NY Climate Tech: August 12 - August 20
An interview with Riders Alliance, climate trivia, science dinners, rooftop happy hours, sustainable food, a climate hackathon, and more events this week
Hi friends,
This week, NY Climate Tech’s Kathy Zhang sat down with Danny Pearlstein from Riders Alliance to talk about congestion pricing, transit advocacy, public space, and more. Scroll on down for the full interview, and meet Kathy later this month at the ✍️ Climate Writing Club on 8/24.
ICYMI, we published our guide to the first 100 events of Climate Week. There are already more in the hopper—stay tuned for an update!
Here are our picks for the week:
Tomorrow test your climate chops at 🍏 Green Apple Trivia or head to Skylight diner for the 👩🔬 CCL Climate Science and Energy Engineering Dinner
Wednesday, bring talk city and real estate innovation at 🌃 Urblandia x ART Soho
Head to Riverside Park on Thursday for a talk on 🥗 Sustainable Food Systems
Finally, spend Saturday at the sixth 👩💻 Climate Hackathon NYC at Index Space in Chinatown
As always, it was to see everyone who could make the Climate Finance event last week, and thanks to CitizenM for hosting! We’ve had to cap the last few events for space reasons, but we’re planning on accommodating everyone at an early September NY Climate Tech meetup—stay tuned.
Finally, the Climate Film Festival will be announcing its programming line up this week! Register your interest on Eventbrite to be the first to find out when tickets launch.
As always, scroll down for the full list of upcoming events.
Cheers,
Alec, Sonam, and the Climate Tech Cities Team
This Week’s Events
🍀 Net Impact Monthly Social Hour: Tue, Aug 13
🍏 Green Apple Trivia: Tue, Aug 13
👩🔬 CCL Climate Science and Energy Engineering Dinner: Tue, Aug 13
🌃 Urblandia x ART Soho (Rooftop): Wed, Aug 14
☕️ Outdoor Climate Cafe (8/14): Wed, Aug 14
🥕 Sustainable Food Systems: Thu, Aug 15
🏃♀️ ClimateHack New York City: Run & Walk: Fri, Aug 16
👩💻 Climate Hackathon NYC: Sat, Aug 17
Community Shoutouts
👩💻 Climate Coworking Survey
Friend of the newsletter Colter Miller is gauging interest in a climate coworking space in NYC. Fill out the survey here!
🎬 Volunteer with the Climate Film Festival
Calling all film lovers, environmentalists, and local New Yorkers! We’re on the lookout for energetic, passionate, creative, and hands-on volunteers to help us launch the first-ever Climate Film Festival NYC. Whether it’s working the box office, greeting filmmakers, or whipping up climate solutions social media content, our CFF volunteer team is the glue that holds the festival together. Apply to volunteer here.
🌎 Climate Tech Cities and Streetlife Ventures Startup and Talent Platforms
Climate Tech Cities and Streetlife Ventures are launching new platforms to support climate founders, funders, and career transitioners! There is no shortage of great companies raising money for their groundbreaking ideas, great investors looking to support with capital, and great talent living the mantra that every job is a climate job. We can’t wait to hear from you!
💸 Climate Capital Summit
Planning for Cimate Week already? The 2024 Climate Capital Summit is an invite-only gathering that brings together the industry’s leading innovators, investors, executives and policymakers - taking place on Wednesday 9/25 during NY Climate Week. If interested in attending, please request an invite here.
Advocating for NYC’s Transit Majority
Kathy Zhang, Climate Tech Cities’ Editorial Director, recently caught up with Danny Pearlstein from Riders Alliance to chat about how this NYC grassroots organization fights to improve transit and climate proof our future. The conversation has been condensed for clarity and length.
What does the Riders Alliance do?
We've been around since 2012. We have about a dozen staff members, and we have thousands of members across the city who volunteer to make public transit more accessible, more affordable, faster, more frequent, more reliable, more resilient, not just for its own sake, but to make New York a more equitable place to live.
How does Riders Alliance use transit data in how it prioritizes and plans its campaigns?
