The St Louis chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council today (6/22/08) officially opened the 2008 Greening the Heartland regional conference. Attendees will spend Monday & Tuesday learning about the latest in green building. The 2009 conference will be in Detroit.
It was September 5th 2005 and I was so excited — I had just purchased a 2004 Honda Metropolitan that was only slightly used with 235.5 miles on the odometer (see, My Way of Dealing with Rising Gas Prices). Today I sold the scooter with just over 9,000 miles on it. Even in the cold & rain those were some very fun miles. I didn’t want to sell the scooter, it’s just that since my stroke I could not safely ride it with only one hand on the handlebar. As more time passes and I can once again ride a scooter I will certainly buy another.
With our gas prices now at $4/gallon more people should consider a scooter. On my first scooter post (link above) I was thinking about saving on gas. The timing was just after Katrina hit New Orleans but before Rita hit Texas. Gas prices spiked to over $3/gallon for this week but they quickly fell below $3/gallon but not below $2/gallon. At the time I wrote:
I estimate that given current fuel prices every 5,000 miles I can put on the scooter rather than my car I’ll save at least $600. As fuel prices rise the savings will be even greater. In less than 3 years the scooter will pay for itself in fuel savings.
Keep in mind that at the time I had a thirsty AWD Audi. So it turns out I didn’t do 5K per year on the scooter. I do think that by thinking more locally and combining trips I did manage to save nearly that many miles each year.
A year ago I sold my car (by that point I had a more efficient Scion xA). I made it through the hot summer and most of the cold winter on the scooter (I was in the hospital during some of the worst winter weather). There were a few days in December where the snow and ice forced me to stay in, but only a few days. There was this great high from getting around town on single gallon of gas (the scooter managed 85-90mpg but only held 1.1 gallons). Each passing month without a car payment or insurance bill I knew I had made the right decision.
My current set of wheels is the ultimate in green transportation — a plug-in electric, um, wheelchair. It gets me most places I need to go — I took it on MetroLink today (it was “Dump the Pump” day so I had a free day pass). My morning started with an 8:30am meeting on Delmar in the Loop and before the trip was done I was leaving Trader Joe’s and heading back to the Eager Rd. station. Again the chair, combined with mass transit, does a great job of getting me around.
Former St. Louisan, Chris Balish, author of “How to Live Well Without Owning a Car: Save Money, Breath Easier and Get More Mileage out of Life”, was right — you can live well without owning a car! Having said that, I’m reluctantly buying a used car.
I can do my job as a REALTOR® from a scooter but not from the #70 Grand bus and a wheelchair, so a car I must purchase. And yes I’ll be able to drive. I have to get a car with an automatic transmission as I can’t rely on my left leg being able to operate a clutch. The only two modifications will be a knob on the steering wheel (so I can turn the wheel with a single hand) and a device that connects to the turn signal stalk so that I can activate the turn signals with my right hand.
Going from not owning a car to buying one when gas is $4/gal. is not good timing on my part but it was not like I planned the stroke. So I’m focusing on two of the most fuel efficient & reliable non-hybrid used cars: Honda Civic & Toyota Corolla. Buying an efficient sedan is the best I can do to hedge my bets against rising gasoline prices. That and continuing to use the wheelchair and mass transit for as many trips as possible. Plus working on my walking too. Tonight I just walked around the block (for the third night in a row).
Except for those of you that regularly ride a bike for transportation, each of you could benefit from riding a scooter. Those little trips to the grocery store are just so much more fun on a scooter. Using a scooter for shopping is great too — you tend to not buy things you don’t need because you don’t have the space to lug a bunch of crap home.
So hopefully in another year I’ll be writing about the new scooter I bought and in a couple of years I’ll be back to not owning a car. At that point hopefully the WeCar car sharing plan will have a vehicle within a few blocks of my place (all are east of Tucker at this time). In the meantime I’ll still get to see my old scooter as I sold it to a neighbor in my building.
As I am sure everyone has noticed, gas prices have risen sharply. World demand for crude oil continues to increase while the supply remains maxed out. Many blame the oil companies, who are making record profits, for the high prices. I don’t fault then for making a profit but we need to end the tax subsidies they receive — they can invest their profits as most companies must do to stay ahead.
Back in December I suggested that Dubya might try to get gas prices reduced to keep a Republican in the White House. A few of the comments went like this:
“Can someone explain how the President has any effect on gas prices?â€
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He doesn´t. Only an idiot would suggest that he does. Oil prices, and by extension gas prices, are set on a world market. It´s that pesky supply and demand thing.
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The sad part is, these idiots are allowed to vote, which is why we get the “leaders†that we do.
The answer was the President controls the strategic oil reserve. Yesterday truckers staged protests of high fuel prices — diesel now costing far more than regular. From an AP article yesterday:
Using CB radios and trucking Web sites, some truckers called for a strike Tuesday to protest the high cost of diesel fuel, hoping the action might pressure President Bush to stabilize prices by using the nation’s oil reserves.
