gmane.politics.activism.carfree-cities

Re: "Cars Are the New Smoking"

Erik Sandblom — 2008-11-27T16:50:54

--- In carfree_cities-hHKSG33TihhbjbujkaE4pw< at >public.gmane.org, Richard Risemberg ...> wrote: And cycling is the new internet! http://groups.google.com/group/uk.rec.cycling/browse_thread/ thread/820b04479c9a2670 Erik Sandblom

London congestion charge zone to be halved

Erik Sandblom — 2008-11-27T17:24:57

The Times: London congestion charge zone slashed by Boris Johnson http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article5244993.ece The extension, covering Kensington and Chelsea and part of Westminster, will not be removed until Spring 2010 while Mr Johnson undertakes the legal process of rescinding the scheme. ... Among businesses, 86 per cent supported the extension's removal. But a separate TfL survey of a balanced sample of 2,000 Londoners showed 45 per cent in favour of keeping some form of charging in the extension, while only 41 per cent supported removal. ... Transport for London admitted that traffic and air pollution would rise inside the western extension area when the charge was removed. The number of cars entering the extension area has fallen by 30,000 a day since the charge was introduced in February last year. Mr Johnson plans to tackle congestion by re-phasing traffic lights to add one or two seconds to each green phase for vehicles. Pedestrians, however, will have to wait longer fo

Re: "Cars Are the New Smoking"

Matt Hohmeister — 2008-11-26T22:55:41

They've made some good points, however, there are no laws I know of that force property owners to provide free, on-site smoking areas. The same cannot be said for parking, of course. Universities don't force students to pay "smoking access fees" so the few students who do smoke have places to do so. However, you can easily draw a comparison with the costs to the health care system--or since I live in a country without a functioning health care system, my private health insurance premiums. --- In carfree_cities-hHKSG33TihhbjbujkaE4pw< at >public.gmane.org, Richard Risemberg ...> wrote:

Crowd-Source a Car-Free Documetary?

Chris — 2008-11-26T19:04:40

I wanted to post this question to this list to tap into the expertise and wisdom that I've been reading for a couple of years now. My name is Chris Holt and I run a website (www.scaledown.ca) dedicated to furthering the discussion of making my hometown (Windsor, Ontario - across the river from Detroit) a livable, walkable city. Windsor's also known as the "Automotive Capital of Canada" and currently experiencing the worst economic outook in our history, which makes my project even more poiniant. I am at the beginning of a 12 month "experiment" where I'm filming the transition of a young family (myself and my two kids) going from an autocentric lifestyle to a carfree one. We're using this springboard to examine our cultures devotion to the automobile and the ramifications and costs (social, economic and health-wise) of that devotion. Somewhere in there I would also like to highlight my communities reliance on the ever increasing sales of cars and the unsustainability of that fact (Windsor is

"Cars Are the New Smoking"

Richard Risemberg — 2008-11-26T15:09:26

Interesting: http://www.squawkfox.com/2008/07/25/cars-are-the-new-smoking/ Rick -- Richard Risemberg http://www.bicyclefixation.com http://www.newcolonist.com http://www.rickrise.com [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

in case you thought you had anything to be thankful for

J.H. Crawford — 2008-11-26T14:31:16

Hi All, There's this cheerful note this morning. Joel http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/11/25-1 Wednesday, November 26, 2008 Published on Tuesday, November 25, 2008 by The Guardian/UK One Shot Left The latest science suggests that preventing runaway climate change means total decarbonisation. by George Monbiot George Bush is behaving like a furious defaulter whose home is about to be repossessed. Smashing the porcelain, ripping the doors off their hinges, he is determined that there will be nothing worth owning by the time the bastards kick him out. His midnight regulations, opening America's wilderness to logging and mining, trashing pollution controls, tearing up conservation laws, will do almost as much damage in the last 60 days of his presidency as he achieved in the foregoing 3000(1). His backers among them the nastiest pollutocrats in America are calling in their favours. But this last binge of vandalism is also the Bush presidency reduced to its essentials. Destruction is no

