Living Car Free - Well the reality is.....

This week I went on a bike tour of green buildings. There seemed to be a huge disconnect between the urban planner's concept of ecologically friendly and transportation issues. In a neighborhood that I've been familiar with for decades, they've bulldozed the low rise public housing. In a few blocks a developer is putting in a "green" community. Someone in the group asked about parking right after the developer representative got done talking about the public transit and nearby retail. When I replied that in such a neighborhood you didn't need to own a car I was shouted down by someone in the bike group: "Well the reality is that people need cars!". The developer representative pointed out that each home had a garage accessible from the alley around back so the development only looked like it lacked parking from the street. The thing is this development will replace low income families who didn't have cars with hyper-consumers who "need" their cars, yet is still marketed as "green".
We got another song and dance from a representative of some green building association. When a car free couple on the tour asked how to get to the headquarters by Metro they were told "No metro access." So they asked which bus route. "No bus access." This association headquarters is so far out in the suburbs you need a car to attend their seminars on living green.

The tour actually had some good stops. I was surprised that the National Geographic Society is actively trying to stop being hypocritical. They're composting and everything. A swank hotel has gone so far with the local food thing that they're shopping to buy a local farm to supply their kitchen.

Overall, I left the bike tour with a sick feeling that although some people are sincerely trying to change the way they do business. there is a lot of green washing going on in the "green" building industry.

Are you surprised? The whole 'pro' green movement, meaning green builders, recyclers, big non profits, and the green polititians are just in it for the face value. In this case it is cool and hip to market the area as a green development. If it was cool and hip to produce coal powered dishwashers, these guys would be doing it.

Despite your experience with "green" developer bull-dozing existing building to put up "eco-friendly" habitation for the upper classes, you should realize that there are many people around who are genuinely interested in conserving older buildings and not filling up landfills. I read a while back about some industrious entrepreneurs who were in the business of tearing down and reselling older homes. They were in it for the money and they had a nice hook: if landfill costs rose (and they seem to be headed in that direction...), it would be more cost efficient to bring in a team of wreckers, tear down the building and recycle the scrap as used lumber. Sounds like a perfectly reasonable green thing to do... and it would create jobs too.

So, keep your chin up... there will be carpet-baggers and shysters in whatever you try to do. But the green movement isn't any more susceptible to phoniness than any other sector.

I'll second gerv's comments. currently our economic system externalizes things that can't be externalized. however there is not dollar figure associated with them so there is no accounting way to include them. thus pollution and waste don't cost $$$ so companies don't care about them. once they start to cost $$$ they will shift their focus. look how fast production 50+mpg cars have been created...

On the plus side I'm starting to notice a shift. after talking to some of my classmates in civil engineering I've found that normal non biking people are finding typical highway and car centric design ugly. to the point that they refuse to go into that field even though that's where all the work currently is.

On the plus side I'm starting to notice a shift. after talking to some of my classmates in civil engineering I've found that normal non biking people are finding typical highway and car centric design ugly. to the point that they refuse to go into that field even though that's where all the work currently is.
That's interesting. I wonder, what's motivating that shift?

On the plus side I'm starting to notice a shift. after talking to some of my classmates in civil engineering I've found that normal non biking people are finding typical highway and car centric design ugly. to the point that they refuse to go into that field even though that's where all the work currently is.

I'm not sure what the shift is that you describe. If there is work in car-centric design, it presumably means that there are still very large numbers of people who think that always driving their cars to work or to go shopping is a perfectly good idea. I applaud your classmates who are able to look at the big picture, but honestly, developers and local governments don't care what prospective employees think.

However, they care a great deal about what prospective clients/voters think. If a large enough set of people decide that they'd like to live in communities where driving a car is not a necessity, or at least not a daily necessity, those communities will be built and/or preserved.

I'm pretty sure this points to where one's efforts need to be directed.

In this free market economy, people are going to do what makes them money, plain and simple. Nobody wants to see any of this green stuff mandated by legislation, including myself who makes my living in green building. Developers are going to build what buyers want, and that is exactly what developers are supposed to do. It is the buyers who mandate what gets built, what gets designed, etc.
In a free market economy such as ours combined with a representative democracy, there is only one group with real power...the consumers/voters...everybody else only holds apparent power. As long as people want to buy green homes with three car garages that will fit one and a half Hummers, then that is exactly what will be built, produced, and sold.
And that is exactly as it should be. If we wanted it different we would move to Cuba (probably the greenest and most environmentally friendly country on the planet, but with almost no freedom)

