening New Yorkers” who are “infuriated by a lack of communication and unreliability,” the governor ordered the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), whose chairperson he nominates and whose board nominations he controls, to reorganize its operations.
Though the long-term goal was for the MTA to modernize its physical assets, including its outdated signal infrastructure, the MTA’s more immediate goal was to better manage its short-term inspection, repair, and replacement schedule for tracks, signals, and subway cars to avoid unexpected disruptions to the schedules of nearly 6 million daily subway riders. The MTA’s task here was partly to repair the damage done by cutbacks to inspections, maintenance, and repairs made in the wake of the 2008 financial and economic crisis—cuts made even as ridership continued to soar as the local economy recovered; and even as the MTA’s budget for pensions, health care, and debt continued to grow. The MTA also announced plans to deploy medical crews more quickly to passengers in need of assistance, thus reducing delays due to sick or incapacitated riders.
Seventeen months into this plan, it is possible to use the MTA’s own performance reports to assess the early results. Each month, the MTA reports information to its board on specific areas of subway performance, including the percentage of subway trains that arrive at their stop on time; the average distance, in miles, that a subway car can travel before breaking down; the number of “major incidents” that disrupted service for 50 or more subway trains at once; and the percentage of weekday passengers’ journeys that arrive within five minutes of the scheduled time. The good news , however, is that over the past three years, the MTA has stabilized its operations, stemming the dramatic declines in performance over the previous half-decade. Cuomo wasn’t wrong to note, upon Joseph Lhota’s departure as MTA chairman in November 2018, that Lhota had “stabilized the subway system.”
Nevertheless, the MTA has not yet regained its performance levels of the early 2010s. Despite modest improvements over the past year, nearly three times as many weekday trains experience delays compared with 2011, when Cuomo first took office. Trains are still nearly 30% more likely to break down. The MTA has not stemmed the decline in ridership that resulted from its recent declining performance. A month after Governor Cuomo’s declaration of emergency in 2017, the MTA, under former chairman Lhota, launched a “subway action plan,” promising to “deliver improvements within the year.” The MTA would primarily focus on track and signal-system improvements and train-car reliability, deploying hundreds of new workers toward inspecting, repairing, and replacing track segments as well as ensuring that the system’s early-20th-century signal system did not break down as often.
The plan had a steep price tag. Though the MTA never promised a finite time frame for the “action plan,” the first phase was to cost $836 million: $456 million in the form of higher labor and other operating costs for expedited repairs and cleaning; and $380 million in the form of higher capital-asset costs for newer and better track, subway cars, and cleaning and inspection equipment. But the subway action plan is not a one-off cost. The MTA expects extra operating expenditures attributed to more aggressive inspection, repair, and maintenance schedules to be ongoing. On top of (a revised) $508 million in operating costs for the first year, the MTA expects to spend another $365 million in 2019 and $365 million annually thereafter, largely to pay the wages and benefits of newly hired union employees who will do much of this in-house work.Between 2017 and 2019, for example, the MTA expects that the workforce for New York City Transit (the MTA’s subway and bus division) will grow by 1,095 workers, to 51,246, largely as a result of the subway action plan.
The MTA has also made management changes to ensure professional implementation of the plan. In January 2018, Andy Byford, a veteran of mass-transit systems in Toronto and London, joined the MTA as president of New York City Transit, in charge of subways and buses. In late October, Byford told 60 Minutes’ Bill Whitaker, “I absolutely want New Yorkers to start feeling, by the end of this year, it’s definitely getting better.”
Stanley Desir 04//04/19
ENG 1121 Research Memo
Throughout my research I learned a lot about gentrification. I learned that it’s happening all around me and in front of me in my whole community. I believe it’s one of the main catalyst in the reason why rent is rising in new york city. In my opinion, it’s government invasion. Dramatic changes are playing out across parts of urban America, making many neighborhoods hardly recognizable from a relatively short time ago. A new class of more affluent residents(Rich white people) are moving into once underinvested and predominantly-poor communities. Development has followed, typically accompanied by sharp increases in housing prices that can displace a neighborhood’s longtime residents. Here are some stats I picked up about gentrification. Nearly 20 percent of neighborhoods with lower incomes and home values have experienced gentrification since 2000, compared to only 9 percent during the 1990s.
