Category: Development & Transportation

Transportation Technology Awareness

On the same day the Missouri legislature debates funding a gap in St. Louis transit agency Metro’s budget, I had the opportunity to hop on my soapbox for a bit during a business lunch. We were talking about housing, but the conversation meandered – as it does so often these days – to the economy. A less logical jump was somehow made to hybrid vehicles, where it stayed for a bit.

One of the guests at lunch mentioned he’d recently driven a hybrid (Prius) for the first time, and while he found the car novel, he would never purchase one. His stated reason was that it is too small. But elements of his comments, along with those of the other people at lunch, showed the lack of awareness among even people of higher education and higher means about transportation technology.

I carry the burden and relief associated with being motivated by issues green, and specifically those surrounding transit. As a society addicted to personal mobility, we constantly struggle between funding public transit and subsidizing our addiction to combustion engines through the construction and reconstruction of poor quality roads and car-oriented development, not to mention the billions handed out to oil companies. After the man’s comment, I made sure to point out that my wife and I own a Ford Escape Hybrid and that we loved it.

At that point I began to talk about a speech Robert F. Kennedy made recently in St. Louis, which my wife and I attended. While the event covered all sorts of environmental topics, a good amount of time was spent on personal mobility and the efforts of Better Place, a company currently working to convert Israel into an electric car country. I also brought up Tesla Motors and discussed the technology of electric cars. People seemed genuinely interested and asked questions, but they were never truly engaged. This may have something to do with my inability to capture an audience but I’ve tested that skill repeatedly to better results. I’m fairly certain the issue was the subject at hand.

What’s frightening is the lack of enthusiasm among people who have the means to make a difference. The general feeling after the discussion seemed to be one of, “well that was interesting, back to reality”. But people, this is reality. How do we get people to learn about electric cars, which undoubtedly are the future of personal mobility? Similarly, how do we get people to learn about other environmental issues that effect them so dramatically, but often so indirectly?

If you have an answer, please tell me. You can have all the credit, and all the resources I can spare to help spread the word.

2008 Ford Escape Hybrid Test Drive and Mental Strife

We’re fortunate enough to be comfortable in these trying times, so – and I’m rationalizing - we should be thinking about stimulating the economy in whatever way we can; getting a new car at the same time seems like as good a plan as any. Buying a new car is a large purchase so it’s reasonable to think one may teeter on the decision. But, I think I’m more conflicted than most would be. Obviously purchasing something that fits our lifestyle and future plans is important, but I also want to raise the national average miles per gallon (if only fractionally) with whatever vehicle we purchase. Only a handful of automobiles that would fit our needs would do that. One of those is the Ford Escape Hybrid.

Over the weekend, Katie and I test drove a used 2008 Ford Escape Hybrid. Besides being a most terrible bright blue color, the test drive went just fine. We’ve been talking about possibly getting a new car since this country’s dire economic state makes for good deals . . . except on Ford Escape Hybrid of course. The problem is that these damn Escapes are harder to find than Sasquatch. Why won’t Ford build more!? We averaged over 28 mpg on our jaunt through Granite City, Illinois, home of the demonstrating steel mill worker, and happened to drive by an affordable housing project I recently worked on that’s under construction; it’s looking great!

As you may know from reading this blog before, we live in a loft in downtown St. Louis. I walk to work and my wife takes our one and only car, Samosa, to work. The problem is, when you’ve decided you want something, you generally don’t listen to any counter arguments. But, yesterday I broke out our scooter, Tofu, for the first time in 2009 to get to a board meeting. The ride was a bit chilly, but relatively short. Being able to travel independently made me question the need to another car, which would make the third motorized vehicle for a family of two humans (four if you include our two four-legged creatures).

Is that being “green”? Am I being too hard on myself for wanting the ability to move around quickly and conveniently? Clearly hypocrisy would play some part if we bought a new car, but would it involved enough that the decision would categorize abandoning my beliefs? Okay, so I’m being a little dramatic.

Buying a car doesn’t mean that it would automatically get used an extraordinary amount. This is great from a fuel-burning standpoint but probably not the wisest economic decision. Additionally, I would have no need for the car sharing program downtown. Using this program has been relatively convenient but also emotionally rewarding. Subscribing to the one car per person norm would only be the status quo, no worse. And owning a hybrid would make being in that classification slightly more bearable, but that’s no way to fight the good fight. Ahhhh.

Convenience Over Conscience?

I want another car. I do not need one, I just desire one.

My wife and I currently share one vehicle, which works out just fine most of the time. I walk to work and she uses it for commuting. We share friends and are generally on the same schedule. But, there are times when we each have important things to do that requires each of us have transportation. While this does not happen frequently, it happens often enough. 

That being said, living in an urban environment offers me the option of renting a car via a car-sharing program called WeCar. In fact, I did this very thing last night to get to a meeting. Everything worked out just fine. While the immediate cost of renting the vehicle is momentarily prohibitive, it is extremely cost effective when compared to the cost of owning, insuring, parking, fueling and repairing a vehicle.

