City Leaders Discuss What’s Under Our Streets and How They’re Mapping It

On March 12, a sold-out crowd of infrastructure enthusiasts packed SVA Theatre for The CIty Below: The Secret Mapping of NYC’s Subsurface.

Speakers from three city offices discussed their work underneath the city streets: New York City Department of Design and Construction (DDC), New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), and the New York City Mayor’s Office of Operations.

During his presentation, Tom Wynne, Deputy Commissioner of Infrastructure for DDC, spoke about how DDC maintains and protects the City’s underground infrastructure, and the complexity of working in neighborhoods like Lower Manhattan where the subsurface utilities resemble a “bowl of spaghetti.” The tangle of different utilities makes it incredibly difficult for construction workers to properly identify what’s under our streets, but recent advancements in technology point toward a future where the City will be able to create a comprehensive map of both public assets and private utilities underground, potentially saving the City millions in construction delays and improving safety for emergency responders. 

Tom handed off the podium to Wendy Sperduto, Assistant Commissioner, Bureau of Water and Sewer Operations for DEP who dug deeper into the crucial role of her agency in stewarding the City’s water and protecting New Yorkers from flooding. DEP occupies the unique role of a very sophisticated city agency caring for very old infrastructure, and Wendy spoke about how an agency that once relied primarily on paper maps to locate and repair sewers is now using a digital hydraulic model of all 7,500 miles of sewers across the city. As the City faces increased risk of flooding due to climate change, DEP’s forward-looking tools will allow the agency to test key investments to protect New Yorkers.

After their presentations, Wendy and Tom were joined on stage by Adam Barin, Manager of Strategy and Analytics at the NYC Mayor’s Office of Operations, which is spearheading the effort to create a secure 3D data-sharing platform mapping the city’s underground infrastructure. The conversation, moderated by Kristin LaBuz, Executive Director of Open House New York, revealed fascinating tensions: how do public agencies coordinate with private utility companies and convince them to share data? How does the City balance data security concerns with the need for coordination? And what does it take to plan infrastructure that won’t come to fruition until years later?

To learn more about the work of city agencies and the secret mapping of NYC’s subsurface:

• Read about DEP’s hydraulic model of the city’s 7,500 miles of sewers and how it is used to help plan resiliency upgrades.
• Get an up-close look at the underground spaghetti on this video tour of a city construction project with DDC and Public Opinion.
• Learn about the technological advances that make the 3-D Underground map possible and how other countries approach the utility tangle in this article in AIA New York’s Oculus publication.

If you’d like to continue exploring New York City with the people and systems that keep it running, stay tuned for our upcoming events.

Top photo: Left to right: Adam Barin, Wendy Sperduto, Tom Wynne, and Kristin LaBuz at The City Below. Credit: Michael Lee