Andrew J. Hawkins interviews Chris Ward, former chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, who has gone on to become the senior vice president and chief executive for metro New York at engineering giant Aecom, as well as chair of the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance, now rebranded as the Waterfront Alliance.

The interview addresses the possibility of waterfront development in the face of rising sea levels, the de Blasio Administration's ferry plan, and an outside-the-box idea for the subway system. (via Planetizen)1

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What are the challenges to opening up the waterfront to residential development, given rising sea levels?

This is right in our sweet spot. The alliance put together Waterfront Edge Design Guidelines [promoting access, resiliency and ecology] in waterfront design. They provide a series of standards, goals and objectives. It's voluntary, much like the LEED certification for energy savings. We just launched it eight months ago. Is that work over? By no means. We're a city that will dynamically face that question forever.

Building on [former Mayor Michael] Bloomberg's PlaNYC and then [Mayor Bill] de Blasio's plan, I think the city's getting smarter. We're going to face some really tough challenges. People are now asking for 500-year flood insurance. What's the cost for businesses? For residential?

Is New York's plan to spend $50 million on a citywide ferry plan enough?

The challenge is to build off the investment and sustain itself. The city has to be very thoughtful about how it brings these routes on, timing, who are the providers and what are the schedules. To simply think you're going to have a full-fledged, five-borough system up and running on day one would require too much subsidy.

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