Blah. I still want one. I do not know if this almost childish, illogical internal demand for something new is fleeting. I was recently at the auto show here in St. Louis and got to toy around with a bunch of uninspired vehicles, save a few hybrids in which I sat, which is what we would buy. It was good fun.

The absolute cost of the decision is not what is weighing on me; the weight is purely philosophical. I feel like buying another car would make me a hypocrite. Sure, I am not gallivanting around the globe in a personal jet and even if I do get another car I would not be driving it all that much. But still, having only one vehicle has place me in a state of limited mobility. This is a good thing. I am forced to function in a small area and plan my days efficiently. My fear is that I will loose that discipline if I have a vehicle at my disposal. The other half of me thinks that I already do enough to live a green life and that having a car at my disposal is not the terrible sin I sometimes feel it is. 

Is enough ever enough when you can do more? Are we not supposed to be the change we want to see in the world? Grrr.

As aside: St. Louis is not Hong Kong, where I learned today ninety freakin’ percent of people commute via public transit. The transit system here is adequate, but not great. The bad news though is that it is getting worse. Shortsighted voters opted not to increase transit funding last November and now services are being cut. I am rationalizing you see. These cuts are screwing the average St. Louisan, and most of these folks can not afford a vehicle.

I am not sure what we’ll end up deciding but my fear is that convenience will triumph over conscience, at least eventually. It will be easier to play a round of golf (so not green), run an errand, make a meeting or just plain take care of business. I will surely be freer, but getting behind the wheel will in some way also be a step backward.

Personal Mobility Appliances

Bradley Berman, editor of hybridCARS, published an interesting commentary on Reuters yesterday called, “In 2018, expect personal mobility appliances“. The article is as much about technology as it is about perception. It’s short too, so please go read it, but here are some notable quotes:

  • By 2018, the American love affair with the car will become platonic.
  • Sure, you might still adore your car, but with the lusty “need for speed” tied up in gigahertz instead of get-up-and-go. Your car, reborn as a personal mobility appliance, will be more about what it can do, and less about stimulating your senses.
  • The marketplace itself will go digital.
  • The personal mobility appliance will zip along an increasingly networked roadway.
  • John DeCicco, an automotive strategist at Environmental Defense, expects that some auto companies will cling to “traditional measures of mobility” — horsepower, size, and 4-wheel drive — while others will embrace the attributes of what he calls a “post-mobility” age: connectivity, entertainment, information, navigation, safety, and mobile workplace features.

I’ve imagined the future and it is beautiful. I hope to have a personal mobility appliance but also a jet pack, or an Iron Man suit if the price is right.

“Now on display at the Museum of Transportation: The last SUV ever built!”

Let’s make it happen. Here’s a start - Land Rover go boom!

It’s Electric, Boogie, Woogie, Woogie!

I’ve searched the web to get on a waiting list for an electric car and have been disappointed. Are these manufacturers that far from delivering a working product that they’re not even taking names? Shame on them. If anyone knows how to get in line for any electric cars being developed please let me know.

One reason for the lack of “signupability” on Chevy’s part is indirectly explained in this article, Electro-Shock Therapy, published in July/August 2008 issues of The Atlantic. In the piece, Jonathon Rauch explains how General Motors is reinventing the automobile and itself. He explains that the risky part of this endeavor is that the electric technology and the car itself are being developed in parallel. And, if the technology breakthroughs don’t materialize post haste, GM is going to be in a world of hurt . . . more so than now. In fact, if this gamble does not pay off, it could be the end of days.

I really, really, really hope GM gets it right though. A recent spot on CNN interviewed people who have bought used EV1′s and Toyota’s electric RAV4′s for between $40,000 and $70,000 on eBay Motors. Demand is high and people are starting to gain awareness of the environmental issues associated with driving static technology. In fact, surveys have shown that even if gas prices go down, people are going to continue to find ways to reduce consumption. While intentions are admirable, I’m sure if push came to shove, people would ramp up their mileage again. That’s why it’s important to make available an alternative that removes the temptation to regress. We are creatures of habit, and we’ll continue to get caught in the mousetrap unless the cheese just disappears.

Biking In The Big Apple

Late last week, NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that part of Broadway was going to be shrunk from four lanes to two. Booya! Why? To add bike lanes and room for tables and chairs. Double booya! Here’s a link.

If one of the most congested cities in America can take a monumental step like this, why can’t smaller cities (St. Louis) design their growth around this idea? The only way to raise awareness among the average American and teach people that the era of the car should end (and it’s happening, however so slowly) is to make transportation routes multi-modal.

As the previous posts reveal, I was in San Francisco the last week. I can’t tell you how many times the bus I was riding was passed by a bicyclist or “scooterist”. And no, the bus didn’t over take said people later down the road. We were beat all the way to the finish line goddamnit!

Cities need to add parking for bicycles and smaller motorized vehicles everywhere. In fact, these modes of transportation should be favored, both in regards to proximity to a venue and the cost of parking.

A Study In Contrast

Katie and I head back east (to the Midwest) tomorrow after 10 days of sun and fun, and a little bit of learning. We spent most of our time in Sacramento and San Francisco, though we drove between the two cities and got out to Marin County and the Valleys Napa and Sonoma.

