NEW YORK -- The city's much-maligned bus system is getting a face-lift. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) surprised commuters on Manhattan's East Side last fall by launching shiny stretch coaches to replace old grimy buses on the route that links the island's southern tip to East Harlem. The new buses cruise 90 percent of the route in a new "bus only" lane marked by signs warning motorists that they face $115 fines for parking or driving in the path. The M15 Select Bus Service (SBS) is New York City's version of "bus rapid transit," a Latin American innovation that's being copied around the world. The Manhattan route runs along 1st and 2nd avenues and was first seen as a stopgap measure until a new subway line could be completed, but the city's Department of Transportation says the service is likely here to stay.

NEW YORK -- Environmental regulators are proposing an unconventional approach to curbing discharges of polluted stormwater that foul the city's waterways. The New York City Department of Environmental Protection introduced a $1.5 billion plan last week for developing "green infrastructure" over the next two decades to capture and store rainwater before it overwhelms sewage treatment plants. The plan's boosters see the effort replacing some concrete with trees and grasses, forcing developers to incorporate green spaces and permeable pavement in their projects and encouraging city residents to use rain barrels to collect and treat stormwater.

NEW YORK -- Politicians and environmentalists paint pretty pictures of a U.S. green-energy future with shiny electric cars, gleaming solar panels and whirring wind turbines. But the future starts on a gritty South Bronx street where Jose Pichardo is going house-to-house in suffocating heat and humidity to make a pitch for energy efficiency. Pichardo, 34, and a dozen or so other trainees in the nonprofit Sustainable South Bronx weatherization program are making the rounds of the Hunts Point neighborhood.

NEW YORK -- Against all odds, this notoriously congested city is getting motor vehicles off the street. Two years ago, lawmakers in Albany thwarted New York City's attempt to bring London-style congestion pricing into its central business district. Now officials here are taking a different approach: They are banning cars from certain parts of the city. Since the defeat of the congestion-toll plan, the city has replaced a large number of on-street parking spots with hundreds of miles of bicycle lanes while rerouting traffic across town.

NEW YORK -- Juan Ruiz, a community activist in the South Bronx, points to the new Concrete Plant Park in his home borough as a symbol of what's right -- and wrong -- with the nascent "green jobs" movement.