In every one of NYC’s 65 assembly districts (out of 150 statewide), at least 75% of people who commute into Manhattan use public transit. So even in so-called “transit deserts” where residents are far from the subway, three out of four people are still getting themselves into Manhattan by public transit.
When we were first pushing to pass congestion pricing, we presented that data at subway stations and even beyond in certain assembly districts. We were calling up the assembly members' offices, "I need transit to get to work. We need you to fix the subway." So using census data and grassroots power, we passed congestion pricing after it had failed previously in the NY legislature.
What are y’all focused on over the next year?
We have a lot going on. We are focused on speeding up the bus by holding the mayor to account for prioritizing buses on very busy city streets. We have the slowest buses in the nation, and it's unconscionable especially because NYC has the most riders of any city.
We’re fighting to bring back congestion pricing, getting the governor to implement it in a robust way to raise billions of dollars we need for new subway signals, new subway cars, new station elevators and more.
And we’re pushing our statewide campaign for fully funding transit across the state. That means future resilience upgrades here in the city, as well as more buses and bus service around the state so the whole state moves in a transit-oriented direction, which in turn makes it easier for us to build power for transit here in the city.
New York congestion pricing has been in the making for decades – why is it important?
Congestion pricing raises billions of dollars to make essential transit upgrades that are long overdue to our aging signal system, our subway car fleet, and station accessibility.
It also cuts traffic in the densest place in the US, which also happens to have the best transit. Most average working people can’t cannot afford to operate a car and depend on public transit to get into Manhattan. Cutting traffic in the central business district will speed up our buses, ambulances, fire trucks, and freight deliveries.
And until we have a more modernized fleet, we still have to rely on diesel trucks to move freight around. If we can nudge folks to get out of the car, to cancel and combine trips, to get on a bus or a train, we can have freer moving freight traffic, which reduces the emissions that are creating respiratory health issues and worsening the climate crisis.
People see a growing public budget; they don't see growing public space–we're not making any more of it.
You mentioned parking–how does the Riders Alliance approach the built environment and the allocation of public space?
It’s not just about parking. Drivers should not be taking up nearly as much space on the street as has been permitted for several decades. Are we properly pricing parking? And how we're using travel lanes–do we have too many of those? Should they be made into bus lanes in certain places? Should they be made into green infrastructure so they prevent flooding at a nearby subway station?
I live in a sort of hydrological bowl where water collects and repeatedly shuts down the A train. The MTA did some work to build up the vents to keep the water from coming in, but in a major storm we could still have serious flooding. Yet, we have a six-lane road outside. If we had only four lanes, we could slow the water coming down the hill and keep some of that out of the subway station.
What are some lessons that come to mind from both Riders Alliance's successful and unsuccessful campaigns?
I think that public space is harder to claim than public money. We were able to pass Fair Fares NYC, which is a low-income transit discount program that the city funds with millions of dollars in its budget every year. That proved easier than some individual bus projects where we redesignated space on the street away from private cars. People see a growing public budget; they don't see growing public space–we're not making any more of it.
How can people learn more and get involved?
We are only as strong as our membership and our base of leaders who donate their time. We encourage people to learn more about ridersalliance.org, connect with us on social media, and come to our rallies–next one is on September 25 outside the MTA board meeting. A lot of our climate-proofing for our hot and wetter future will depend on how well we defend the transit system.
The majority of New Yorkers directly depend on public transit. Everyone, obviously, indirectly depends on it. Every Riders Alliance member is advocating for a majority of people in the city, millions of people who need this to work better.
