Melissa Hope Matlins

It pains me to mock sustainability initiatives, even when they are as unambitious and misguided as this one. However the launch of the “green” metrocard, green only in color, has come a little too fast on the heels our failed congestion pricing plan for me to pass up the opportunity. The congestion pricing plan was a holistic, transformative solution, and a prime example of the type of visionary thinking required to combat global climate change. The MTA’s proposed renewable energy initiatives can barely be called a patchwork solution. A close look at the language used shows that the initiatives aren’t even actionable.

For earth day, ONE day, the MTA will burn time and money to stock all vending machines with special “green” metrocards. Not cards made with recycled content. Not cards that are recyclable. Heck, if they are purchased as unlimited cards, they aren’t even reusable. Just special cards. With green logos. For earth day. They didn’t even bother to put a tree or a globe on them, how insensitive to our planet!

The poorly designed cards are meant to be a symbol of MTA’s renewable energy initiatives. Initiative goals include things like drawing a whopping 7% of MTA energy needs from renewable sources. Before 2015. Seven years from now. Other points are not so much goals as suggestions from the MTA to themselves, using language like “will evaluate ways to utilize water harvested from the subway system” and “will examine the feasibility of providing 14% of the power (at one bus depot!) from wind turbines.” Far be it from me to stand defiant in the face of progress, but who wants to buy yet another slip of plastic to commemorate these lackluster initiatives?

Via: Gothamist