Green Options » pedestrian

Car-Free Market Street Is Closer to Reality

Rhonda Winter — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 21:12:55 +0000

My long held fantasy of a car-free Market Street became just a little closer to reality today. A transit improvement report was just approved by the San Francisco County Transportation Authority that encourages travel by bus, foot and bicycle along this busy thoroughfare. District 6 Supervisor Chris Daly, who requested the report, expressed his support for the positive changes being implemented that will limit car traffic on Market. “It will feel pretty good to see some progress, albeit incremental progress on Market Street,” he said.

A glorious car-free Market Street in June of 2008 after the queer pride parade.

I could not agree more, and am eagerly anticipating the upcoming changes; they can’t come quickly enough. Cars make us fat. The more we can increase walking, biking and mass transit use, the healthier our citizens will be, and the more livable and sustainable both our city and world will become.

What Is a Good City?

Rhonda Winter — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 23:51:14 +0000

That was one of the many probing questions that the visionary former mayor of Bogotá Colombia, Enrique Peñalosa, asked a packed auditorium in San Francisco last night. How do we define what makes a good city, what is our criteria? What makes an urban environment desirable and livable, and how do we judge the quality of life? What is socially and environmentally sustainable?

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Sundial Span Soars into the Summer Solstice

Rhonda Winter — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 22:58:18 +0000

If you ever find yourself near Redding California, especially on June 21st, you should make an effort to visit Santiago Calatrava’s pedestrian bridge, which spans the waters of the Sacramento River. In addition to being a stunning functional

work of art that attracts thousands of pedestrians, families, bicyclists and nature lovers, every year on the summer solstice the beautifully designed structure also functions as an accurate sundial.

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Sunday Streets Takes Over the Mission

Rhonda Winter — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 07:15:48 +0000

Thousands of my fellow San Franciscans poured into the beautiful car-free space of the Mission District yesterday for Sunday Streets. The warm sunny day inspired scores of families, bicyclists, dogs, pedestrians, dancers, roller-bladers and skaters to come together and frolic in our city’s public streets.

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Green Communities, Part 1: New Urbanism

Philip Proefrock — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 21:27:48 +0000

[There are a number of different approaches to communities and building that serve to support sustainability (and often other aims at the same time; sustainable strategies are almost invariably diverse and multi-faceted in the benefits they offer). Over the next few weeks, I intend to take a look at a number of these types of communities and the ways each of them contribute to improving overall sustainability.]

New Urbanism (sometimes referred to as Traditional Neighborhood Design) is a movement spearheaded by the The Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU). Its goals are “promoting walkable, neighborhood-based development as an alternative to sprawl. CNU takes a proactive, multi-disciplinary approach to restoring our communities.” Improving sustainability is one of the Principles of New Urbanism (see below),additionally, New Urbanism advocates a number of benefits. Although there are broad overlaps between using historical, traditional housing forms (or, unfortunately more often, faux-historical looking buildings) and New Urbanist principles, there is nothing magical about gabled roofs and wood siding, and New Urbanism does not require retro-styled throwbacks (although many examples of it do combine visual historical revivalism with the good community principles it supports).

Much of the attention we pay to green building deals with the parts and pieces and how our buildings work. Greener buildings use less energy for thermal comfort (heating and cooling) and less energy for lighting and draw on fewer resources (and less impact from the materials that are used) in their construction. All of these are good and useful steps to take. However, all of this just takes into account the building itself, and perhaps the site it rests upon. With this kind of focus (or lack thereof) one could envision a community of dispersed “green” buildings all individually well designed and well made, but, in the aggregate, contributing hugely to the destruction of habitat, the depletion of resources, and the net degradation of the environment.

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