Week in Review: Revised 34th Street / Catskill Watershed Protection / Battle of the Wilderness / Preservationists as Enviros

This week the Preservator is all about the environment.

In New York City, the big news was another innovative DOT project: Traffic patterns for New York City's 34th Street are getting a river-to-river makeover. Dedicated bus lanes will enable riders a quicker commute time, and a no-car zone between Avenue of the Americas and Fifth Avenue will allow pedestrians to move more freely where thy already are. The Bus Rapid Transit is a big improvement in terms of connectivity between rail/subway stations. Kudos to New York City Department of Transportation again for its willingness to question the primacy of the car and to reorganize street space based on actual numbers of users. On that note check out this usage chart posted at Streetsblog.
via NYTimes here
via Streetsblog here.

At the State level, there is a new reason to be thankful that the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation sometimes uses its backbone. The DEC imposed much stricter hurdles for natural gas exploration in the Catskill and Skaneatelas watershesds, both of which are unflitered. Now drilling will require a case-by-case review. Bravo for protecting water quality in these communities, for metro NYC and greater Syracuse.
via NYTimes here.
DEC press release here.

Preservation magazine is revisiting the issue of the proposed Wal-Mart at the site of the Civil War's Battle of the Wilderness in northern Virginia, widely seen as the 1864 turning-point from which Grant nipped at Lee's heels. (The Preservator was a big-time Civil War buff as a child.) This is a sticky one, and despite the presence of strip malls and golden arches in the viewshed, most of it is unblemished. With a lawsuit pending, it remains to be seen what the fate of this battlefield will be.

And thinking more broadly, our friend Patrice Frey, Director of Sustainability Research at the National Trust, writes again at PreservationNation in her final installment of "Old Homes in a Sustainable World" about redefining the Preservationist's job description to include expertise in retrofitting existing buildings to reduce their environmental impact in ways that are true to preservation values. Amen. Preservation professionals need to actively advocate for reforming the ways in which municipalities address the emissions from existing buildings and how preservation regulations need to change with the times.