free public transport

J.H. Crawford — 2008-11-22T20:50:07

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/11/22-3 Published on Saturday, November 22, 2008 by CommonDreams.org An Alternative to the Auto Bailout by Reede Stockton As the Big Three US automakers ramp up their pressure on Congress to cough up $25 billion in bailout money, the absence of a long term vision for economic recovery has never been more clear. The outgoing Bush administration and Congress are careening from bailout proposal to bailout proposal, putting hundreds of billions into the hands of the same people that created this toxic economic brew. Naomi Klein has recently detailed the horrifying parallels between the "free-fraud" zone created by the Bush administration in Iraq and the Treasury Department's handling of the bank bailout (http://www.naomiklein.org/articles/2008/10/bailout-profiteers). As tempting as it is to offer bailout money to the US automakers in return for fleet-wide mileage reductions, changes in the mix of their fleets to include more hybrids and electric vehicles, and to supp

Cycling Boom in London

Richard Risemberg — 2008-11-22T15:26:57

A quote: And a link: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article5209077.ece Rick -- Richard Risemberg http://www.bicyclefixation.com http://www.newcolonist.com http://www.rickrise.com [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

oil

J.H. Crawford — 2008-11-21T15:13:26

Hi All, See: http://money.cnn.com/2008/11/20/news/companies/okeefe_oil_stocks.fortune/index.htm on oil supply prospects. Best, Joel The case for buying oil stocks Investor Daily: Even with gas prices in free fall and the global economy sputtering, now may be the time to bulk up on oil shares (if you dare). By Brian O'Keefe, senior editor Last Updated: November 21, 2008: 7:26 AM ET NEW YORK (Fortune) -- Last week, the Paris-based International Energy Agency released its World Energy Outlook 2008 - a 578-page book full of future supply, demand, and price estimates which this year also included an eagerly-awaited study of 800 of the world's largest oil fields. Here's the executive summary: Buy oil stocks. Considering that the price of oil has plummeted from $147 a barrel in early July to below $50 and that the global economic slowdown is putting a major damper on demand, that might not seem like such a good idea. But as the IEA study makes clear, the long-term supply and demand picture for oil con

Las Catalinas - (Nearly) Car Free town under development in Costa Rica

chasbrew — 2008-11-20T18:54:29

I wanted to make this group aware of a project I am working on in Costa Rica. It is intended to be a seaside resort town. There is a public road that passes through the town, which will have vehicles. But beyond that our intention is to make it largely car-free. New Urbanist designers and architects have been very much involved in the work to date. Frankly from their point of view I am rather extreme in my anti-car tendencies! Anyway I thought that you in this group might find the project of interest and might have some thoughts to offer. I hope that we can create quite a remarkably wonderful place here. And the fact that it is a resort town, rather than a regular work-a-day town, I believe gives us some extra degrees of freedom in trying some things (such as restrictions on car use)that would be harder to do in another setting. We don't have an real website up yet but I created a little site here where you can find some basic information: http://lascatalinas.wordpress.com/ We also h

Fwd: VTPI News Traffic Safety Special Edition

J.H. Crawford — 2008-11-20T15:17:07

----- ### ----- J.H. Crawford Carfree Cities mailbox-WdiPhmTxsBdBDgjK7y7TUQ< at >public.gmane.org http://www.carfree.com