In this free market economy, people are going to do what makes them money, plain and simple. Nobody wants to see any of this green stuff mandated by legislation, including myself who makes my living in green building. Developers are going to build what buyers want, and that is exactly what developers are supposed to do. It is the buyers who mandate what gets built, what gets designed, etc.
In a free market economy such as ours combined with a representative democracy, there is only one group with real power...the consumers/voters...everybody else only holds apparent power. As long as people want to buy green homes with three car garages that will fit one and a half Hummers, then that is exactly what will be built, produced, and sold.
And that is exactly as it should be. If we wanted it different we would move to Cuba (probably the greenest and most environmentally friendly country on the planet, but with almost no freedom)

Yes, good basic points. Economic demand has a lot to so with what's available on the market.

But I'm thinking back to an earlier poster who talked about external costs. How can we say that we have a free market economy if developers and homeowners are just passing the real costs of their business along to other people to pay?

For example, the health insurance premiums I pay are increased because of the damage that pollution does to people's health. Depending on where you live, this can be a very large cost, but the polluters don't pay the cost. I pay the costs, and so do you if you have health insurance.

Another example has to do with extending utilities into newly developed areas of sprawl. Developers only pay part of the cost of expanding utilities. Depending on circumstances, they might not pay any of the costs of new sewer and water lines, or they may only pay for the last few feet from the new main line to the development. I pay the other costs, and so do you if you're a utility customer in an area with urban sprawl.

And don't get me started about building roads to new developments. As a carfree person, I'm paying plenty for new roads. The developers and homeowners are only paying for the streets that actually extend into the new development. We're all paying for the new road that gives the development access to the city--even if we don't own a car.

Also, cut the crap about Cuba. First, comparing the US to Cuba is a common "argument" on this board, but it makes little or no sense if you actually think it through. Circumstances in the two countries are so different that most comparisons are absolutely meaningless. Second, what you're actually saying is "Love it or leave it." One point of democracy is that we do have the two choices that you mention--unquestioning acceptance of the status quo and voluntary exile. But in a real democracy we also have a third choice: We can "change it" when it isn't working well for us.

People generally, including Americans, are not stupid or self-destructive. Unfortunately, we are woefully blind sometimes. Give us a couple more shocks to the economy and the environment, and we will come around. I just hope that we do so with as little ugliness as possible.

jim

People generally, including Americans, are not stupid or self-destructive. Unfortunately, we are woefully blind sometimes. Give us a couple more shocks to the economy and the environment, and we will come around. I just hope that we do so with as little ugliness as possible.

jim

I'm with you. Pre-planning seems to be the key to avoiding "ugliness."

IMO, we should be going all out to devise a low-pollution electric system. This would not be cheap or easy, but it would solve so many current and future problems: declining oil supplies, dependence on foreign energy, pollution in general, global warming, skyrocketing energy costs, etc.

Hell, people might even get to keep their precious cars if we can come up with the "juice" to run them. ;)

Roody,
Im not talking about the suburban developments that need access to the city, I am talking about the Urban developments in the city that are displacing low income public housing. The connecting roads already exist, and only the developers and homeowners are paying for the driveways and garages.
Now, nobody who understands basic economics would argue that we actually are a free market economy. We are not by a long shot. But we are free market enough to allow the basic laws of supply and demand act on their own, for better or for worse.

Okay instead of comparing the US to Cuba, how about the US to Japan? In the 17th and 18th centuries, Japan realized that it was overusing its resources, and was grossly overpopulating the country, so the local governments, at the bequest of the emperor, stepped in and instituted an overall philosophical change in the way that people lived, not by mandating anything but by approaching it through more gentle channels...getting Shinto and Zen priests to preach about the virtue of minimalism, by encouraging the concentration of populations in cities by offering tax breaks for countryside businesses to relocate where they could make transportation costs more efficient, and offering better education for the children of workers who relocated to cities. Japan is now the most environmentally friendly "heavily industrialized" country, among the likes of the US, Germany, Japan, Britain, India and China.
Jared Diamond has a really good explanation of this in "Collapse" and we have seen that the Japanese model has had very good long lasting positive affects.

As far as the "external costs" they are in fact very real...but the people who wrote the laws and policies were elected into public office by the population of consumers and voters. No matter what happens in this country, thanks to the freedom we have, we as the people only really have ourselves to blame.

Keep in mind that if 280 Million people stand up and say "we are not going to pay for this!!" what are 400 government officials going to do about it?

In this free market economy....

In a free market economy such as ours .....