- Gentrification still remains rare nationally, with only 8 percent of all neighborhoods reviewed experiencing gentrification since the 2000 Census.
- Compared to lower-income areas that failed to gentrify, gentrifying Census tracts recorded increases in the non-Hispanic white population and declines in the poverty rate.
In Nyc, As for racial and ethnic changes, the report shows that gentrifying neighborhoods saw an increase in white population, despite a citywide decrease. Gentrifying neighborhoods also saw a larger decrease in the black population through 2014 than the city as a whole. The report also compares income changes across neighborhoods. Between 1990 and 2014, average household income in gentrifying neighborhoods rose by 14 percent. By contrast, average household income in non-gentrifying neighborhoods declined by eight percent while average income remained steady in higher-income neighborhoods. The rent in New York City is too damn high—with a median rent above $3,000/month, this is an undeniable fact but the biggest increases have largely been concentrated in areas that have historically been considered lower-income to gentrification. The real estate website mined its data from 2010 to 2018, looking at more than one million listings, and found that New York City rents have increased by 31 percent in those eight years. But the biggest jumps were found in neighborhoods that are considered gentrifying: Ditmas Park, Prospect Lefferts Gardens, and Bedford-Stuyvesant all experienced rent increases of more than 40 percent, while other areas with increases of more than 35 percent include Inwood, Washington Heights, and Crown Heights.
Below is a link to a chart which has to do with statistics involving gentrification. https://communityindicators.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/2016_Rosoff_Measuring_Gentrification_NYC-1.pdf
Gentrification Memo
Karina Ramsey
Dr. Carrie Hall
English 1121
April 4th, 2019
On My Block (Gentrification Memo)
Gentrification has become a big problem in Brooklyn. Residents of Brooklyn and packing up and leaving their homes because she can’t afford to pay the increasing rent. I researched gentrification happening in neighborhoods in Brooklyn like Crown Heights and the rise of gentrification in East Flatbush. In neighborhood like these with a huge Caribbean immigrant population it’s sometimes hard to see it changed in order to make room for higher paying residents. You see local Caribbean food places close down so food places like sushi can open up. Having Cocktails bars replace the fried chicken spots, and Pet spas to giving these new income residents a reason to stay.
Many residents don’t want to move to places like Brownsville, or East New York because they don’t want to be surrounded with the violence and crime that comes with living in those neighborhoods, especially when they are raising young men and women, they rather leave the state of New York. Many even move to Boston, Maryland, or Philadelphia for affordable living but travel back to Brooklyn to shop at their local markets and food places that they enjoy and are used to. A Lot of people end up moving in with their parents because they can’t afford to pay their rent when it increases, or they can’t pay the asking prices for a new apartment. Many landlords even stoop as low as not providing heat nor hot water to force their tenants out. Landlord are even buying tenants out and offering them as much as 10,000-70,000. It seems like a lot of money to middle-income people, but in fact is nothing, its pocket change. When they add up moving expense, taxes, and the cost of to find a new apartment they would have been better off sticking it out at their old apartment.
Some warnings signs of gentrification are landlords increasing the rent tremendously because they know existing tenants can’t afford to pay it. Landlords coming in and changing things like your kitchen countertop which has been there for 10 years to a brand new expensive one. See your childhood neighbors moving out and moving to places like Atlanta and Virginia. What is really common is that that landlords are withholding repairs with the hopes that their current tenants with move out so they can repair and make room for higher-income renters.