45 Days in Jail for Driver who Rode Around with Cyclist on the Hood of his Car

laurbanista — 2008-11-20T11:08:13

Road Rage Against Cyclist Last summer, the Oregonian reported an incident between a cyclist and a deranged driver in Portland: Jason Scott Rehnberg, 37, yelled at the car to slow down, and apparently angered by the remark, the driver chased the cyclist. He rode his bike into the neighborhood to escape and after a while, probably thinking he was safe, he went back on the road where the incident first happened. But the driver saw Rehnberg and backed his car to try to hit him. Read on for the rest of the story, including a video of Rehnberg on the hood of the car... Like in the Movies, Except Without a Stuntman After jumping off his bike just in time to avoid being hit, "Rehnberg and two other witnesses tried to block the car, saying they wanted to get the license plate. Millican allegedly drove at the three and struck Rehnberg, who was thrown onto the hood. Rehnberg held onto the windshield wipers as the car traveled at a high rate of speed and took a turn." A witness took this video at: http://www.treehugg

Re: recycling big-box stores

Matt Hohmeister — 2008-11-20T01:05:18

Good points. Poorly built big boxes, essentially disposable buildings, will likely wind up demolished. I know that Tallahassee has plenty of abandoned big boxes, and nobody wants to buy or lease them. There are two other building types whose future makes me wonder: - Large enclosed malls. The Tallahassee Mall here opened in 1971, and seems to be well built, as it has withstood countless additions and tenant modifications. However, this mall is 747,000 square feet and over a quarter of a mile end-to-end, which is pretty out of place in any carfree environment, unless you give it its own metro stop. Will these buildings wind up in the hands of metal recyclers too? - Parking garages. They dominate the landscape in the downtown area and higher-education campuses here. FAMU has had one for a while, TCC just got its first, and FSU just got its fifth. I can see two fates to these things: (1) Demolished. These things are quite difficult to convert to indoor space, thanks to short ceilings and, well, giant ramps

Progress in New York City

J.H. Crawford — 2008-11-19T15:41:14

Hi All, You must see this video: http://local.theoildrum.com/node/4711 New York is actually doing something! Best, Joel ----- ### ----- J.H. Crawford Carfree Cities mailbox-WdiPhmTxsBdBDgjK7y7TUQ< at >public.gmane.org http://www.carfree.com

Re: Re: recycling big-box stores

J.H. Crawford — 2008-11-18T02:51:40

Hi All, Some issues here: 1) Some big-box stores in Europe are served by good public transport, although most are not. All but a few of them are located away from the city center on the cheapest land that could be obtained. Almost all are very near busy highways. 2) I think that the basic structure of big boxes is unsuited to most kinds of redevelopment. These buildings are typically about two stories tall, but the roof structures are often very deep and crossed by trusses, so much of that space is not usable for most purposes. The extent of the buildings is so vast that there is virtually no way to bring natural light into most of the building. 3) The quality of construction is generally very poor. These are engineered structures in the worst sense of the word. Even the addition of a mezzanine floor, required to make real use of the space, would probably overload the columns and their footings, which are no larger than they absolutely must be. These buildings probably have design lives of 30 years.

Re: Re: recycling big-box stores

Brian Labadie — 2008-11-18T00:24:46

This is all very interesting and a great investigation into the reuse of unlikely structures, however, when considering this from a carfree perspective, the feasability depends on the location of the subject "big box". If the location is removed from public transport and in a low density suburban setting (and that is usually the case with these type of developments), why encourage the reuse of it? People would still have to drive to the location, defeating its purpose. This is obviously a designer's dream as there are infinite possibilities, but this issue we're facing needs to be looked at on a macro level. Let the market take it's course and not try to reinvent something that was flawed in the preliminary planning stages. The best use I can see with an abandoned big box is reusing the building materials for a quality infill development in a dense, urban area and giving the land back to nature. Brian On Tue, Nov 18, 2008 at 10:45 AM, Matt Hohmeister public.gmane.org> wrote