According to the news sources, in the past year our free market economy screwed us up royally and we have shifted to a planned economy. Our government has taken a majority interest in several huge companies hasn't it? Didn't we begin deregulating banking and finance in the Reagan years and accelerated that trend in the last decade in spite of the Savings and Loan thing? During the past year hasn't the government taken control of large sections of the deregulated banking industry? Or am I mis-reading the news?

One thing our laws and regulations should strive to do, is to take complicated decisions about what is the best course of action for the common good and make them simple for us so we can worry about other things.

Well yes we have begun moving away from a free market economy to more of a planned one. In my opinion this is a good move, but are we not talking about past events? Past events lead to present circumstances, right?
Any economic effect we are feeling right now, as in our bank accounts today, June 2nd, 2009, are results of a free market economy. Any effects the Obama administration makes will not affect the average American's pocketbook for at least a month or two.
Generally, economic decisions made at the executive staff level take years to hit the average taxpayer's life. Things are moving quickly now.
We have lived in a free market economy (as much as any economy can really be called that) for a long time. Things are changing now, in my opinion for the better, and as of this moment or a week from now, or when GM comes out of Chapter 13 there is a point where we can say we are in a planned economy if it fully reaches that point.
Small business, and the freedom of small business, is still the measuring point. It is not measured by the dollar amount exchanged, but by the number of employees working in that sector. For better or worse, that is the measurement method used as a judgement. If they measured it by dollar amount exchanged, most likely we would not have been in a free market since the second world war, as the govt took so much power over the oil, coal, and steel companies (in regards to who they could sell to overseas) that the government had control over 65% of GDP on average from 1946-2000.

In the regard to control over sales to overseas companies

Think Russia and China. If we did not have such a pissing contest with them for so long, think how much money we could have made.

The best "green developments" are the ones 5 miles out of town heating a 3500 square foot home with geothermal heating.

The best "green developments" are the ones 5 miles out of town heating a 3500 square foot home with geothermal heating.

They recently built a townhouse complex close to where I live that is completely self reliant in terms of power generation and recycling water, in most cases. Its connected to outside infrastructure but rarely has to draw off of it...very, very cool. The developer screwed up and built it in a really bad neighborhood, probably figuring the area would gentrify so they are not selling though.

someone in the bike group: "Well the reality is that people need cars!"

I like the phrase: Your perception determines your reality.

I think about the meaning of that phrase quite often.

There's no need to pump billions into these fancy projects. We had it right to start with. Nothing works as well as a classic 19th and early 20th century urban design for bikes. If I see bungalows and right angle streets with proper blocks, I know I'm going to do fine. Whether it's on the East side of Portland or the old part of Anchorage. Traffic is lighter, there are lots of alternate routes from A to B and the size is condensed. Why don't we just do it the way we used to?

..... If I see bungalows and right angle streets with proper blocks, I know I'm going to do fine. Whether it's on the East side of Portland or the old part of Anchorage. Traffic is lighter, there are lots of alternate routes from A to B and the size is condensed. Why don't we just do it the way we used to?
Well, developers can squeeze more houses in when they make is so there is only 1, possibly roundabout way from a-b. They don't really sell streets. So their sales pitch isn't "Man, when you move into this dead end street you're screwed, there is only one way in and one way out and a huge backup in the morning. Not only that, if the entrance is blocked by an accident forget about ingress or egress. Not only that, but to get to you're friends house right over there in the next subdivision, you'll have to drive two miles out of your way." Their sales pitch is more like: "Back here you'll see no cut through traffic, only your immediate neighbors will come down this street. There is no straight section on any street in this neighborhood giving you the reduced site lines of a country road." But in their planning phase, the pitch to upper management is: "With this twisted tree like street layout we can mazimize the number of units we can build and sell in this parcel. And by minimizing the total length of road we also minimize the cost of building roads." Its all about profits, they don't build those developments to enhance the resident's quality of life.

Well, developers can squeeze more houses in when they make is so there is only 1, possibly roundabout way from a-b. They don't really sell streets. So their sales pitch isn't "Man, when you move into this dead end street you're screwed, there is only one way in and one way out and a huge backup in the morning. Not only that, if the entrance is blocked by an accident forget about ingress or egress. Not only that, but to get to you're friends house right over there in the next subdivision, you'll have to drive two miles out of your way." Their sales pitch is more like: "Back here you'll see no cut through traffic, only your immediate neighbors will come down this street. There is no straight section on any street in this neighborhood giving you the reduced site lines of a country road." But in their planning phase, the pitch to upper management is: "With this twisted tree like street layout we can mazimize the number of units we can build and sell in this parcel. And by minimizing the total length of road we also minimize the cost of building roads." Its all about profits, they don't build those developments to enhance the resident's quality of life.

