Activity 4.2.1 – Applying My Environmental Policy Frameworks.

 The environmental policy I will be looking at is “Why can’t NYC get a congestion charge?”. The article with the title “Why can’t NYC get a congestion charge” goes into detail about why congestion is bad for the environment. To begin, a congestion charge is a fee imposed on vehicles operating within a specific area during certain periods of the day, typically in urban centers. Sometimes these congestion charges help lower emissions within the city, traffic congestion, better air quality, promote transportation options, etc. It would be understandable why NYC has so much traffic since it is a touristy city. However, it is weird as to why NYC does not impose a congestion charge. After reading the article I learned there are many issues, and debates going on with the congestion charge in NYC. The first issue I see has to do with economic framing, meaning that there are just so many people and most use public transit, or private planes. Also as I mentioned there are so many people commuting on a daily basis in NYC for their jobs, it seems unfair as to why they'd be getting charged for a basic living necessity which is working. Other framing factors include political issues as well, as it has been known in the article that NYC tried adding congestion charges, but the people complained, and it became a political issue. It became a political issue, because the people of  NYC complained to the Mayor. Now when it comes to environmental issues, nature framing could also be applied to this case scenario. Not having congestion charges can cause more emissions in the air due to the cars. I think the city can also have a gain/loss frame, when looking at civilians some might complain so it's an issue with politics. When looking at how this affects the climate it's also an issue, and there's just more arguing being dome than doing. Especially since NYC has many tourists there's bound to be a lot of cars, and traffic. In conclusion this is a very interesting article and topic to research about, it gives me another perspective of the many issues around the world and there's never and end to it.                                  

References 

Congestion Pricing – Why can’t NYC get a congestion charge?  COHEN et al_2014_CongestionPricing.pdf

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Activity 4.1 - US Environmental History and Major Regulations

Image
  In this week's module I learned about the history of environmental change throughout the US. I think it's important to know our history, especially now that climate change is becoming a more serious issue. I spend a lot of time on social media like Tik Tok, and I see a lot of the things that are going on in the world in terms of news, politics, the environment, etc. When learning about history we as a society should learn what has happened throughout the years to where we are now. I see things on the internet like Antarctica is melting, many wildfires, extreme heat, no potable water, etc. While I was reading the articles for class I learned that back before the internet even existed, people really didn't have to worry about pollution, or waste. The reason due to this, is because back then it wasn't as populated as it is now, and technology didn't exist. In the article it states “When one stand of trees was consumed for housing or fuel, another was nearby; when one
Read more

Activity 4.2 Environmental Policy Frameworks

  The Ohio Antidegradation Case The Drake Chemical Case The Quincy Library Group Case Gain/Loss Frame Views of Nature Frames Economic Framework Basically in 1972 the Clean Water Act required states to define their water quality standards. The Ohio case was a gain/loss frame, because both groups where fighting in court what they wanted the policy to be, yet due to potential loss/gain from both sides they just stopped, and left the case as it is. This was a chemical production company back in the 1940s and early 1980s. The company would dump chemicals into the lagoon and got told by the Department of Environmental regulation that they had to stop doing that. Since the facility didn't want to accept the environmental policy they filed for bankruptcy, and abandoned the facility by stating that “complying with the new regulations  would be prohibitively costly”. This framework is a view of nature, because these individuals working that facility were not perceiving the effects of human i
Read more

Activity 3.3.3 - My Plastic Use

Image
 Short Essay:  In this module I learned more in depth what microplastics are, and their effects to the environment. To begin microplastics come from plastic, and we've been using plastic since the 1950s, so around 65 years. Plastic takes 20-500 years to decompose, but over time that plastic will brake down into smaller pieces to what scientists now call “microplastics”. Microplastics, which are plastic particles, or fibers smaller than 5 millimeters in size, are one of the many are one of the many reasons for the widespread use of microplastics in our society. Due to their miniscule size, microplastics are not able to be removed by wastewater treatment plants. Wastewater treatment plants is something I learned in the last module, which was very interesting, because I learned how sewage water gets cleaned to get released back into the environment. However, learning about how microplastics don't just disappear with a wastewater treatment plant made me realize that they are so sma
Read more