Find out more at Riders Alliance
Upcoming Events
☀️ Solar New-York Show International 2024: Tue, Aug 20
🍻 New York CDR Community Drinks: Tue, Aug 20
⛴️ Sunset Boat Tour: NYC's Green Economy: Wed, Aug 21
🍻 Green Drinks Brooklyn - August 2024: Wed, Aug 21
🏙️ How to Create Efficient Cities: Urban Planning and Environmental Justice: Thu, Aug 22
✍️ Climate Writing Club: Sat, Aug 24
☕️ Climate Cafe at the Climate Imaginarium on Governors Island: Sat, Aug 24
🌎 The Climate Crisis: Local and Urban Solutions to a Global Challenge: Wed, Aug 28
🔌 Data in Power: Thu, Aug 29
🎴 Climate Fresk at Eat Offbeat (Chelsea Market): Thu, Sep 5
🏙️ 2024 Economic & Workforce Development Summit: Thu, Sep 12
⚡️ Dervos 2024: Fri, Oct 25
🔌 Deploy24: Wed, Dec 4
This Week in Depth
🍀 Net Impact Monthly Social Hour
When: Tuesday, August 13 · 6 - 8pm EDT
Where: Porchlight, 271 11th Avenue New York, NY 10001
Net Impact hosts a social hour every month to bring our community together! Join us as we network, exchange ideas, share job listings and learn from each other. We mobilize New York City professionals to build and use their skills to drive social and environmental change.
🍏 Green Apple Trivia
When: Tuesday, August 13 · 7 - 9:30pm EDT
Where: Mercury Bar West, 9th Avenue, New York, NY, USA 659 9th Avenue New York, NY 10036
Get ready to put your knowledge to the test and compete against other trivia and sustainability enthusiasts. Join us in Manhattan at Mercury Bar West for an opportunity to win bragging rights, prizes, and enjoy a night of entertainment... including a full vegan menu and happy hour until 10pm!
👩🔬 CCL Climate Science and Energy Engineering Dinner
When: Tuesday, August 13 · 7 - 9pm EDT
Where: Skylight Diner, 402 West 34th Street, New York, NY 10001
Welcome to the CCL-NYC Climate Science and Energy Engineering Dinner! Located within easy reach of the A/C/E & 7 subways, and one block from Penn / Moynihan station. The diner has a large menu with affordable prices, generous portions, and is willing to do separate checks for a large group, with everybody using their own credit card.
🌃 Urblandia x ART Soho (Rooftop)
When: Wednesday, August 14 · 6 - 8pm EDT
Where: citizenM New York Bowery hotel,189 Bowery, New York, NY 10002
Join us for our real estate and urban development professionals meetup/mixer. Reimagine the future of cities through collaboration. We’re excited to host with Arlo Soho NYC! Join us for our meetup/mixer at the rooftop bar for a great time connecting, wonderful cities views and cocktails. Festivities starts at 6PM.
☕️ Outdoor Climate Cafe (8/14)
When: Wednesday, August 14 · 5:30 - 7:30pm EDT
Where: Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket, Flatbush Avenue Brooklyn, NY 11215
Climate Cafes represent an opportunity to discuss difficult emotions that arise out of the climate crisis - everything from anxiety, fear, dread, hopelessness, and anger - in a supportive environment of peers. Climate Cafes are non-clinical, non-directive spaces where attendees can hold space for each others’ emotions without trying to fix other people. At it’s core, it can be meaningful to spend time with others who feel the same way.
🥕 Sustainable Food Systems
When: Thursday, August 15 · 6:30 - 8pm EDT
Where: 102nd Street Field House, Riverside Park New York, NY 10025
Is your work related to the environment or sustainability? Are you interested in sustainability or environmental issues. Do you want to meet some like minded folks and share your thoughts and passion. Come down to Estuary at ONE15 Brooklyn Marina for Happy Hour drinks. We'll have a few folks introduce themselves and their work.
🏃♀️ ClimateHack New York City: Run & Walk
When: McCarren Park Track, Brooklyn, NY
Where: Friday, August 16 from 7:45 AM - 9:00 AM
Are you a Climate Tech professional or aspiring to be? Operators, entrepreneurs, and investors are all welcome to join our summer social run in Brooklyn! Join us 15 minutes early for a warm-up, and we'll all meet at the end for networking, with an option to take a coffee at Two Hands!
👩💻 Climate Hackathon NYC
When: Saturday, August 17 from 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM
Where: Index Space, NYC
The first five Climate Hackathons were so engaging that we are opening up the invite! What better way to spend a Saturday afternoon than grappling with the gritty details of sustainability solutions? What to bring: your climate-interested and solutions-focused attitude, laptop or pen+paper, and your friends who also have a climate-interested and solutions-focused attitude.