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Verborgene Pracht der Leutenby the Meister of Malaise |
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August 16 Pay-for-parking model idea sent to my company's commute suggestion aliasWill update weblog entry with any response. Finally, I've removed all reference to my specific company from the letter, replacing with <my company>. The idea for this entry came naturally from concepts in Natural Capitalism. -tk
Why?: Traffic is truly slowly degrading the mental health of automobile commuters. Healthy workers are more productive. Also, I’m selfish, I’d like money for using alternative transit. I'd also like to promote transit systems and thus the environment.
Idea: Charge for parking. Give us money to pay for our parking here at <my company>. Put the money into <my company> accounts (used for cafeteria, this program, etc). If you don’t commute alone in a car, you can pocket the money. <my company> has enough employees that this will get others to pay attention and follow suit. City will follow suit with investment of better transit to accommodate.
Advantages: - For non-car commuters: Get $$$ to not drive. Insurance rates will go down, no chance for accidents. Less mental stress/read a book for leisure. Likely faster alternative commutes. - For <my company>: Less capital investment in paved spaces. Less traffic as this will spur improvements in transit systems. $ given to employees is nothing compared to savings in employee mental health and less maintenance/parking spaces. - For city of <my city> and <my region> region: improves traffic, mental health of its people, probably will spur improvements in transit systems. - For car commuters: Probably will improve traffic overall. You now have a choice to make money and do your bit for the environment or drive a car alone. No extra cost to you.
Disadvantages: - Requires system to handle our <my company> accounts, add barcoding/reader to our permits that gets read as we drive into any facility that has parking lots. Much less cost compared to savings in parking investment, maintenance, less need for roads on-campus and improvement of mental health of employees from not driving. - Handling carpool as a special case (can’t just automatically debit their account). Many ways to address this.
Feel free to add something to discussion.
So far I've received a number of positive responses from members of the carpoolers group at my company that I cc'ed in the initial email. Issues brought up: how to deal with telecommuting, carpoolers, how to measure savings my company would get and how much would be optimal to share. Feel free to add to discussion with a weblog comment. -tk July 22 Why motorcycles in HOV lanes?I listened to a report that motorcycle emissions are much worse than cars, despite better mileage/less weight. That got me thinking about why we are allowing our motorcycles in HOV lanes. After investigation, here are the facts.
California's Air Resources Board has recently imposed standards [1] that cut emissions of motorcycles closer to car emission standards. Indeed, without these standards, "motorcycles now produce up to 15 times the emissions per mile as the average new car or light-duty truck" (also in [1]), despite getting better mileage. Some motorcycles have catalytic converters and other features which would vastly reduce emissions below car level, but they are not required. The EPA has followed suit in 2005 with similar NOx and HC restrictions [2] starting in 2006 and lowering again in 2010.
According to US DOT Federal Highway Program's website, the "primary purpose of an HOV lane is to increase the total number of people moved through a congested corridor ", and they are also an "environmentally friendly option" [3]. However, motorcyles are neither environmentally friendly due to the worse emissions, nor do they move more people through congested traffic per unit time, as motorcycles need as much or more space between vehicles as carpools due to the difficulty of executing panic-brakes, and they do so with only one passenger.
A natural question is: why are we allowing motorcycles in our HOV Lanes when they do not help in achieving HOV lane goals?
I got the answer from the WS DOT website [4]. Washington State is not the only state that allows motorcycles in HOV lanes. All states must in order to get federal aid [5]. No reasoning is given in [5], although [4] states that "it is safer to keep two-wheeled vehicles moving than to have them in start-and-stop traffic conditions". Thus, although motorcycles may not contribute to HOV goals, disallowing them in HOV lanes would be unsafe.
What does all this mean? It means that if you drive a motorcycle during rush hour, you are driving a vehicle that the federal government needs to make special ad-hoc accomodations for in order to preserve your safety, despite such accomodations undermining HOV lane goals. You are also driving a vehicle, even if it is new, that can according to law have per-person emissions standards grossly incommensurate with cars.
