CCNY to Host Sustainable Transit Conference May 7

The City College of New York (CCNY) will host “Sustainable Transit: Developing an Action Agenda,” a day-long conference that will examine the role that public transportation can play in achieving sustainability and how transit agencies can reduce their environmental impact.  The event will take place 8:30 a.m. – 4 p.m. Friday, May 7, in the Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture building.

Rep. Charles B. Rangel, D-NY, will deliver the opening address.  Congressman Rangel represents New York’s 15th Congressional District, which includes the CCNY campus.

“Transit contributes to regional and global sustainability in so many ways, including increased mobility, reduced greenhouse gas emissions and more efficient land use patterns,” said Dr. Robert E. Paaswell, Interim President of CCNY and conference steering committee chair.  “This conference will bring together top-level industry officials, academics and policymakers to discuss how transit can adopt design and operating practices that will produce a greener future.”

The conference is being presented by the Region Two University Transportation Research Center (UTRC) in collaboration with CUNY Institute for Urban Systems, Metropolitan Transportation Authority and Steven L. Newman Real Estate Institute.  Both UTRC and the Institute for Urban Systems are based at CCNY; the Newman Institute is at Baruch College.

Among the questions the conference will examine are:
•    How does sustainability apply to transit?
•    Why is it imperative for the transit industry to be sustainable?
•    How can we adapt existing successful and feasible sustainable transit practices from Europe, Asia and elsewhere?
•    What investments must be made? What are potential funding sources?
•    What do we need? From Technology, Institutions, Infrastructure, Stakeholders?
•    What are the economic costs and benefits? Who benefits? What is the payoff/where is the return on investment?
•    How do we move towards implementation of techniques? And, how can technology get us there faster?

Conference presenters include engineers, administrators, elected officials, professors and corporate executives representing: transit operators, federal and state agencies, trade associations, Congress, industry suppliers and consultants and leading colleges and universities.  A complete list of presenters follows:

Thomas Abdallah, Chief Environmental Engineer, New York City Transit.

Heather Allen, Senior Manager, Sustainable Development, International Organisation for Public Transport (UITP).

Andrew Bata, Chief, Strategic Improvements and Best Practices, New York City Transit.

Robert Bertini, Deputy Administrator, Research and Innovative Technology Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation.

Hillary Brown, Professor of Architecture, The City College of New York.

Paul Brubaker, Senior Director, Public Sector Group, Cisco.

Projjal Dutta, Director of Sustainable Initiatives, Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Joel Ettinger, Executive Director, New York Metropolitan Transportation Council.

Richard Hanley, Professor, New York City College of Technology, and Editor of the Journal of Urban Technology.

Camille Kamga, Acting Director, University Transportation Research Center.

William Long, Co-Chair, Sustainable Transit Steering Committee.

Petra Mollet, Vice President, Strategy, American Public Transportation Association.

Michael Meyer, Director of the Georgia Transportation Institute, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Georgia Tech.

Louis Neudorff, Vice President, Transportation Systems, Iteris.

Takao Nishiyama, Executive Director, New York Office, East Japan Railway Co.

Jack S. Nyman, Director, Steven L. Newman Real Estate Institute, Baruch College.

Robert E. Paaswell, Interim President, The City College of New York.

Anthony Perl, Post Carbon Institute, and Professor and Director, Urban Studies Program, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, British Columbia.

Frank S. Ralbovsky, Senior Project Manager, Transportation & Power Systems Research, New York State Energy Research and Development Authority.

Rep. Charles B. Rangel, 15th Congressional District, New York.

Jon Rynn, author, “Manufacturing Green Prosperity.”

Elliott Sclar, Director of the Center for Sustainable Urban Development, Columbia University.

Mark Strauss, Senior Partner, FXFOWLE.

Ernest Tollerson, Director, Policy and Media Relations, Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

John Walsh, Chief Research and Strategy Officer, Clever Devices.

Nigel Wilson, Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering, MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Additional information about the conference, including online registration, can be found on the UTRC website athttp://www.utrc2.org/events/events.php?viewid=264.