Thanks for the post, gwd. I understand the design and marketing process a lot better now. :thumb:

But what about zoning laws and pre-development deals between the developer and the local government? Supposedly, these are supposed to enhance the resident's quality of life. Don't they often lead to people-unfriendly developmenbt too?

But what about zoning laws and pre-development deals between the developer and the local government? Supposedly, these are supposed to enhance the resident's quality of life. Don't they often lead to people-unfriendly developmenbt too?

You, read my mind. I forgot the pitch to the local government is that by minimizing the length of the streets, it minimizes the ongoing repaving costs and streetlight maintenance. On a gridwork of streets, the sewers don't need to follow all the streets but I bet the tree-like design reduces the length of sewer pipes too. The grid streets probably have more streetlights per home too. I haven't heard the pitch to the government, I guessed that this street length topology is a major consideration and when I asked an urban planner working for a major developer in the Suburban DC area he confirmed my suspicions. He told me that he thought that with the tree like topology they could sell places by telling people the kids could play in the yard by emphasizing the quieter streets, (except at the collector junctions and roads) while when they build a grid pattern they need to provide more parks which also cuts into profits. His opinion was the dead end streets appeal to people who are paranoid about having their kids play in the neighborhood park with just anybody. I'm not sure how much insight the guy had to suburban psychology but he was explicit about the profitability.

I've sat in on a few pre-development meetings where they talk about quality of life in terms of counting green space. Medians and street runoff holding ponds count as "green space" believe it or not.

One meeting was funny because the residents of an adjacent grid like neighborhood built in the 1920s-1930s were vocally opposed to connecting their grid to the new development and didn't want the new development to have the grid design either. The didn't want cars from the new development to be able to use their grid, they wanted arterial roads expanded. They never thought that a new development would ever be a place they would want to travel to. The developers were very willing to extend the 1920s scheme into their development, make it a modern clone but the residents didn't want it. They spoke as though they had bought into the modern idea that dead end streets are a good thing and they would be happy if their streets were dead ended- unless it blocked their path.

One meeting was funny because the residents of an adjacent grid like neighborhood built in the 1920s-1930s were vocally opposed to connecting their grid to the new development and didn't want the new development to have the grid design either. The didn't want cars from the new development to be able to use their grid, they wanted arterial roads expanded. They never thought that a new development would ever be a place they would want to travel to. The developers were very willing to extend the 1920s scheme into their development, make it a modern clone but the residents didn't want it. They spoke as though they had bought into the modern idea that dead end streets are a good thing and they would be happy if their streets were dead ended- unless it blocked their path.

I think it is mainly a problem where the arterials get plugged with traffic, and people start cutting through on side-streets. There are numerous approaches I have seen - speed bumps are the easiest ones. I know of some "do-not-enter" signs that only apply during rush hour to prevent cut-throughs (I ride these streets on my bike, and on some mornings I have even seen police waiting for their customers to arrive. In this case, local residents are exempted - not sure the logistics, but that's what the signs say.


I'm not sure what the shift is that you describe. If there is work in car-centric design, it presumably means that there are still very large numbers of people who think that always driving their cars to work or to go shopping is a perfectly good idea. I applaud your classmates who are able to look at the big picture, but honestly, developers and local governments don't care what prospective employees think.

Where I am they are talking about retrofitting a grid at great expense. It won't be a grid of rectangular blocks, but they are trying to reduce the horrible traffic by adding side streets to let people get around. But getting the Metro to go through is also a key element. But the side streets will help a lot for bicycles as well.

I think it is mainly a problem where the arterials get plugged with traffic, and people start cutting through on side-streets. There are numerous approaches I have seen - speed bumps are the easiest ones. I know of some "do-not-enter" signs that only apply during rush hour to prevent cut-throughs (I ride these streets on my bike, and on some mornings I have even seen police waiting for their customers to arrive. In this case, local residents are exempted - not sure the logistics, but that's what the signs say.



Where I am they are talking about retrofitting a grid at great expense. It won't be a grid of rectangular blocks, but they are trying to reduce the horrible traffic by adding side streets to let people get around. But getting the Metro to go through is also a key element. But the side streets will help a lot for bicycles as well.

This is sick. It is just what the road builders want. There is a bottle neck, so plug the relief to make the bottle neck worse, then people scream for wider roads. This is a typical pattern in the DC area. They also use Braess's paradox
to make it worse - build a high capacity link in order to congest the the traffic more while appearing to be "doing something"- then the resulting congestion is an excuse to build more roads.

