A Word On Consumption

One thing I love about CityKin is that I get all this great information from urban/green media, but don't have to track any of it. In a post about efficiency vs. sustainability is this quoted quote:

Driving a car that is 10% more efficient uses the same amount of gas as driving 10% less.

It's a sentiment I've dwelled on before. Sure, it's great if that new pair of shoes is made locally by workers paid a living wage with sustainable materials, but do you really need a new pair of shoes? (Forgive me if my example offends those of you who love your shoes.)

I don't consider myself particularly green with the stuff I have, but I have a compulsion to own as little as possible. (Or maybe I'm just cheap.) I have a coat that used to be my dad's. All my shoes are at least 6 years old. I pretty much own things until they are run into the ground. Then I try to sell them on eBay or give them to Goodwill. Unfortunately, the more I look around, the more it feels like we live in a disposable world.

I don't know if it's my training, or if I'm just lazy, but I am also very anal about energy and time trade-offs. I hate sitting in traffic. I hate braking on hills. I love walking because even though it takes more time, I benefit from the activity and from saving gas. I meticulously load every corner of the dishwasher, and usually hand-wash pots and pans. I break down every box I throw away or recycle, not only to save landfill or bin space, but also because it means I'll have to take out the garbage less.

I like this quote from CityKin's post a lot too.

Living in a place where you can get to all the daily necessities of life by walking, biking or driving gives you much more freedom than living in a place where your only choice is driving.

I don't get to drive much, so sometimes I just like drive around at night aimlessly. Especially in the summer. At first, I felt guilty about it, like I was wasting gas, but eventually I realized the same thing in that quote. Being green is about freedom just as much as it is about anything else.

Downtown Duke Energy Holiday Train Display

Made it down to the long-running CG&E Cinergy Duke Energy Holiday Train Display this year.  Of course, the one day we went was just about the single coldest day this fall/winter yet.  I swear I left part of my face on 4th St. after it froze and fell off.  The winds howled through the streets and between the buildings, making what was 30 deg F. feel more like -5 deg F.  What is this, Chicago?  We made a quick pass of Fountain Square before settling in at the real downtown holiday destination: Starbucks.

Speaking of wind, check out the new-this-year Duke sustainable energy windmill farm in the last picture.

Bikers Descend Upon City Hall

Last month, I took it upon myself to attend a rally for bicycle issues down at City Hall during a meeting of the Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee.  It was pretty interesting hearing statements from the other bikers in attendance, especially the lady who had not ridden a bike since childhood, but abruptly took up bicycling to work everyday this year.

There were a lot of different types of argument, from the infrastructure-oriented requests for more signage and bike lanes, to more passionate pleas calling for an improved bike culture as a way to attract talented young people to the region.

There were lots of types of people too.  There were the bike geeks, resplendent in their bike pants, reflective outwear, and aerodynamic helmets complete with rear-view mirror.  There were the bike hipsters who look they just re-fitted an entire bike and rode to the meeting before washing the grease off. 

As for my accessories, I use a velcro strap to keep my pant-leg out of the gears, and riding gloves since a raccoon chewed off my handlebars.

Recycle That Computer (And Paint, Fertilizer, Anti-Freeze, etc.)

The other day I loaded up my car with 2 desktop computers, 1 laptop, 1 CRT monitor, a random RF converter, an assortment of cables, keyboards, and mice, 3 cans of paint, 1 can of paint thinner, and 1 half-full bottle of anti-freeze.

I was headed to the Hamilton County Computer Recycling Drop-Off to drop off all the old electronics, and then to the Household Hazardous Waste Collection drop-off to drop off the paint and other assorted poisons.

Whenever I see a big CRT monitor in a trash can, I always frown a little bit. If I were to dump a big monitor in the curbside trash, it just wouldn't feel right. A big block of metal, glass, PCB, and chemicals taking up all this space. And you can't flatten it like paper or cardboard. I guess that's just me.

Photo by mebajason/Flickr

Traveling To Chicago? Try Megabus.

Once upon a time in high school, a buddy of mine and I took a Greyhound bus down to Florida for spring break. It was the thankfully the last Greyhound experience I ever had. The bus ride itself was long and uncomfortable, and the ridership that frequents Greyhound bus travel is interesting to say the least. It was just too much for a 9th grader.

In an earlier post I mentioned visiting Chicago and didn't even mention the bus option. Well, I had known about Megabus, having seen one of them on the road a few times, but forgot about it — I must have blocked it from my mind due to my Greyhound experience — until I read this Megabus review.

