Big Think

Free Parking? It's an Expensive Proposition

Once you start using a bike to get around, you see cities in an entirely new way. David Byrne, in his forthcoming book Bicycle Diaries uses his bike trips on a folding Montague bike in cities around the globe as a jumping-off point for musings on cities' architecture, street life, and life in general. Eventually, it seems cities' ever-growing infrastructure of highways, streets, and parking structures limit our ability to enjoy their charms. While cars can give us a great feeling of freedom when we are in them on open road, they are also a yoke around the average driver's neck as they stand idle and cost money for a great deal of the day. As Seth Zeren notes at a post yesterday on WorldChanging, a Prius and a Hummer have the same environmental impact for the 95% of the time they both are parked. Donald Shoup, author of The High Cost of Free Parking, shows how urban planning in U.S. cities. -- in which new development is contingent on creating new parking (and planning for parking's peak times) -- has meant lots of parking spaces standing empty a lot of the time. Zeren describes a recent New Haven, Connecticut parking garage project, in which constructing each space averaged $25,000, with mortgage $40,000, or about $1,600 per space per year. When charging for parking, developers can rarely recoup the total value of the space. And then there is the amount cities lose when offering free or reduced-cost parking to some employees. Shoup in his book has calculated that 98% of the parking Americans do is at "free parking" spaces - and the resulting subsidy costs for parking runs in the hundreds of billions. The result: too much parking can damage downtowns making them ultimately less people-friendly. Vauban, Germany's low-car, child-friendly streets are providing a different model - getting a parking space can run upward of US$40,000 -- but for this to be applied to American cities first it would seem we need to collectively agree that we've given over too much of our cities to private cars. That can be an upward battle. Merchants are afraid not enough parking will kill their businesses. Portland, with its bike corrals, and Copenhagen with city-center car-free but bus- and bike-friendly streets, have shown otherwise. But observe for yourself how much of your city is given over to the deadbeat life of parked cars by taking a bike ride today. Read more about the costs of parking at TreeHugger ::The Hidden Cost of Free Parking ::Greener Parking from Plant Architects ::Parking Costs Linked to Emissions ::Taking Back the City Streets: P (LOT) ::Is America's Suburban Dream Collapsing? For more articles by Graham Hill click here.

August 12, 2009, 11:06 AM

Free Parking? It's an Expensive Proposition

Once you start using a bike to get around, you see cities in an entirely new way. David Byrne, in his forthcoming book Bicycle Diaries uses his bike trips on a folding Montague bike in cities around the globe as a jumping-off point for musings on cities' architecture, street life, and life in general. Eventually, it seems cities' ever-growing infrastructure of highways, streets, and parking structures limit our ability to enjoy their charms. While cars can give us a great feeling of freedom when we are in them on open road, they are also a yoke around the average driver's neck as they stand idle and cost money for a great deal of the day. As Seth Zeren notes at a post yesterday on WorldChanging, a Prius and a Hummer have the same environmental impact for the 95% of the time they both are parked. Donald Shoup, author of The High Cost of Free Parking, shows how urban planning in U.S. cities. - in which new development is contingent on creating new parking (and planning for parking's peak times) has meant lots of parking spaces standing empty a lot of the time. Zeren describes a recent New Haven, Connecticut parking garage project, in which constructing each space averaged $25,000, with mortgage $40,000, or about $1,600 per space per year. When charging for parking, developers can rarely recoup the total value of the space. And then there is the amount cities lose when offering free or reduced-cost parking to some employees. Shoup in his book has calculated that 98% of the parking Americans do is at "free parking" spaces - and the resulting subsidy costs for parking runs in the hundreds of billions. The result: too much parking can damage downtowns making them ultimately less people-friendly. Vauban, Germany's low-car, child-friendly streets are providing a different model - getting a parking space can run upward of US$40,000 - but for this to be applied to American cities first it would seem we need to collectively agree that we've given over too much of our cities to private cars. That can be an upward battle. Merchants are afraid not enough parking will kill their businesses. Portland, with its bike corrals, and Copenhagen with city-center car-free but bus- and bike-friendly streets, have shown otherwise. But observe for yourself how much of your city is given over to the deadbeat life of parked cars by taking a bike ride today. Read more about the costs of parking at TreeHugger ::The Hidden Cost of Free Parking ::Greener Parking from Plant Architects ::Parking Costs Linked to Emissions ::Taking Back the City Streets: P (LOT) ::Is America's Suburban Dream Collapsing? For more articles by Graham Hill click here.