About the Vienna cops- when the urban planners put in the metro station in Vienna they decided that it was a boondoggle that "no one will use" so they didn't plan for parking garages. When the station opened the street side parking got entirely filled. So one workday after all the parkers had taken the metro downtown, Vienna came in and
put up the no parking signs. The cops followed along and as the signs went up they slapped tickets on the cars that
had parked there before the signs went up. The commuters came home from work to find the new no-parking signs and their cars ticketed. Its all part of the car-dependent suburban Virginia life.

This is sick. It is just what the road builders want. There is a bottle neck, so plug the relief to make the bottle neck worse, then people scream for wider roads.


I guess I look at it another way. If everyone drove everywhere, you wouldn't be able to build enough roads, so you raise the pain of driving to encourage people to use other means to get around. The streets I am thinking of aren't really good substitutes for arterials anyways - in the absence of heavy traffic nobody would even think to take them.

How can this surprise you when the man given many awards for his sky is falling film about global warming (yes you know him and no I don't want this thread to get political) steps out of his private Gulfstream jet that gets oh about 5 gallons to a mile and into his suppersized SUV 10 MPG right on his film all while telling everyone how we need to reduce our carbon footprint.

How can this surprise you when the man given many awards for his sky is falling film about global warming (yes you know him and no I don't want this thread to get political) steps out of his private Gulfstream jet that gets oh about 5 gallons to a mile and into his suppersized SUV 10 MPG right on his film all while telling everyone how we need to reduce our carbon footprint.

You don't want to make the thread political? You made an off-topic inflammatory political statement and you don't want the thread to be political?

Your post is a lying flaming troll.

How can this surprise you when the man given many awards for his sky is falling film about global warming (yes you know him and no I don't want this thread to get political) steps out of his private Gulfstream jet that gets oh about 5 gallons to a mile and into his suppersized SUV 10 MPG right on his film all while telling everyone how we need to reduce our carbon footprint.


You don't want to make the thread political? You made an off-topic inflammatory political statement and you don't want the thread to be political?

Your post is a lying flaming troll.

How is it off topic? The thread is about hypocrisy in the "green movement", is it not?

How is it lying? Is he-who-shall-not-be-named-in-this-thread not an award winner for his activities on global warming/climate change? Is he not a highly visible spokesman for/leader of the movment? Does he not regularly fly in private/corporate jets? Is he not often seen riding, along with an entourage, to rallies and other events in a small fleet of SUVs ? Does he not regularly talk about the need for others to reduce their carbon footprints?

How was the statement political? While it's about a former politician, it's not about ideology or political parties. Pointing out the hypocrisy of a politician does not a political statement make. Especially when the writer explicitly states that it's not a political statement.

I'll give you inflammatory, but that's got more to do with the inflamed than the inflamer. I wasn't inflamed by the statement at all.

You seem to resort right to dismissiveness and name calling whenever someone disagrees with your worldview.

You seem to resort right to dismissiveness and name calling whenever someone disagrees with your worldview.

Wrong. I didn't call him a name and I never called you a name, though there were a hundred times I wanted to. The hypocricy of his statement riled me to no end. "I don't want to make this thread political." Balderdash.

Wrong. I didn't call him a name and I never called you a name, though there were a hundred times I wanted to. The hypocricy of his statement riled me to no end. "I don't want to make this thread political." Balderdash.

OK, I guess you called his post a name: Lying flaming troll to be precise.

You seem to resort right to dismissiveness and name calling whenever someone disagrees with your worldview.
Good ol' Car free Roody would never resort to gratuitous name calling, or smug smart donkey remarks, or mindreading misinterpretations of another poster's remarks. You must be thinking of some other Roody.

Good ol' Car free Roody would never resort to gratuitous name calling, or smug smart donkey remarks, or mindreading misinterpretations of another poster's remarks. You must be thinking of some other Roody.

Thanks for the defense, lame as it was. I might do some of the things you say, but I don't call people names. Not even you. Yet.

:p

Hurray, yet another thread I get to unsubscribe from.

Hurray, yet another thread I get to unsubscribe from.

I'm really sorry. I know I had a lot to do with getting the thread off topic. Sorry again. :o

I'm really sorry I really didn't mean to start an elephants against donkeys war, I'm not even against private jets and SUVs they have their uses. I'm just pointing out that none of us myself and the afore mentionted politition are really doing all we can to reduce our footprint. I try, I'm sure Mr. politition dose too. but like I said it would have been more credible if the Gulfstream and SUV would have been kept off camera it makes it seam a little like "do as I say not as I do"