I was still really skeptical. Why am I considering taking the bus? A lot of times buses between large cities, at least here in the states, are for people who cannot afford other methods of transportation. There's a social stigma the industry HAS earned. You know what, I'm a little guilty of that thought and wanted to beat it out of me. So I decided to be logical, figure out dollars and time considerations. There is a bit of an emotional reason as well: I want to believe that travel in our country can be accomplished on a bus. I want to believe there are great and greener alternatives to flying or driving. Outside of the US it's pretty common to take buses or rails around a country.

Read the rest.

All Aboard

Over on Cinplify, I found a story on the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette about rail travel in the United States. I started quoting from the story, but I ended up copying nearly the entire thing. So just go and read it right now. It's not that long.

Okay, so here's one quote:

But as Amtrak's national ridership soars in spite of its flaws -- increasing now for the sixth year in a row, with 2 million more riders than last year -- it's time to ask: Can a better rail system fill in the gaps that airlines are leaving behind?

And I believe the answer is a firm: HELL YES.

:::

Airline passengers now have to pay for every piece of luggage, every drink, snack, and bathroom break (okay, maybe not that last one) taken. Customer service goes down while prices go up (I realize that fuel is costly). Less flights mean more crowds, and more stopovers. But people take it anyway.

Flying becomes more and more of a pain in the ass as time goes on. Airlines have started to capitalize on a reality that has existed for decades: air travel is the best way to travel long distances, and there is no alternative that even comes close.

But what if there was an alternative?

:::

We traveled to Milwaukee this past weekend for a wedding. Before the weekend, I had to figure out how to get there.

1. Plane: I honestly didn't look into the flying option. Assuredly quicker, but assuredly hundreds of dollars for a single, round-trip ticket from CVG, unless I had bought the tickets months ago.
   
2. Train: If you go to Amtrak's website now and search, you'll find that the train leaves Union Terminal at 1:10 AM, and arrives in Milwaukee some 13 hrs. later. Coming back is a bit faster at 12 hrs., as long as you don't mind arriving at 3:17 in the morning. Cost of ticket: not expensive, but not cheap, at $140 round-trip for one person.. Being able to do things on the train like sleep, etc. is nice, but those hours are just not friendly.
   
3. Automobile: Google Maps pins it at about 6.5 hrs and 380 miles driving. I can get that far in just over a tank of gas. Rounding down, that's two tanks of gas at about $90 for 1-4 people, and 13 hours of time, round-trip.

Balancing all the factors, you just can't beat driving.

Residents of the East Coast between Boston and Washington D.C. will rave about the train systems. (Just ask Joe Biden.) Then, when you get to your destination, there's often the local subway or train to get you to your final destination. But us in the Midwest apparently lose out.

It's A Start

Most Mondays, I buy lunch and sundries for the week at Krogers. It usually comes to about two plastic grocery bags' worth, which means I actually get four plastic grocery bags. Yesterday I took the plunge and bought my first reusable grocery bag. Canvas grocery bags always seemed like an easy, "low-hanging fruit" kind of way to help out with the home planet. In this case, it made perfect sense due to the low volume.

I heard you can get a nickel for every reusable bag you use at the checkout line. Gee, thanks Krogers. If I could possibly fill up 10 bags, I could get a whopping $0.50 back. Definitely don't do this to save money.

Anyway, of course, when I checked out, she actually put the canvas bag inside a plastic bag, along with my other stuff before I noticed. I guess it will take some getting used to for both parties.

UPDATE: I knew I read that part about getting a nickel back somewhere. Apparently, they've done this for 15 years. I'm taking bets on whether any cashiers in any stores know this.

Toyota Is Da Man

We try to recycle as much as we can at home. But I read somewhere that the vast majority (I want to say around 97%) of landfill contents come from businesses. It's a figure I believe looking back at the offices I've worked in, to say nothing of factories and manufacturing outfits.

So it's amazing what Toyota is doing. I've always had an eye out for Toyota, whose lean manufacturing principles has found its way into software development. From Soapbox:

The purging of the waste cans was a small but significant step toward Toyota’s zero-landfill goal. And Toyota has indeed achieved the goal (zero landfill is defined as diverting at least 95 percent of all waste away from landfills and into recycling or reuse). It was one thing to reach the goal at the TEMA offices in Erlanger, where most people work at desk jobs. Quite another to go zero landfill at its 12 manufacturing plants in North America, where they make cars, engines, auto parts and other things traditionally thought of as dirty manuifacturing. Toyota has achieved that at all but two of its plants, and those two are 97 percent of the way there. Pretty good accomplishment for a company that's in the business of making more than 1.5 million a cars a year in North America.

