Due by Feb. 12
ECON2505ID Env Econ, SP2018 HD23
A City Tech OpenLab Course Site
Due by Feb. 12
The OpenLab is an open-source, digital platform designed to support teaching and learning at City Tech (New York City College of Technology), and to promote student and faculty engagement in the intellectual and social life of the college community.
This is for Maria Marzant and Monica Sanchez
1. The industry our group chose to focus on is public transportation with a focus on the subway. When if comes to environmental cleanliness, we came up with the idea of installing more garbage cans and recycle bins to encourage riders to throw their trash away in the proper places than on the ground or train tracks. This will also reduce the amount of rats in the subway which should also encourage more people to use the trains instead of uber or lyft.
2. The specific steps we can take to achieve significant improvements over the next 10 years are increase the amount of trash cans and install recycling bins in train stations around the city, also impose fines on people who throw trash onto the tracks or leave trash on the trains themselves.
3. The environmental and economic benefits of these changes would be substantial. In terms of the environment, making the subway cleaner would encourage more people to use the trains which in turn would minimize the cars on the road and would hopefully cut down on C02 emissions. In terms of the economy, since subways aren’t free in New York the money gained from more people paying to use the trains would be substantial and we could use this money to improve other aspects of the city. For example, we could use the increased funds to improve the city buses and make them electric or install more bike lanes around the city.
4. We propose to measure our progress to the goals we set by maybe looking at subway ridership. For example, if we see a decrease of subway ridership we would double down on our cleanliness efforts by cleaning the subways more often to entice people to use it. If we see ridership increasing, we’d continue our efforts.
Okay, good. Looking at whether there is a change in the number of people using public transportation after implementing these changes would be a good measure to use. Also, if more people are using public transportation, this increases the revenue collected which makes it possible to make more improvements.