It's not easy building green

THE CITY

New York buildings are slowly becoming more energy efficient — but with nearly half earning Ds or Fs on city report cards, many are still struggling to make the grade.

That’s the conclusion of THE CITY’s analysis of preliminary data obtained from the city Department of Buildings, offering a glimpse into the grading system’s second year — even as the pandemic skews typical energy usage patterns.

Across the city, nearly 20% of buildings 25,000 square feet or larger received A grades, compared with about 16% in 2020, the data shows.

Like last year, lackluster Ds proved the most popular grade, though the share fell from 44% in 2020 to about 39% this year. And over 9% of buildings — up from about 7.5% last year — earned Fs, meaning the building owner failed to submit data to the city.

Overall, more than 20,000 buildings — from pre-war apartment complexes to skyscrapers — were graded. Poor grades carry no penalties, but failing to post the letter marks could mean a $1,250 fine.

Environment boosters saw reason for hope in the latest collective report card.

“Building owners care so much. We’ve never seen anything have as high an impact,” said Donnel Baird, CEO of the company Blocpower, which upgrades buildings for improved energy efficiency, mainly through electrification. “Even the threat of fines has not created as much of a reaction as these letter grades on the front of the buildings.”

On a per-borough basis, Manhattan’s building stock had the largest share of As compared to all its grades: 23%, up from almost 15% in 2020, when the borough came in third behind Brooklyn and Queens.

Gina Bocra, DOB’s chief sustainability officer, attributes the overall improvement to the visibility of the energy efficiency information, which motivates property owners to do better.

“Owners have been acting on that information, so the transparency is working, and we’re getting them to be more familiar with what’s happening in their building,” Bocra said. “They’re beginning to make alterations to the building to change what’s happening there.”

The grades and the focus on energy efficiency are part of the city’s effort to slash greenhouse gas emissions from buildings — the city’s largest source of emissions — 40% from 2005 levels by 2030 and 80% by 2050 in the race to mitigate climate change.

Every bus line in the five boroughs sucks except just one, and it's in Queens!

NY Daily News

Transit advocacy groups released report cards for bus routes across the city Wednesday, and the grades weren’t exactly honor roll material.

Half of all the routes analyzed across the five boroughs received a “D” grade or lower, shining a light on the depressing, delay-ridden commutes that plague the city’s 2 million daily bus riders.

The report also shows breakdowns of bus performance by City Council district— all but five of the 51 across the city received “D” or “F” grades.

“For a long time I’ve felt that the problems on our buses were an ignored second transit crisis in this city,” said City Councilman Mark Levine (D-Manhattan), whose district received an F grade and has an average bus speed of 5 miles per hour. “All the attention goes to the obviously serious problem in our subways.”

Despite the dismal findings, the analysis does show that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s bus service is improving slightly. Last year, 30 fewer bus routes received failing grades than in 2017, a statistic advocates largely chalk up to improvements in the way that buses are dispatched.

Just one route detailed in the report received an “A” grade: the Q52 select bus, which travels from Elmhurst to the Rockaways.

Jaqi Cohen of the Straphangers Campaign attributes the route’s success to features like dedicated bus lanes and all-door boarding.

 “We know how this bus got this great grade,” she said. “The simple answer is that it uses solutions that we know could work across the city.”

Principal accused of changing grades

From the Daily News:

Changes on final transcripts from failing to passing grades under principal Namita Dwarka have roiled W.C. Bryant High School parents and students.

Hot off a rally at the Astoria high school on Monday to protest Dwarka’s decision to cancel math and science programs and neglect special needs students, teachers have now come forward with allegations of rampant grade fixes.

“It’s all because she wants to increase graduation rates,” Gus Prentzas, president of the school’s Parent Association, told The News. “She would do anything to make herself look good.”

Gym teacher Peter Maliarakis, who claims he has a binder full of documents outlining Dwarka’s inappropriate behavior, was dumbfounded when he learned that one of his students had passed gym — even though he gave the senior a lowly 55 on his report card.

Lots of schools fail to make the grade

From the Queens Courier:

It could be final bell for 217 city schools whose progress reports showed dismal grades.

The progress reports include “A” through “F” grades of 1,193 elementary and middle schools. The schools who scored a “D” or an “F,” or no higher than a “C” for three years, could be on the chopping block, with this year’s citywide number up from last year’s report of 116.

Among those in Queens could be the 31 schools who have scored three consecutive “Cs” or below, nine schools with a “D,” and the one Jamaica school with an “F,” P.S. 140 Edward K. Ellington.

Out of a total score of 100, the school scored a 21 based on the Department of Education (DOE) standards.

According to a DOE statistical breakdown, grades are based on a compilation of student progress, performance and school environment. Progress and performance mainly come from standardized test scores, and English and Math scores at P.S. 140 are down.

City Council passes very important legislation

From the Daily News:

A bill passed by the City Council Monday will require restaurants and other businesses regulated by the Health Department to post a “quick response” code by next year that can be scanned with a smartphone to pull up instant information about the business.

But the bar codes won’t be on the letter grades posted in restaurant windows. They’ll be inside, on permits that are often posted behind the bar.

Putting them on letter grades would cost more since it would mean printing the grades individually for each restaurant, but Council Speaker Christine Quinn said she’d like to eventually put codes in the window.

What would have become of society if they hadn't passed this? What if you don't have a smartphone? And if they're posted behind the bar, how would you get to them to scan them?

Homelessness, lack of police, problems in parks? Who cares? We simply must know if there's soap in the employee bathroom!