High Gas Prices Can Make You A Better Person

If you've read this blog long enough, you know that I believe that gas is still way too cheap. When our fuel prices match those of Europe, then we may start to see some real change in behavior. We could easily get there, by raising the gas tax, of course. Not only would people suddenly be turned off about their cars, the extra earnings could be used to innovate on transportation (individual or public) that did not rely on gas, or relied on gas very efficiently.

Despite my Libertarian-ish ways, this is a different sort of tax from an economist way of thinking (if the pop non-fiction I've read holds true) because the tax is put in place to motivate behavior, as opposed to a government tax that is put in place simply because there's not enough money.

Anyways, this leads to why I really liked this editorial in the Enquirer a few days ago from the Des Moines Register about how high gas prices could eventually improve our lives. He looks faaar into the future, past the benefits I just mentioned:

Tough as it is, [high gas prices] could force us to make adjustments that result in healthier, more communal and environmentally friendly living. And they could push governments and businesses to help provide the infrastructure.

...At the most basic level, it should give a much-needed boost to public transportation, especially in cities that don't have extensive bus routes or late hours of operation. If enough people start riding, and demanding, better routes and times, maybe we'll get them.

...More commuters may be inspired to ride their bikes to work, a great heart-healthy exercise. Then we might get more bike lanes.

...And since the cost of gas is most felt by companies and people doing long-distance travel, it might inspire the federal government to finally get behind better long-distance passenger rail service and even high-speed rail between major cities.

...Some communities are looking at four-day workweeks, which could promote a better quality of life and more family time.

And if people limit their forays to the mall just to hang out or exercise, and start using their neighborhoods for recreation, maybe we'd see more block parties and picnics and a growing sense of community connectedness.

Pie-in-the-sky for sure. Right?

Greater Cincinnati Not So Hot In The Carbon Footprint Game

The Brookings Institute recently launched their Blueprint for American Prosperity: Unleashing the Potential of a Metropolitan Nation:

...an ambitious, multi-year initiative to build long-term U.S. prosperity by reinvigorating the federal role in promoting the health and vitality of America's metropolitan areas.

The key concept is that our nation's assets are concentrated in our metro areas, and are the vital engines of the U.S. and global economy.

Anyway, one of the policy briefs that have come out of it so far is a study on carbon emissions and energy usage in the top 100 metropolitan areas. Greater Cincinnati does not fare so well (page 21 of the PDF).

First, they looked at the period between 2000 and 2005 and studied the change in the average per-capita carbon emissions:

• Average per-capita carbon footprint change from 2000-2005:
  
• Metro Cincinnati: +12.10%
• Top 100 metros: +1.1%
• Nation: +2.2%
• Of that carbon footprint change, portion which was transportation energy:
  
• Metro Cincinnati: +4.0%
• Top 100 metros: +2.4%
• Of that carbon footprint change, portion which was residential energy:
• Metro Cincinnati: +20.8%
• Top 100 metros: -0.7%

Then they studied the average per capita carbon footprint for the year 2005 as a snapshot.

• Average per-capita carbon footprint in 2005:
  
• Metro Cincinnati: 3.281 tons of carbon
  
• Top 100 metros: 2.24 tons
  
• Nation: 2.60 tons

• Of that 2005 carbon footprint, portion which was transportation energy:
  
• Metro Cincinnati: 1.575 tons
  
• Top 100 metros: 1.310 tons
• Nation: 1.44 tons
• Of that 2005 transportation carbon footprint, portion which was from cars:
• Metro Cincinnati: 1.140 tons
  
• Top 100 metros: 1.004 tons
• Of that 2005 transportation carbon footprint, portion which was from trucks:
• Metro Cincinnati: 0.436 tons
  
• Top 100 metros: 0.305 tons

• Of that 2005 carbon footprint, portion which was residential energy:
• Metro Cincinnati: 1.706 tons
  
• Top 100 metros: 0.925 tons
• Nation: 1.16 tons
  
• Of that 2005 residential carbon footprint, portion which was from electricity:
• Metro Cincinnati: 1.255 tons
  
• Top 100 metros: 0.611 tons
  
• Of that 2005 residential carbon footprint, portion which was from residential fuels:
• Metro Cincinnati: 0.451 tons
  
• Top 100 metros: 0.314 tons

The numbers that jump out at me are the whopping 20.8% increase in home energy use, and the related 1.706 tons of carbon emissions from home energy in 2005, nearly twice that of the average person living in the top 100 metro areas. And most of that 1.706 tons is from homes powered by electricity.

