On the official blog of the US Secretary of Transportation last week, Ray LaHood stated that driving less is the key to reducing carbon emissions, plain and simple. He gave an outline, on his blog, of what he said to the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works earlier that day and this was the bottom line. However, how we get there — how to encourage people to drive less — was another key aspect of his presentation and blog post.
Like millions of Americans, we’re celebrating July 4th, Independence Day.
However, we’re celebrating this national holiday by focusing on the many aspects of our life that, in various ways, have led us to quite a different vision for a sustainable tomorrow – complete with local, renewable energy and lots of delicious meals harvested within ten miles of where we live – if not from our own kitchen garden. Sometimes we even celebrate July 4th with a rainbow.
Here’s how our Independence Day is different — and yours can be too:
• Be energy independent by generating all our power with renewable energy systems.
For a vast portion of the United States, there is enough solar and wind energy to completely meet our needs right where we live. True, adopting renewable energy will require an investment either personally or for your business if you work from home. But with present Federal tax credits and many state incentives, the time couldn’t be better. We completely power our Inn Serendipity Bed & Breakfast and Farm with solar electric and wind turbine systems. In fact, we overproduce renewable energy to the tune of about 4,000 kWhs (kilowatt hours) a year. We share the surplus with our neighbors.
Google is making it easier to ditch your car and use local transit with their new Google Transit tool. At the moment, they have transit information for select cities around the world, but I hope they plan to expand it further! They also have the service available to download to your phone, which is handy when you’re out and about. It gives you walking, bus, and rail directions and calculates your total travel time.
If you live in New York City, London, Paris, or on Mackinac Island, and you either have access to a great subway system or cars are banned from your small island, going for 24 hours without driving is not a big deal. But here in Chicagoland, despite a decent public transportation system, driving is a way of life. So I decided to spend a day without getting into my car or any other car, and see how I would fare.
No, not that… rather, the Chinese are experiencing American-style SUV mania with their low gas prices. Also in this edition:Find out how walk-able your neighborhood is, and People Cube helps offices become sustainable.
Few U.S. cities can appeal to walkers of all stripes like New Orleans. Even after the ravages of Hurricane Katrina, the Crescent City remains a destination that’s made for pedestrians.
For lovers of historic architecture, what can beat a stroll down one of the streets of the French Quarter or Garden District? And, of course, for people-watching, live music, a few of the good kind of Hurricanes (thanks, Pat O’s!) and general weirdness, there’s nothing like a walk along Bourbon Street, day or night.
(This is another installment in this week’s “Walk This Way” series on walkable neighborhoods in the U.S.)
Pensacola’s a unique town, as far as both Florida and walkable communities are concerned. Tucked into the northwest corner of Florida, the City of Five Flags is so close to Alabama, it’s often treated not as if it’s part of the Sunshine State but L.A. (as in, “Lower Alabama”).
While it sometimes seems to be the Rodney Dangerfield of Florida towns, Pensacola does have a lot going for it, especially in its historic and compact waterfront downtown area. With numerous ancient live oaks and buildings often reminiscent of New Orleans’ French Quarter (Pensacola is equally old and went through waves of Spanish, French and English settlers), downtown Pensacola is a kind of walker’s diamond in the rough.
(This is another installment in this week’s “Walk This Way” series on walkable neighborhoods in the U.S.)
If you missed the news last week, Google Maps has added a new feature letting users request walking directions rather than car or public transit directions for trips of less than 10 kilometers (a little over six miles).
The appeal of the new feature is that it gives you directions that don’t make you go out of your way because of one-way streets or paths that aren’t drivable. While a set of car directions might have to follow a circuitous path to get you from Point A to Point B, a set of walking directions lets you take advantage of routes that cars can’t travel but people can.
By now, we all know it’s cheaper — and more environmentally friendly — to walk or bike to places than to drive a car or SUV. But is the low-cost, low-impact way always feasible in the motor-happy, open-freeway-obsessed U.S. of A.? That’s what we’ll be exploring this week at EcoLocalizer in a feature we’re calling “Walk This Way.”
The question of whether to walk, bike or take public transportation is a no-brainer if you live in a city like New York, where driving can often be more of a pain than a pleasure. But what about the rest of the country? Not every community is large enough or dense enough to offer the auto alternatives the Big Apple does. And what about people who live in rural areas where everything is a half-hour’s drive away or more? Can we refashion our country’s way of getting around to be more European? Or are those of us in unwalkable communities doomed to either move elsewhere or live like so many billions do in the rest of the world, consigned to life in a radius of space measured in only a few miles?
But here is the good news: Green walking is not just “nature walking” per se, not just walkabout. Green walking is also ideal for city travel…helping cut down on many kinds of pollution, smog that obscures the lovely natural views everywhere, travel expenses, resource consumption, and driver rage, just to name a few things.
In order to facilitate your transition from commuter to sustainable commuter, from walker to green walker, I offer here a few more tips on green walking in a city environment…on going urban walkabout.
1. Like walkabouts in nature, urban walkabouts should be as sensual as possible. Although some urban settings have been deliberately “greened up” with strategic flowerbeds, parks, and eco-friendly architecture, many cities are truly urban jungles–forests of concrete. But even here you can listen to the cooing of pigeons or find some green things struggling for life in the cracks of sidewalks. And there are often flower shops, produce stands, and pets to be encountered. So enjoy these instances of nature-here-and-now whenever you can. Of course, the sun is almost always shining–or if not, then rain is falling or wind is blowing–so you still can likely get some sensual stimulation on your urban walkabout if you pay attention.
I did not drive at all on Monday.
