Tag Archives: USA

Bike Parking Can Change America

Cars have been dominating the USA (and all of North America) for decades now, and we know all too well what makes a good city for cars. Now climate change and other factors are forcing North Americans to address the problems of their oil-guzzling death machines running amok through cities. The solution is rather simple: apply what we know about car commuters to create more bicycle commuters.

Why do these measures matter? Because parking helps make commuters—a lesson long ago learned with cars. Studies in New York found that a surprisingly large percentage of vehicles coming into lower Manhattan were government employees or others who had an assured parking spot. Other studies have shown the presence of a guaranteed parking spot at home—required in new residential developments—is what turns a New Yorker into a car commuter.

On the flip side, people would be much less likely to drive into Manhattan if they knew their expensive car was likely to be stolen, vandalized, or taken away by police. And yet this is what was being asked of bicycle commuters, save those lucky few who work in a handful of buildings that provide indoor bicycle parking. Surveys have shown that the leading deterrent to potential bicycle commuters is lack of a safe, secure parking spot on the other end. (In England, for example, it’s been estimated that a bicycle is stolen every 71 seconds.)

A number of American cities are now waking up to the fact that providing bicycle parking makes sense. Philadelphia, for example, recently amended its zoning requirements to mandate that certain new developments provide bicycle parking; Pittsburgh’s planning department is weighing requiring one bicycle parking space for every 20,000 square feet of development* (admittedly modest compared with the not-uncommon car equation of one parking space per 250 square feet); even the car-centric enclave of Orange County, Calif., is getting in on the act, with Santa Ana’s City Council unanimously passing a bill requiring proportional bicycle parking when car parking is provided. In Chicago, Los Angeles, and other cities, pilot projects are investigating turning car-parking meters—once semireliable bike-parking spots, now rendered obsolete by “smart meter” payment systems—into bike parking infrastructure.

Urban Farming the USA is Growing in Popularity

People in urban centres in the USA are turning vacant lots into places for communities to grow in nearly every sense of the word.

Alemany Farm is on the forefront of a renewed interest in urban farming nationwide, from Michelle Obama’s garden on the South Lawn of the White House to the proliferation of backyard chicken coops in New York City.

“I do think there is something like a movement afoot,” said Mark, 34, who chronicles environmental trends in the Earth Island Journal and can rattle off the names of urban farms from Milwaukee to Philadelphia.

In the grittiest, grimiest, most unlikely neighborhoods, in cities that include Los Angeles, Detroit, Baltimore and Miami, volunteer farmers are growing food that provides not only for those who work the gardens, but also for neighbors, food kitchens and school lunchrooms.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture says there are thousands of community gardens throughout the country, though no one keeps an exact tally. Localharvest.org, a Web site about community gardens, lists more than 2,500 in its database.

In 2008, 557 new gardens signed up with LocalHarvest, according to the site. In the first two months of 2009, 300 more joined.

Green Jobs Grow fast

Wired is running an article that points out the outstanding growth of green jobs in the USA and how they already employ 770,000 Americans. Green jobs have grown 250% since 1998.

The report differs from government projections or most industry association estimates in that it counts individual jobs, not entire industries. In other words, only the electricians who actually install solar panels were counted as green electricians.

“Although our numbers are conservative, our report provides the most precise depiction to date of the clean energy economy in the United States,” the Pew researchers wrote.

Green jobs are a major part President Obama’s plan for economic recovery and energy transformation. Manufacturing jobs have declined a few percent a year over the last decade, and in the bullet-point language of Whitehouse.gov, his administration wants to “Drive the development of new, green jobs that pay well and cannot be outsourced.” The report shows that environmentally friendly jobs already exist, but most of the “green” jobs aren’t in clean energy at all. A full 65 percent of the jobs fell into the “conservation and pollution mitigation” category, which includes recycling.

That leaves a lot of room for growth in clean energy, even if some jobs are lost in traditional energy companies. Right now, there’s a small base. There were only 89,000 “clean energy” jobs in 2007. Current research indicates that for renewable energy sources to really make an impact on greenhouse gas emissions and fossil fuel dependence, we’re going to need a lot of manpower.

Obama is Bringing Change

Barack Obama’s campaign was based around the idea of change and now that he’s been elected it looks like he’s getting around to changing things. Yesterday he lifted the ban on stem cell research that Bush put in place.

“Today, with the executive order I am about to sign, we will bring the change that so many scientists and researchers, doctors, and innovators, patients and loved ones have hoped for, fought for these past eight years,” Obama told reporters at a news conference at the White House on Monday.

“We will lift the ban on federal funding for … embryonic stem cell research.”

The long-promised move will allow a rush of research aimed at one day better treating, if not curing, ailments from diabetes to paralysis — research that has drawn broad support, including from notables like Nancy Reagan, widow of the late Republican president Ronald Reagan.

Under Bush, taxpayer money for that research was limited to the 21 stem cell lines that were created before Aug. 9, 2001. But researchers have said that these lines have, in many cases, had some drawbacks that limited their potential usability.

Creating a Bike-Friendly Sustainable Society in the USA

The New York Times has an article about a Oregon congressman who has been promoting bicycling and sustainable living for 20 years. The article goes into his hard work and how what he has been promoting has become really popular.

But Mr. Blumenauer’s goals are larger than putting Americans on two wheels. He seeks to create what he calls a more sustainable society, including wiser use of energy, farming that improves the land rather than degrades it, an end to taxpayer subsidies for unwise development — and a transportation infrastructure that looks beyond the car.

For him, the global financial collapse is “perhaps the best opportunity we will ever see” to build environmental sustainability into the nation’s infrastructure, with urban streetcar systems, bike and pedestrian paths, more efficient energy transmission and conversion of the federal government’s 600,000-vehicle fleet to use alternate fuels.

“These are things that three years ago were unimaginable,” he said. “And if they were imaginable, we could not afford them. Well, now when all the experts agree that we will be lucky if we stabilize the economy in a couple of years, when there is great concern about the consequences of the collapse of the domestic auto producers, gee, these are things that are actually reasonable and affordable.”