August 11, 2009, 3:54 AM

Train Replacing Plane - It's Not Insane

Well-developed high-speed trains could take a lot of domestic travel out of the hands of airlines. Which has the airlines crying 'That's insane.' British Airlines expressed its skepticism in a Guardian article: "High-speed rail cannot be a complete substitute for flying," the company said. "There are relatively few destinations in continental Europe to which it would be practical to travel and return by rail in a day. Therefore flying will always remain the preferred form of transport for millions of travelers." We don't need train to be a 'complete' substitute. The simplified check-in, security, and city-center to city-center service provided by trains will naturally cause many people to switch. James Howard Kunstler says Obama's notion for U.S. high-speed rail is trying to sustain the unsustainable, and we should concentrate on fixing the rail system we already have. Why not do both? Fix the rail we have, plan for more high-speed rail. Lester Brown notes a long list of benefits, the most important one being a move away from the car-centric system that has given us so many woes. The International Aviation Transport Association (IATA) said that the country (Britain) that took decades to plan a contested third runway at Heathrow would probably take just as long to build a good high-speed net. More reason to start now. As more people understand the CO2, congestion, and other pollution burdens of flying and driving, it seems that the populace will be willing to trade some time-savings for some climate saving. Japan has the world's most high-speed rail lines, with France a distant second. And guess which country is the biggest surprise in the high-speed sweepstakes? Spain, once a country reviled for its backward, slow-moving rail system, now has a fabulous Barcelona-Madrid fast train connection, 1,594 kilometers of high-speed rail already built and a whopping 2,219 kilometers under construction. China has only 394 kilometers currently built but an astounding 3,404 kilometers under construction. If building for high-speed trains was so insane, would China be investing in it? Read more about high-speed rail at TreeHugger and Planet Green ::5 High Speed Trains That Are Changing the Face of Rail ::Air Travel and Climate Change: Take the Train ::Travel Green and Save Money Without Giving Up Anything (But Your CO2 Footprint) ::Is High-Speed Rail the Answer? ::High-Speed Rail: Richard Florida Weighs In For more articles by Graham Hill click here.

August 5, 2009, 8:21 AM

Science Fails to State the Obvious: Organic is Healthier

Portions of the web were abuzz with Alan Dangour and his team's review of 50 years of studies regarding nutrient content of organic foods versus conventionally-produced foods, funded by the UK's Food Standards Agency (FSA). "We have concluded that there's no good evidence that consumption of organic food is beneficial to health based on the nutrient content," says Dangour in a Guardian article. OK. The researchers were looking to review the studies out there to determine whether certain nutrients were higher in organic or non-organic food. They found that, for example, vitamin C, potassium, and calcium weren't significantly higher in organic foods. They found that flavanoids and the minerals zinc and magnesium were significantly higher in organic crops (nitrogen was higher in conventional crops). So Dangour et al. are saying regarding nutrient content, there isn't a vast difference. But come on - the review did not at all address contaminant content (pesticide, herbicide, fungicide) in organic versus conventional, nor did it address environmental impacts of organic versus conventional. A four-year EU wide study from 2007, involving 31 research and university institutes, came to a different conclusion: levels of nutritionally desirable compounds, such as antioxidants and vitamins, are higher in organic crops, it said, while levels of nutritionally undesirable compounds such as toxic chemicals, mycotoxins and metals such as cadmium and nickel, are lower in organic crops. The FSA report must be taken into account, of course, and analyzed further. Yet as consumers we also have to use our common sense. Seeking out organic is part of a process of bringing mindfulness to what you eat. Beginning to look for the organic label is really just the beginning. Most people who begin to eat organic tend also to seek out alternative shopping venues - not only health food stores and co-ops, but also farm stores and community supported agriculture, as ways to discover the freshest, most high-quality and likely healthiest produce and foods. And once we are on that quest, we usually tend to becoming more interested in cooking meals at home - because after all, if you've paid more for the organic alternative, you have a vested interest in making it into something delicious before it goes bad. If you have a box of red beets and yellow chard show up in your box from a CSA, you better know what to do with it. Being an organic shopper tends to make you a more selective, smarter shopper overall. And the next step? Well, if you balk at paying $4.99 for a bag of baby lettuces, the logical, common sense alternative is to join Michelle Obama and grow your own. Scientific research is of course important. But let's not let it blindside us from the glaringly obvious fact that eating and buying organic is healthier in many common-sense ways. Read more about organic food at TreeHugger and Planet Green ::Why Bother With Organic Food When You Can't Even Know What it Means? ::Organic is Healthier Once More ::TreeHugger Picks: Organic Food is Better For more articles by Graham Hill click here.