A Lot of middle-income residents are living the city of Brooklyn and the state of New York altogether because of the cost of living. Landlords in the neighborhoods I research are not helping the situation of gentrification, in fact they are part of the reason we are losing our neighborhood to rich white folks, who can afford to pay these ridiculous prices these apartments are going for now. Gentrification inn Crown Heights is in a rush and it is slowing moving to East Flatbush. You can slowing see new condos and high-rise building being built in East Flatbush. Rents are slowing stating to increase and more Caucasian people are staying on the train pass Atlantic Ave.
research memo
Pavel Nunez
Dr Carrie Hall
4/3/19
English 1121
Research Memos
Based on the 1st article I read that “Seven people died while walking or riding between New York City subway cars in 2018, according to the MTA, including four people in December alone — a jump from five total deaths in 2017. There were also five deaths from passengers going between subway cars in 2016. After 2018’s deadly year, the transit authority is reminding New Yorkers how dangerous walking between subway cars can be.”,and to combat this After 2018’s deadly year of a lot of deaths, the transit authority is reminding New Yorkers how dangerous walking between subway cars can be everytime someone gets on the train.
On the other article The MTA has came up with an effective solution for combating the amount of people that jumped on the tracks of the train by the installation of platform screen doors, which are common in European cities and Asian cities. Aside from preventing people from falling or jumping onto the tracks, having a barrier between the platform and the tracks keeps stations cleaner(so nobody throws trash), reduces fires caused by garbage on the tracks(which causes delays, and allows for air-conditioned platforms. But unfortunately for the MTA, there isn’t enough money to fund this idea because its out of their yearly income and honestly why install this to protect 0.2 percent of the people that are crazy enough to go in the tracks and kill themselves.
Also on another group members article I learned Most trains on the New York City Subway are manually operated. The signal system currently uses Automatic Block Signaling, with fixed wayside signals and automatic train stops. Many portions of the signaling system were installed between the 1930s and 1960s. The age of the subway system shows that many replacement parts are unavailable from today’s signal suppliers and must be custom built for the New York City Transit Authority, which obviously operates the subway. Additionally, some subway lines have reached their train capacity limits and cannot operate extra trains in the current system to avoid even further delays. They could try upgrading this but the again, that requires a lot of money which the MTA doesn’t have despite earning billions each year, which is a similar problem on the research above.
MTA-System Problems
The MTA is controlled by New York State but it is an independent cooperation. The governor for New York which is Andrew Cuomo stated as recently as the Tuesday we just passed that the problem with MTA is that no one is in charge and if no one is in charge problems will continue to occur. He then tried to put himself in charge which was assumed he already had that position this is not true. The governor is actually who is to be blamed. The MTA board has 14 voting member and their jobs are to review,approve and monitor fundamental financial and business strategies as well as major actions but none of these say anything about improving the health issues or taking the homeless people off the train carts. That is an issue for the people to deal with so it seems. Something that we cannot fix because it’s inevitable and also to public. A lot of the things we want to be able to change involving the MTA will always be black-balled because of its public setting. Secondly, the system’s functions that run on our trains today are old and not just 5-10 years old but in fact centuries. This causes trains to slow down, the technology that are used for train systems control the speed as well as stopping sand starting the subway trains. However the MTA does plan on changing this to a newer system that runs how our world runs today, busy and fast. Red lights, green and yellow are some signal systems that trains use today for blocking and proceeding train routes and all of these are used to increase the consistent train flow underground so train conductors know where they are going as well as best serving subway riders. Governor Cuomo says that nobody is in charge of the subway affairs and this is the problem so maybe he should take full responsibility or place it in the hands of someone who can because without someone in charge any change at all will be difficult to see. The MTA board has an impact on most of things surrounding the subways so solutions that are thought out and will help things runs smoothly down there isn’t such a bad idea. If anything someone needs to be the voice to say “hey, someone needs to fix this we can no longer deal with the sudden disruptions anymore” for things to get done. If you plan to leave your house to catch a certain train then timed when that train will arrive at your stop so that you can be on time for work or class, you should be able to follow through with that plan. Trains are public yes! Yet this is no excuse for the quality millions of riders deserve when their taxes are going to it and they pay their fare. They should be organized and on time for the people.
