With a major new federal infrastructure investment increasingly likely this year, New York City should start preparing to seize this opportunity to get the economy going and confront the climate crisis. For the city to make the most of Biden's "Build Back Better" infrastructure agenda, policymakers must act now to lay out federal funding plans for sustainability and resiliency projects that can break ground this year.

In this op-ed for Gotham Gazette, CUF Executive Director Jonathan Bowles and Associate Editor Laird Gallagher outline potential infrastructure projects in New York that would create jobs that would be accessible to many of the New Yorkers who have lost work during the pandemic, and would help the city face an urgent need to protect coastal communities from storms and sea-level rise, modernize vulnerable infrastructure, and transition away from fossil fuels. 

You can read the op-ed here.

This op-ed builds on CUF's extensive research on New York's aging infrastructure and its recent work urging the city to take advantage of a public works program, including the recent report A Green Public Works Program for NYC: 40 Ideas from Experts, op-ed "Infrastructure Investment Can Restart the Economy, But Prioritize Fixing What We Have," and studies Caution Ahead: Five Years Later and A New Leaf: Revitalizing NYC's Aging Parks Infrastructure.