Just as with the Federal Reserve putting new cash onto the market, manipulating the nearly 700 million barrels kept for emergencies can have an impact on the supply/demand equation and thus the price we pay.
I personally like the higher prices as I think they are more likely to curb our drive everywhere mentality … I’d still raise the Missouri gas tax. Yes, poor individuals that drive and businesses are impacted by the rising costs. Items that are shipped will begin to have price increases where the market allows. It will be harder and harder for companies to offer “free shipping.” The trucking industry will shrink — not all will make it. Rail will take over more transport duties. Hopefully we will source more of our food and goods locally.
The question becomes at what price do people take transit or buy the more efficient vehicle? How expensive must gas be for someone to decide to buy a house in St. Louis Hills or Kirkwood rather than way out in St. Peters and drive to work in Clayton or downtown? Those with kids are going to claim the need for the 7-passenger minivan or suv and I can understand although many families were raised without such vehicles. Plus our demographics are heading to more single person households. Most of you reading this probably drive your own car to work by yourself each day. Do you need that much car to get yourself from A to B? Hopefully gas prices will have a long term impact on people’s buying choices from vehicles to homes to food and other goods,
As we recently saw the Meramec river flooded a number of places along its banks. Spared this year was Valley Park — their costly new levee keep the flood water at bay. But at what price? I don’t man the cash spent for construction but the impact to those up river.
One such casualty is the town of Pacific. Some will say that Pacific floods anyway. True enough. However when you have a certain volume of water coming down the river it must go somewhere — if a levee keeps it from naturally spreading out then the crest gets higher until the water backs up and finds a spot where it can spread — the next point up river without a levee or one that is lower.
So while levees are part of the problem so is sprawl. Runoff from all the streets, parking lots and such make matters worse. We are responsible for the factors that caused our recent flooding issues — by messing with the natural flow of water and with adding acres upon acres of impervious surfaces. I say we begin to undo the mess we’ve created — remove a bulk of the impervious surfaces like parking lots and then remove the levees.
On December 12th I told you an announcement was coming in January for the Gateway Mall (see post). Well, Monday was the day with a press conference on the 12th Floor of the lovely Civic Courts building — between 11th and Tucker smack dab in the middle of the Gateway Mall. The big announcement? Nothing!
Despite claims of new items by Rollin Stanley, the city’s Director of Planning who is taking a new job in the DC region next month, we already knew about the 2-block sculpture garden. That would be the one announced before the city asked the public for feedback on the master plan for the too long space (see post from June 11, 2007). We also knew that The Lawrence Group was looking at doing a couple of blocks around their project, The Park Pacific.
Did the Lawrence Group get funding worked out to do those two blocks? Nope. Maybe someone else stepped up to do another area? Nope. Perhaps something new to announce around the sculpture garden? Nope. Well, Mayor Slay indicated a couple of pieces have been purchased by the Gateway Foundation but that doesn’t justify a news conference.
But I was there and took photos and video so I put together a 10-minute video which includes various speakers as well as a collection of images taken from the 12th floor promenade at Civil Courts:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSZoUEL_aCM[/youtube]
CD’s were handed out with the Master Plan on them in a single PDF file. Interestingly the cover and the file on the CD both indicate October 2007. Again, nothing new, although I don’t recall them having the full document available before. Still, I think they’ve had it for months and held onto it until now to drag this into 2008 and timed it just before Stanley’s departure. The city has the PDF available at http://stlouis.missouri.org/citygov/planning/gatewaymall/STLouisGatewayMallMasterPlan.pdf.
The conceptual plan still has lots of bells and whistles — lots of little activity centers strung together by a sidewalk that is supposed to draw us along the path for blocks and blocks. These unfunded spaces will be so compelling that we will get international attention — people will come from all over the world just to see them. Well, maybe a few blocks will get that sort of attention. They are also supposed to draw loft residents, like myself, over to the mall. Unfortunately, that is time where we are not over on Washington, Locust or in other places downtown spending money in shops and restaurants.
Stanley brought out the late 60s argument that we have too many streets — talking about how little space is green relative to street pavement. Their solution is not to narrow Chestnut, as should be done, but close it entirely. The plan also calls for the removal of short term on-street parking along the North side of Market. Taking the place of on-street parking will be a bike lane — a two direction bike lane. A curb will separate cars on Market from an 8ft wide bike lane. Still, a bike lane is not something you can do two blocks at a time so I have to wonder what will become of that space along the sculpture park in the meantime? Will they remove the parking now and do a temporary bike lane without the protection of the curb? The big issue is creating traffic signals in such a way that permit cyclist movement that is not in conflict with turning vehicles. In such a relatively short distance, I think the 2-way bike lane will prove to be another failed experiment.
The press conference offered me a chance to get my camera to the top of the building to take advantage of some great views. But next time guys, actually have something new to share.