Why the drastic increase and consumption of home electricity? Do Cincinnatians like it cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter than other cities? Is it all the huge, new home construction, with an entertainment center and server room in every house? Is it all the old homes that need a fortune to keep heated in the winters? Other cities have these things. But they may make up for it with more high-rises and multi-family buildings and public transit. The study does say that weather is a factor.

I originally found this info linked from Soapbox Cincinnati, which wrote up the Blueprint For Prosperity program as a whole. There's also a story about it on Local12, though they spent most of the time focusing on how our air is still clean.

Driven To The Brink

Via CityKin, comes a link to "How the Gas Price Spike Popped the Housing Bubble and Devalued the Suburbs," a paper about - well, the title says it all.

Here is a short video (3:44) explaining the concepts. While it focuses mainly on the Chicago area, the paper studies several other metro regions.



The paper looks at the issues from many angles, but the angle I found most interesting was the simple number of vehicle miles traveled per person:

But in the past three years, vehicle travel per capita in the United States has begun to decline. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, total vehicle miles traveled per person per day reached a peak of 27.6 in 2005 and declined to 27.2 in 2007. This represents a substantial departure from the trend established between 1990 and 2003. Vehicle travel is now about 1.5 miles per person, per day, below the 13-year trend. Despite an increasing population, the decline in driving per person has had the effect of reducing gas sales, which in early 2008 were down 1.1 percent from a year earlier (Campoy 2008).

Economists who have studied travel behavior and energy consumption agree that consumer responses to gas price changes are greater in the long run than in the short run. There are very few things, other than combining trips or forsaking travel, that consumers and workers can do in the short run to reduce their travel. But over a longer period of time, consumers can do much to lower their travel and gas consumption. Decisions about where to live or work, which neighborhood to move to and which job to take all profoundly influence travel behavior in the long run.

What might be the policy implications of all this?

• Government can help families save money by making it easy and convenient to live in mixed-use, close-in neighborhoods served by transit.
• Reducing vehicle miles traveled not only saves families money, households that drive less have more to spend on other things, stimulating the local economy. Additionally, reducing oil consumption not only cuts greenhouse gas emissions but lowers the trade deficit.

And what about long-distance traveling? Returning from vacation last week, my total elapsed travel time, including getting to the airport early, sitting at the gate, sitting on the runway, and the layover, was about 7 hours. I wonder if high-speed rail could've gotten me there in about the same amount of time? Even if it were a little longer, on the train, it must be cheaper, there must be more space, and it might be easier to work, read, etc. But that's a different story altogether.

It's A Wonderful Light Rail System

In It's A Wonderful Life, George Bailey got to see an alternate world where he had never existed. A couple weeks ago, Kevin Osborne over at CityBeat blogged about the 2002 Metro Moves regional transit plan that overwhelmingly failed at the ballot. He offers a glimpse of what could have been.

In November 2002 voters overwhelmingly defeated a proposed $2.6 billion light rail system for Hamilton County. The measure to increase the county’s sales tax by a half-cent was rejected 68-32 percent.

Perhaps the timing of the issue was not the best, occurring only a few years after the sales tax increase to build the stadiums. But moving on, what's this about streetcars (emphasis mine)?

A little-known aspect of the Metro Moves plan called for implementing a streetcar system downtown and in the uptown area around the University of Cincinnati and area hospitals. That system would’ve become operational in 2006 — two years ago.

Further into the crystal ball, CityKin has posted an email from John Schneider's pro-transit email list along these same lines.

At $126, a barrel of oil now costs $100 more than it cost on November 5, 2002 when Hamilton County voters defeated an extensive plan for transportation choices here. Economists hired to study the plan concluded that it would cost an average Hamilton County family $68 per year, about what I paid for a tank of gas last week.

The plan defeated in 2002 would have built sixty miles of light rail in five corridors: along I-74 to Green Township; I-75 to Tri-County; I-71 to Blue Ash; and a line from Uptown through Hyde Park to Newtown. Another rail line would have enabled Cincinnatians to travel across the county without having to go downtown and transfer. There were two streetcar lines, a 25% increase in the bus fleet, new bus routes and neighborhood hubs and more hours of bus service. When the plan was fully built-out by 2030, 95% of Hamilton County residents would have transit within a mile of their homes. It would be nice to have that option now.

Oh well.

Back in reality, one might figure that the cost of gas will continue to rise, with oil being a finite resource and all. One might also figure that this means a rail system will happen some day - maybe not in our lifetimes, but some day.

With gasoline prices moving ever upward, some urban planners think it’s inevitable that some sort of commuter rail system will be built here someday. If true, the 2002 sales tax defeat only means the completion date is even further off and the total cost will be higher, due to inflation.