Re: recycling big-box stores

Matt Hohmeister — 2008-11-17T23:45:30

I find this quite interesting because because I'm interested in how to convert existing areas to carfree without having to demolish existing structures. I'm also not exactly a fan of eminent domain, so I'd rather not use that to make carfree development. If an area becomes carfree, land prices per square foot will go up considerably; I think the developers converting big boxes would be happy to sell off strips through their property to make public streets. A single existing big-box property would probably be turned into several blocks: the big box itself on its own block, with all other blocks ranging in sizes from 200 to 400 feet on a side. These streets would probably range in width from 10 to 100 feet, so it wouldn't exactly be a loss to the property owner. I know that a property owner could easily just build their own streets on their carfree property, but that's not the point. Privately owned streets mean that the owner can dictate terms of use; I don't call it publicly accessible unless it's publicl

recycling big-box stores

J.H. Crawford — 2008-11-16T20:36:59

Hi All, This is moderately interesting: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/13/AR2008111303039.html?hpid=topnews Best, Joel Big Box & Beyond Today's Temples of Consumption Don't Have To Be Tomorrow's Ruins. What's in Store? By Joel Garreau Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, November 16, 2008; Page M01 For the purposes of this morning's discussion, the amazing thing about the Spam Museum -- as in the meat product -- is not that it exists. It's that it was created out of an abandoned Kmart. "The renovation of the Kmart building into what you see here today has the drama of a great epic," says Julie Craven, publicity representative for Spam in Austin, Minn. "We are going to be in this building for a long, long time. . . . We love it here." This report comes to you courtesy of Julia Christensen, a 32-year-old artist whose book, "Big Box Reuse," is being published this month by MIT Press. Its news is that those who gaze at the big-box stores of Rockville Pike or Manassas a

Re: No Auto Industry Bailout Redux - Thomas Freidman's rant

Ron Wolf — 2008-11-15T20:39:16

It will be preaching to the choir here, but Thomas 'Green' Freidman's (I made up the 'Green' part) recent rant against the auto company bailout is wondefully sensible and outraged. you can find it here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/12/opinion/12friedman.html In summary, we could find a lot better places to put the money to work than with these guys who have been messing up for, basically, my entire adult life. Send the money to Silicon Valley, invest in green, give it to people who know how to innovate. And stop funding this damaging industry and the narrow minded self-interest-at-any-cost people who run it. _______Ron Wolf

Parking Meters & Bicycling

Richard Risemberg — 2008-11-14T00:46:08

The following blog post developed rather suddenly over the course of the last hour, after I'd written to my local councilmember in regard to the removal of parking meters on Larchmont Boulevard (to be replaced by pay stations) and its effect on bike parking. http://www.bicyclefixation.com/blog/archives/00000243.html Pretty good news in my book. Rick -- Richard Risemberg Bicycle Fixation http://www.bicyclefixation.com [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Re: California economy loses $28 billion yearly to health effects of pollution

Simon Baddeley — 2008-11-14T00:06:51

My dear cyberfriend Richard My reactions to your election: http://democracystreet.blogspot.com/search?q=pennsylvania Best Simon Simon & Linda Baddeley 34 Beaudesert Road Handsworth Birmingham UK On 13/11/08 23:58, "rickrise-ihVZJaRskl1bRRN4PJnoQQ< at >public.gmane.org" public.gmane.org> wrote: [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

gmane.politics.activism.carfree-cities

Re: "Cars Are the New Smoking"

London congestion charge zone to be halved

Re: "Cars Are the New Smoking"

Crowd-Source a Car-Free Documetary?

"Cars Are the New Smoking"

in case you thought you had anything to be thankful for

free public transport

Cycling Boom in London

oil

Las Catalinas - (Nearly) Car Free town under development in Costa Rica

Fwd: VTPI News  Traffic Safety Special Edition

45 Days in Jail for Driver who Rode Around with Cyclist on the Hood of his Car

Re: recycling big-box stores

Progress in New York City

Re: Re: recycling big-box stores

Re: Re: recycling big-box stores

Re: recycling big-box stores

recycling big-box stores

Re: No Auto Industry Bailout Redux - Thomas Freidman's rant

Parking Meters & Bicycling

Re: California economy loses $28 billion yearly to health effects of pollution

Fwd: VTPI News Traffic Safety Special Edition