Have a great idea? New York City has still some room to develop fully smart!

On November 12, 2019, the Baltic American Chamber of Commerce (BACC) attended a breakfast discussion on “The Future of Intelligent Mobility.” The dialogue covered how new, sustainable innovations can enable us to address the challenges of rapid urbanization and mobility while minimizing adverse economic, social and environmental impacts. The panel conversation featured Patrick Tremblay, Senior Advisor at A.T. Kearney; Margaret Newman, Principal at ARUP and Miriam Roure Parera, Senior Director, Urban X. 

The panelists discussed the fact that the majority of cities in the United States are totally dependent on cars, but that things in New York are different. When it comes to public transport, New York is far ahead of the rest of the US. But when we are comparing New York with bigger cities in Europe and Asia, there is still a lot of room for improvement. Hong Kong, Shanghai and London were cited as good examples. 

Miriam Roure Parera, from Urban X, gave a vivid example of why New York's infrastructure has not been improved. She claimed that public transportation pricing has remained at the same level for a long time in New York, but that other big cities dare to ask more in order to improve the cities’ mobility. The speaker outlined her visit to London, where she paid 20 pounds to get to the city center. But in New York she paid only a third for the same trip. She concluded that New York's public transportation is not asking enough money for its services and therefore does not generate enough profit to improve the system. 

The speakers also said that the major problem that New York is facing is the “first mile and last mile” problem. What happens after the subway’s last stop? How does one commute home when it is too far to walk. What would be environmentally friendly ways for people to commute at their first and last mile was one of the questions the panelists asked. 

One of the BACC's goals is to get to know different areas where our members can find their niche in the United States, and smart cities and environmentally friendly mobility are definitely an area to keep an eye on.