Bloomberg comes up short on environmental goals

From the Daily News:

Mayor Bloomberg's ambitious environmental agenda fell victim to the fiscal crisis and political challenges, missing many of its 2009 goals, the Mayor's office announced Tuesday.

The city completed just 51 of the 127 milestones Bloomberg laid out in 2007 when he first announced a sweeping plan to plant a million trees, lay hundreds of miles of bike lanes, build housing near mass transit and take other steps to improve the city's climate.

The mayor says he "nearly achieved" another 21 of his goals - but 55 suffered budget shortfalls or haven't yet gotten needed support from state or federal governments.

The plan's highest profile failure was the mayor's congestion pricing proposal to charge tolls on the East River bridges to fund subways and busses.

It was defeated by the Legislature.

Another was the effort to mandate taxi drivers switch to hybrid cars. That was shot down by a federal court, though the city is pushing new federal legislation to change the law.

Among milestones Bloomberg boasted he had achieved was opening 113 schoolyards to be used as playgrounds on weekends and after school.

The News revealed that 17 of those schoolyards were locked on two recent Saturdays.
Other victories listed in the report were:

A 9% decrease in citywide carbon emissions; 19 zoning changes to encourage housing near transit stops; 322,497 trees planted around the city; over 28,600 acres of land acquired upstate to protect the city's watershed; 200 miles of bike lanes installed; New laws requiring building owners to make their buildings more energy efficient.