From the perspective of sustainability, California is definitely a study in contrast. San Francisco is probably the only major city in the state that is truly sustainable from an urban design perspective. It’s European in character, has great public transit and is very, very dense. My wife and I took the Muni bus and train system on every trip around the city but one; we had to take a cab to a city seeing office ’cause the jokers forget to pick us up! The transit buses are zero-emission vehicles and are connected to a massive web of electric lines that run throughout the city. My only complaint is that they aren’t the prettiest things in the world, and they’re everywhere. But, no black smoke coming out of the tailpipes like back in St. Louis. Hell, even some of the FedEx trucks we saw were hybrids!

Sacramento, on the other hand, is worse than St. Louis from a sprawl standpoint. Massive four-lane streets connect every neighborhood in the suburbs. Admittedly, we didn’t get to spend much time in the urban core of the city but I doubt that would have made much of a difference on my opinion. City cores themselves are relatively sustainable purely from a density standpoint. How far the suburbs stretch in a metropolitan area is an entirely different story. The suburbs of Sacramento seem to have been developed using the following strategy: move outward from downtown until there’s a precipitous drop in land prices, build a neighborhood, and then do it again. What this has done is create acres and acres of undeveloped land between major developments. These pieces of land have signs on them, advertising parcels of developable lots, but no one seems to be biting.

That’s all for now. Heading out, on the bus, to dinner on our last night in Yerba Buena!

San Francisustainability

The wife and I are in San Francisco, California this week on vacation. 

As most of you probably know, no other city in America offers the same level of sustainability. From zero emission public buses to no plastic bags, from city-wide recycling to solar panels on AT&T Park (home of the SF Giants), San Francisco does more than any other U.S. city to help people reduce, reuse and recycle. Portland may disagree, but no matter who’s right, a healthy competition between cities to become the “greenest” there is can’t hurt, right?!

I’m hoping to gather a good collection of photos this week I can share with everyone that exhibit the various steps SF has taken to become more sustainable. By early next week I should have everything posted. I can’t promise anything but stay tuned this week for updates. If you don’t hear from me, it’s because we’re having way too much fun. If you do, then we’re only having as much fun as we can handle.

Scooter Scooter!

It took a little longer than expected but the scooter has arrived! All the rain in St. Louis, combined with a strange, prolonged, allergy-induced cold has prohibited extensive riding to date but the sun is finally out and I feel much better.

My wife and I decided the scooter was female, as most vehicles are, but haven’t agreed on a name yet. Any suggestions? I offered up “Ivy” but she said the name implied the scooter was green. I could have a made a very cheesy environmental joke at the time but didn’t, choosing to write about the joke I never made here instead. Ahem . . .

I took her for a test drive (tee hee) the day she arrived and enjoyed it very much. The scooter is quieter than I expected and very comfortable. Little tip, if you get a helmet with closeable air vents, open them before riding. My head started to melt five minutes into the ride, not realizing I could have easily gotten more air flow had my anxiousness to ride the scooter not trumped a simple examination of the helmet before hopping on.

Oh well, we live and we learn. Apologies for the fortnight of silence. I hope to be back writing regularly now that my energy’s back.

Life At 100 Miles Per Gallon

Balancing convenience with conscience is a tall order. In this regard, some of people are luckier than others. One extreme instinctually favors conscience over convenience; the people is this extreme represent a social zenith and consistently make decisions based on the greater good. The people in the other extreme have no conscience; these people represent a social nadir and consistently make decisions based on benefit to oneself regardless of the decision’s impact on society. I like to call these people Republicans.

That leaves the rest of us, myself included. My wife and I live a greener life than most Americans. I’m sure our lifestyle compared to that of hypothetical doppelgangers living in a more “efficient” country would pale in comparison, but as Americans raised to consume, we do alright. We’re both vegetarian, live in an urban area and own only one car (I walk to work). Owning only one car is the catalyst for my thoughts today.

The life we live now and intend to live for the short-term requires us to own only one automobile. Admittedly, it’s not a hybrid, but a relatively fuel efficient sedan. It’s big enough to meet all of our needs but not so big as to make us feel that it’s underused or a total and complete plague on society (read: SUV). That being said, we’re both social beings, and often times our interests and commitments conflict with each other’s. Public transit in our fair city is good but not great, and only occasionally is it convenient practical to use for not commuting transportation. So what’s the solution? We’re buying a scooter!!!

A handful of people I know have one, and their identities vary from coworker to friend to neighbor to blogger I read. Point is, people are starting to use them more and more. This is where someone from Europe or Asian reading this says under his breath, “No shit, moron”.

“Apologies for our ignorance my friends.” Sorry, I was momentarily channeling George W. Bush III’s John McCain’s future I-got-my-ass-kicked-in-the-presidential-election speech. And we’re back. At roughly one-tenth the cost and four times the fuel efficiency of the average car, scooters make sense. Is it perfect? No, but it’s better than the status quo. Buying one instead of a car balances my convenience with my conscience, and that’s what I ask of you.