I won't pass judgment on any side of this issue, but I hope that providing the facts will be insightful for motorcycle enthusiasts, carpoolers, environmentalists, and in general, good citizens.
[1] California Air Resources Board, http://www.arb.ca.gov/msprog/motcycle/onrdmc.htm?PF=Y
[2] EPA, here
[3] US DOT Federal Highway Program, http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/operations/hovguide01.htm
[4] WS DOT, http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/HOV/FAQ.htm#motorcycles
[5] Federal-Aid Highway DOT, http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/operations/hovguide01.htm#2 July 15 SUCCESS: Bremerton now part of US Mayor Climate Protection AgreementThis was an email I sent to Bremerton (my hometown) mayor Cary Bozeman. A series of responses/exchanges follows. After this exchange, Bremerton is now among the 450+ cities that have committed to city-wide Kyoto Protocol acceptance.
Hello Mayor Bozeman,
I was born in and lived the first 18 years of my life in Bremerton. During college at UW, I moved to Seattle and subsequently was employed by <my company>, so I'm still a local boy. Many in my extended family still live in Bremerton, and I visit often, such that I still very much care about what is going on there.
Now that I live in Seattle, I've noticed that Mayor Nickels has taken a firm stance to not only support the Kyoto Protocol's emissions standards, but to reach out to other mayors in cities across America to support the same standards. Indeed, over 400 cities representing 61 million citizens across America have signed the US Mayors Climate Protection Agreement. I searched for Bremerton in the list of cities supporting the agreement, and unfortunately found that it was not on the list.
To the vast majority of climate scientists and to a majority of Americans, global warming is indeed a threat to be taken seriously with decisive measures. Signing and commiting to the tenets of the US Mayors Climate Protection Agreement is one such measure. Therefore, in support of our neighbor metropolis and our environment, I respectfully ask that you consider signing and committing to the US Mayors Climate Protection Agreement.
Thank you.
Respectfully,
Travis Krick PS- Here is a link of all cities supporting the program: http://www.seattle.gov/mayor/climate/MayorsOnBoard.xls
--Mayor Bozeman's Response--
I am happy to do that. thank you.
Cary Bozeman
--Me getting Mayor Bozeman in contact with climate@seattle.gov--
Hello US Mayors Climate Protection Agreement contact from Seattle,
Cary Bozeman, mayor of Bremerton, in the response to my email below, has agreed to pursue participation and signing the US Mayors Climate Protection Agreement. Please work with him and his office to this course.
Indeed I am proud to have Bremerton as my hometown. I'll be prouder yet after further measures to both combat global warming and contribute to prudent and innovative use of our natural resources are implemented there as a result of signing and adhering to the tenets of the agreement.
--Mayor Bozeman's Response--
Thank you for your e mail. We weren’t aware of this issue but researched it today and have signed on. It was faxed to Mayor Nickels office today. Thank you very much for bringing this important issue to our attention.
--Climate@seattle.gov's response--
What great news that Bremerton is interested in signing on to the US Mayor's Climate Protection Agreement! There are now over 430 Mayors across the country participating in this effort. I'm attaching the resolution and FAQ -- the signature page should be faxed back to our office.
Amanda Eichel, Climate Protection Advisor
Seattle Office of Sustainability & Environment ----------------------------------------------------
Indeed I wasn't expecting the Mayor to respond himself. I must say that I'm proud that Bremerton has such an attentive mayor who cares about the planet as well.
July 07 First entryOigh I've been putting this off long enough. The first weblog entry (anyone out there hate the word 'blog'?) is intimidating but here goes.
My name is Travis. I'm not a man for too many words so I'll keep this short. I hope to keep entries few and far between, and instead update pics so I can share them with my family and friends. I might occasionally comment on computing as I currently work at <big comp company>, or perhaps muse on parenting experiences, the environment, books i'm reading, or just some thoughts.
Ahh that wasn't so bad. Short. Sweet. |
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