Sustainable Long Island is proud to announce it has partnered with the Long Island Health Collaborative to carry out activities related to the development and implementation of a Complete Streets action plan as part of a New York State Health Foundation Grant.

 

Sustainable Long Island and the Long Island Health Collaborative are coordinating and working with the Town of Babylon and Suffolk County to create an Action Plan of implementable health and wellness strategies for Complete Streets in and around Wyandanch, NY.

 

Complete Streets are streets for everyone. They are designed and operated to enable safe access for all users, including pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists and transit riders of all ages and abilities. Complete Streets make it easy to cross the street, walk to shops, and bicycle to work. They allow buses to run on time and make it safe for people to walk to and from train stations. By adopting a Complete Streets policy, communities direct their transportation planners and engineers to routinely design and operate the entire right of way to enable safe access for all users, regardless of age, ability, or mode of transportation.

 

Sustainable Long Island and the Long Island Health Collaborative will utilize existing relationships with the Wyandanch Rising master developer (the Albanese Organization), the MTA, and local leaders from the Wyandanch community. We have begun developing signage to highlight existing and future assets and destinations, such as the future Long Island Music Hall of Fame, nearby Geiger Park, the LIRR station and transit connections, and the Wyandanch Business and Research Center.

 

We will look to capitalize on the frequency of smart phone use by incorporating Quick Response (QR) codes that link to more information on this signage, such as an app or website with information on calories burned and/or steps taken. We will also use the LIRR station as a central point for noting nearby locations in walking and biking distance.

 

In addition, we will tie in nearby schools (within a mile to a mile in a half radius) and school wellness policies by connecting to existing programs like the "walking school bus" route. Another main focus will be to work with the Wyandanch community to develop a 1-2 mile walking loop in Geiger Park, with a theme (example: fitness, religious, or historic based) and associated signage determined in collaboration with community stakeholders.

 

Moving forward we will continue to work with the Town of Babylon on a package of suggested improvements; meet with the Suffolk County Department of Public Works to discuss the potential applicability of the initiative to the area in and around Wyandanch; and meet with the Wyandanch Leadership Committee to discuss a future focus group session with Wyandanch community stakeholders to gain input on strategies, including the walking loop in Geiger Park.

 

The meeting will be structured as an open house format (come whenever you can) where residents are encouraged to provide their feedback on potential projects to be included in the final LWRP document. 

Sustainable Long Island is seeking volunteers for two different projects on Global Community Day hosted by Citibank on Saturday, June 13, 2015.

City of Long Beach Tree Planting
Project work includes planting new, healthy trees consistent with the City's Tree Master Plan (for example: the planting of Cherry and Golden Rain trees at the West End Community Center).

Suffolk County Project
Beautification Efforts at the Seatuck Suffolk County Environmental Center

Project work includes volunteers conducting a variety of cleanup work, including planting of Long Island native plants; removing older plants, weeds, etc.; moving dirt, supplies, wood, etc.; and possible small pond restoration.

 

If you would like to volunteer on either project, please contact info@sustainableli.org for more information!

Each year, tens of thousands of Citi volunteers, along with their friends and families, join together for Global Community Day - an opportunity to use their time, skills and expertise to make a difference in their cities. In 2014, more than 70,000 volunteers worked alongside community partners at service projects across 479 cities in 93 countries in the days leading up to and including Global Community Day. The annual activities focus on a range of local needs - from urban revitalization to environmental conservation to literacy and education.

Earlier this week, Sustainable Long Island was in attendance at Suffolk County's 3V Scoping Project Kickoff Meeting which introduced a project intended to help the County achieve sustainability goals and manage complex environmental problems by applying the tools of "systems thinking and system dynamics modeling" in a participatory modeling process.

It focuses on the goal of managing Suffolk County's water quality and nitrogen pollution problem while improving coastal resiliency.

This Kickoff Meeting brought a broad range of stakeholders together - including representatives from USGS, NYS DOS, The Nature Conservancy, NYIT, Industrial Economics, Peconic Estuary Program, SCDHS, Gannett Flemming, Cornell Cooperative Extension, NYS DEC, and Peconic Green Growth - to develop a common systems-level understanding of the challenges facing the County.

 

EPA developed 3V Scoping Projects to help communities apply systems thinking to complex environmental problems. Systems thinking is an approach that considers the root causes of complex problems, including linkages among environmental, economic, and social factors.   

  

In EPA's 3V Scoping Projects, systems thinking is used to integrate local knowledge with scientific expertise through a participatory modeling framework that develops a quantitative decision-support tool based on system dynamics. EPA has conducted 3V Scoping Projects in New England and the mid-Atlantic and is now applying this process to the water quality challenges facing Suffolk County.   

 

Moving forward, more information will be sent to - and feedback will be requested from - the participants, while EPA will further refine the project and keep in touch about future meetings.

 

(via Newsday) - Wyandanch, a hamlet of more than four square miles, 12,000 residents and just one bank, will soon get another under a state program to encourage more branches in underserved areas.

 

Roslyn Savings Bank signed a 10-year lease in December at Wyandanch Village, the mixed-use development at the heart of a massive redevelopment effort. Creation of the banking development district, announced by the town earlier this month, means that the bank will open in late summer with $10 million in subsidized deposits from the state and the right to bid on municipal deposits, business that in New York is generally reserved for commercial banks.

 

Wyandanch is Long Island's second banking district. The first was created in Brentwood last year. There are 41 development districts statewide, 19 with active branches, all created in underserved areas to help bring residents into what the state's Department of Financial Services calls "the financial mainstream."

For Wyandanch residents, it will mean $1 minimum balances for savings accounts, reduced fees and basic services that have been largely absent or hard to access in the years since the hamlet's last stand-alone bank closed in the early 1990s.

Read more here...

Editors Note: Roslyn Savings Bank is part of the New York Community Bank Family of Banks. This past December New York Community Bank was honored by Sustainable Long Island at the 2nd Annual Sustainability All-Star Awards for their leadership in sustainability.

The growth in ridership has been driven by a number of factors, including enhanced public transportation services, smartphone technology that cannot be safely used while driving, and changing lifestyle preferences. Although this TOD trend has been hot for some time, there appears to be room for additional growth.

 

According to research for the National Association of Realtors by American Strategies, 50 percent of Americans prefer communities that have elements supporting use of mass transit, such as upgraded pedestrian access or parcels with mixed-use development. However, only 45 percent of Americans have access to public transportation of any type. Far fewer have access to the frequent public transportation service that attracts riders who have the financial means to primarily use an automobile but choose transit instead.

 

Demographic trends driven by some of the fastest-growing segments of the U.S. population are undergirding this increase in ridership. Polling conducted by Technometrica for the American Public Transportation Association found that 39 percent of Latinos and 34 percent of millennials took public transportation last summer, significantly higher than the overall use rate of 21 percent.

 

Read more here...