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Greenspace & Environment
Expanding Travers Park
Daniel Dromm believes that all New Yorkers should have access to quality parks and adequate recreational opportunities. Unfortunately, Travers Park is the only viable public space in the Jackson Heights area and it does not even have enough room for much greenery. Our city council district has the least amount of greenspace and park land of any in the city.
As your city council representative, Dromm will fight to get money to expand Travers Park. He will dedicate all the resources of this office toward expanding greenspace in our area and will chase down any opportunity to convert land into public greenspace.
Creating a Tax Credit for Greenspace
The loss of trees, and other vegetation, in our urban areas not only intensifies the urban "heat-island" effect from loss of shade and evaporation, but we lose a principal absorber of carbon dioxide and other air pollutants as well. Many construction projects are foregoing any greenspace on private lots to make way for more parking. Daniel Dromm proposes that we should incentivize property owners to “green up” their properties.
As your city council representative, Dromm will write legislation to give property owners a tax credit for converting concrete on their lots into greenspace, or for improving existing greenspace such as internal gardens.
Improving Flushing Meadows Corona Park
Flushing Meadow Corona Park is a 1,255-acre park with historical, recreational and environmental significance. It is also Queens' largest park, and is one of New York City's flagship parks (along with Central Park, Prospect Park and Van Cortlandt Park). Unfortunately, FMCP has been neglected for too long. The park is severely lacking in trees, the lake is polluted, and many of the structures (including many from the World’s Fair) are in terrible shape and create an eyesore. Frequently, the park is flooded after a storm and is consistently used as a parking lot for sporting events.
As your city council representative, Daniel Dromm will play a leading role in protecting and preserving this vital park, the closest greenspace to the district. He will make sure that the Deparment of Parks creates a functional drainage system to handle storm waters, allocates a fair share of the budget to plant trees, clean up the lake and fix the park’s infrastructure.
Cleaning Up the Air We Breathe –
Hybrid Livery Car
The city government oversees thousands of licenses for livery car operations in the five boroughs. Recent studies document that 30% of the traffic on our local streets at any time is caused by livery cars. The exhaust fumes and idling of these cars contribute to the alarming asthma rates in our area.
Daniel Dromm proposes that the city implement new emissions and mileage standards for livery cars. Recently, Mayor Bloomberg announced that yellow taxicabs will be fully hybrid fleet by 2012. As your city council representative, Dromm will create a law that extends this program to include livery cars, the most common cars in our neighborhoods.
We need to take local action to clean up our air. Tougher standards for the more than 30,000 livery cars in this City will provide the same clean air benefits as removing 74,000 privately owned cars from our streets, which will significantly reduce the air pollution that causes childhood asthma. Hybrid cars will decrease the fuel costs for drivers, making this a win for the public and operators alike.
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