July 30, 2009, 7:01 AM

Should We Make the 'Yield, Not Stop' Bike Practice Universal?

Because it is summer, cyclists are out in force. That means more encounters and chances for anti-cyclist road rage or other unfortunate incidents, like the Colorado man shot this week for riding with his child on a busy street. If you love the freedom of using a bike to get where you want to go, you want to protect that freedom and protect yourself from harm. Car drivers and pedestrians tend to say that bike riders 'need to respect the rules.' This is true, but doesn't mean the rules shouldn't be changed and adapted for the growing numbers of cyclists. Earlier this year, bike haven Portland, Oregon tried to pass a law to bring what is known as the 'Idaho Stop Law' to the Rose City. The law specifies that cyclists are not required to come to a full stop but must roll up to and yield right of way at stop signs or blinking red lights. Cyclists must stop at solid red traffic lights. Bicycles, Rolling Stops, and the Idaho Stop from Spencer Boomhower on Vimeo. Portland's measure ultimately failed, though its supporters will try again. And the idea - that cyclists by law be allowed to approach an intersection with caution, and yield but not make a full stop - deserves more attention. Urban cycling is one of the fastest growing forms of inter-city transport - New York, San Francisco, Austin - and handfuls of other cities are experiencing lots of new riders on the roads. To encourage this CO2-free form of transport without enraging motorists requires tact and planning. And it takes time. What Idaho found from implementing its yield, not stop legislation (which it did all the way back in 1982) was that 1) traffic court became less clogged, and 2) injury accidents dropped around 14.5% a year after the law came into effect. That last seems a bit counter-intuitive. But if cyclists use their energy for carefully anticipating what's happening in traffic rather than coming to a dead stop at every intersection, and if cars begin to see cycles as part of the vehicular landscape instead of as an unexpected nuisance, maybe the improved numbers are understandable. Most people want a safe and smooth commute for all city dwellers. Talking more about the benefits - and also the detriments - of Idaho's choice would seem to be a positive step forward. Read more about urban biking at TreeHugger and Planet Green ::More Bike Commuters on the Road, But Are They Being Safe? ::Higher Fuel Prices Increase Bike Sales (And Bike Sharing)? ::6 Ways to Defuse Anti-Cyclist Road Rage ::Spare Yourself From Road-Raging Bike Haters ::7 Ways to Create a Bike-Friendly Atmosphere at Work Read more from Graham Hill on Huffington Post ::A Smiley Face (and Your Neighbor's Numbers) Are the Best Way to Save Energy ::Branzini: The Greenest Fish You've Never Heard of ::Bright Idea? Citizen-Controlled Street Lamps ::Naked Bikers and the True Cost of Traffic ::Jellyfish Spaghetti and Your Own Carry Container ::Twitter Feeding Your World ::Electric Cars Will Be Cheaper Than You Think ::E-Bike: Car-Free Encouragement or Bike Balkanizer? ::Put Down That CAFO Pork Chop ::Your Ungreen Brain Needs More Nature

July 28, 2009, 4:34 AM