Seven Questions: Andrew Rasiej
Flickr via edans
Andrew Rasiej.
In our new series, we send our questionnaire about the future of New York City to notable New Yorkers and post their responses. To start off, we spoke to Andrew Rasiej, the founder of Personal Democracy Forum and our partner in the New York Future Initiative.
What are some of the biggest challenges facing New York City right now?
To compete and remain relevant in the 21st century with other major cities around the world is its biggest challenge. Updating its antiquated infrastructure, continuing to attract talented citizens, connecting them to each other and the world, investing in new industries, becoming green, and creating a new generation of enlightened political leadership. These are just a few examples where we are woefully behind other cities.
Can you suggest a few innovative, outside-of-the-box ideas for improving daily life in this city?
Here are a few:
-Reward car sharing (free tolls and parking) and make riding the subways and buses free, and allow taxi riders to double and triple up
-Give free broadband access to any family with students in public schools
-Let off-duty police officers work outside nightclubs and bars in uniform to help keep noise down and improve the quality of life
-Increase bike lanes dramatically, flood the city with free bikes to be shared and, in exchange, enforce traffic rules on bicyclists
-Make cell service available in underground subways to match the way it is above ground, making us safer as well as more productive
-Give tax breaks to building owners who retrofit significant green upgrades to their buildings like green roofs to insulate and capture rain run off, solar panels, systems to turn off unused lighting
-Charge fees to skyscraper owners who illuminate the outside of their buildings at night past 10 p.m.
-Provide free parking and no tolls to green market farmers to sell their food on the streets
-Install more public water fountains and pay for it with a tax on bottled water
-Make all N.Y.C. government data (except information that is personal or of security concern) available in complete form for all to use
-Where appropriate, increase pay for teachers who use the Internet as a tool to expand learning opportunities for students
-Increase enforcement and fines for violating noise ordinances and institute training to police and firemen so that they use sirens only when necessary
-Make City Council hearings happen on weekends and online so working class New Yorkers can participate
-Set the default for the video advertising in taxis to ‘off’ so that if you want to see it you have to turn it on
Shall I go on???
Agreed sir & well said… although you said free alot! not sure how my main man Mikey B. would feel about that
