On Earth Day April 22, 2007, Mayor Michael Bloomberg presented an ambitious plan to ensure New York remains a world class leader in terms of its economy, quality of life, and its natural environment in 2030.

The journey began in May 2006 [0] when Mayor Bloomberg announced his vision to make New York a sustainable city at NYLCV's 2006 Spring Gala, it continued in September 2006 [0] when he created his Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability and appointed NYLCV Executive Director Marcia Bystryn to an advisory panel, and reached new heights in December 2006 [0] when he outlined his broad goals at an event hosted by NYLCV at the Queens Museum of Art.

These goals, put under an umbrella effort called PLANYC 2030 [1], included:

• Housing an additional 1 million New Yorkers affordability;
  
• Increasing access to parks, playgrounds and open spaces;
  
• Reclaiming brownfields;
  
• Developing critical backup systems for the city's aging water network;
• Providing additional reliable power sources and upgrading existing power plants;
  
• Reducing water pollution thus opening waterways for recreation; and,
• Reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 30%.
  

Read all the details of the plan HERE [2].
Read the speech HERE [3].
Read NYLCV's Press Release HERE [3].

Highlights of today's announced 127-point action plan by the Bloomberg administration to tackle these goals were:

Air Quality

• Improve fuel efficiency of private cars by waiving New York City's sales tax on the cleanest, most efficient vehicles;
  
• Retrofit both large and small school buses and reduce their required retirement age to decrease school bus emissions; and,
  
• Partner with stakeholders to help plant 1,000,000 trees over the next decade in vacant lots;
  

Brownfields

• Create a new City office to increase resources dedicated to brownfield planning, testing and cleanups; and,
  
• Dedicate $15 million to a fund to support brownfield redevelopment.

• Amend the building code to address the impacts of climate change; and,
  
• Create an inter agency task force to protect the city’s vital infrastructure and expand our adaptation strategies beyond the protection of our water supply, sewer, and wastewater treatment systems to include all essential city infrastructure.

• Establish a New York City Energy Planning Board to centralize planning for the city's supply and demand initiatives;
  
• Commit 10% of the City's annual energy bill to fund energy-saving investments in City operations;
  
• Strengthen energy and building codes to support our energy efficiency strategies and other environmental goals; and,
• Create an energy efficiency authority for New York City (NYCEEA) responsible for reaching the city's demand reduction targets.

Housing

• Use upcoming rezonings to direct growth toward areas with strong transit access; and,
  
• Continue restoring underused or vacant waterfront land across the city.

Transportation

• Establish a new Sustainable Mobility and Regional Transportation (SMART) Financing Authority to advance new projects and achieve a state of good repair in the subway and on the roads;
• Pilot congestion pricing to manage traffic in the Central Business District (CBD); and,
  
• Improve and expand bus service by initiating and expanding Bus Rapid Transit routes, dedicating Bus/High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes on East River Bridges and exploring other bus service improvements.

• Complete Long Term Control Plans for all 14 New York City Watersheds, as required by law; and,
• Reduce Combined Sewage Overflow (CSO) discharges by more than 185 mgd during rainstorms.