Great post by MrMoneyMustache showing the connection between your wallet and your commute.

http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/10/06/the-true-cost-of-commuting/

Getting stuck here eats at your patience and your paycheck

Viaduct as play field

Mondo thriller dance party, game to 7 ultimate frisbee, serpentine three mile game of leap frog, hardscape house of horrors, uber side walk chalk….. What would you do with 30 minutes on an empty Alaskan Way Viaduct.   That is what Washington State DOT asks in thier unsual contest to do whatever you want for 30 minutes on the Alaskan Way Viaduct when it closes October 21st through the 31st. 

Ho hum, you say,  have you gotten too used to these closures? Maybe more your cup of tea is the empty canvas of what will be when this monstrosity is gone. The folks at WaterfrontSeattle.org are planning an open house on October 27 with family events including photbooths and trick-or-treating on October 29 and 30.  Bring your self and your ideas for this once in a lifetime event for a great  waterfront.  And of course bring the monsters for the Waterfront Trick-or-Treat.

Trick or Treat Seattle

The results show that even slower, inexperienced riders can make 90 percent of their car trips under five kilometers with ten minutes of their driving time and 60 percent of trips within 5 minutes. Such short trips make up 58 percent of overall trips. Comparing the trips with transit schedule data (not always a reliable indicator of real public transit travel times) the authors also found that inexperienced riders could make 90 percent of these same trips faster by bicycle than by transit.

For me, the study findings have two important implications. First, bicycling can be a very competitive mode for shorts trips. Since travel time is probably not the primary deterrent to bicycle travel, planners should focus more on other strategies like safety improvement and secure parking at destinations. Second, denser, more mixed used neighborhoods can reduce the need for longer trips and make bicycling a more viable travel option. Finally, chained trips remain a significant component of overall motor vehicle travel and can be a barrier to bicycle travel. Planners should continue to investigate how to better support bicyclists on these trips and to organize neighborhoods that minimize the need for long chained trips.

The paper: Travel time competitiveness of cycling in Sydney by Richard B Ellison and Stephen Greaves, March 2011.

CH2M Hill Employees with the Save the Bay Shark

Saturday, August 13th, I had the pleasure of joining other staff from my CH2M Hill Oakland, CA and NBC Bay Area Proud at the Martin Luther King Jr. Shoreline in Oakland, CA for the 50th Anniversary of  Save the Bay.  The event was also in collaboration with the Oakland Throw Down for the Town, which included over 20 other services projects throughout the city. 

Volunteers along the shoreline

Save the Bay is a great organization started by 3 bay area women 50 years ago.  They set out to protect the bay from becoming a river and led the way for bay shoreline restoration and preservation.  Our task on Saturday morning was to locate invasive species (see post on Zebra Mussels) on the levees along the shoreline of the bay near the Oakland airport.  The volunteers were separated into teams based on the needs of the area.  There was a team collecting trash.  Although the best time to collect is in the rainy season, when all those discarded Taco Bell hot sauce wrappers are washed into the storm drain system, the group still came up with quite a bit of trash.  I was part of the invasive species removal team for the wetlands restoration area like the blogger for the  Save the Bay Blog.  We were tasked with finding and removing a plant called English Plantain (not to be confused with tasty banana-like food).

CH2M Hill Employees picking English Plantain from the shoreline

After we wrapped up our tasks, all the volunteers joined staff from Save the Bay to Celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Save the Bay for some fun an festivities.  The festivities included: badminton (haven’t played since high school gym class), bowling, photo booth with the Save the Bay shark (I have a great video of him dancing to post somewhere), mimosas or wine from Barefoot Wine, food, fake Save the Bay tattoo application and a raffle (where I surprisingly won something!).

As always, I encourage everyone to get out there and volunteer.  There are great websites like serve.gov that help link volunteers with organizations that need their help.  Check it out!

With the recent record high gas prices, there’s lots of popular discussion about what makes people shift out of their cars. Is it building more transit, bike lanes, and sidewalks? Is it higher taxes for roads, cars and gas? What motivates you to take one mode of transportation over another?

The City of Edmonton recently approved a new Transportation Master Plan, The Way We Move. Developed concurrently with The Way We Grow, the City’s Municipal Development Plan, The Way We Move focuses on building complete communities around major transit infrastructure to encourage mode shift and more compact urban environment. Part of the increased focus on mode shift and transit oriented development was as a response to census findings that Edmonton has one of the highest car dependence rates in Canada and citizens were spending more and more time and money to travel in their cars.

Car manufacturers are some of the top spenders in marketing overall, with billions of dollars spent each year on a new vehicle lineup. Marketing gurus have long realized that children are an important segment for all kinds of consumer products, including cars. Sharon Beder’s work on Marketing to Children found that auto manufacturers have had a number of outreach activities for children since the 1990′s: Nissan sponsored a traveling geography exhibit, Chrysler distributed cardboard pop-up promotional books, and many car dealerships have installed play areas for children.

Part of the implementation strategy of The Way We Move recognizes that mode shift involves changing long held patterns of behavior and not just simply building more infrastructure. Several outreach projects were planned with the goal of promoting transit and active modes as a viable alternative to the single occupancy vehicle; one of these was The Way We Move LEGO exhibit. City staff volunteered their time to build the LEGO city, complete with a downtown, mature neighborhoods and a functioning LRT system. The display was set up over the holiday season at the TELUS World of Science and citizens were invited to submit their own LEGO entries. It was a great chance to engage the imagination of children, parents, and teachers as to how transit and active modes can be further integrated into their communities.

Check out the Transforming Edmonton blog for more on how the City of Edmonton is making it easier to choose sustainable transportation options.

Traveler Information, dial 511

To many 5-11 might just be another day but for transportation/infromation geeks (like me) 511 is the magic number for informing constituents to allow them to make better decisions – different route, different mode or different time.

• 511 factoids –
• Almost all states and many metropolitan areas have a 511 phone service that offers important traveler information
• The original 511 service was provided for the San Francisco metropolitan area
• Along with the 511 telephone number most agencies also provide on-line traveler information and have moved to “pushing” information through e-lerts, tweets.
  

  Metropolitan Transportation Commission 511 images

What does this have to do with smart growth? Having travelers manage their travel with up to the minute information has had profound influence in reducing congestion and emissions that go with congestion.  It has also made for happier travelers.

Complete Streets image

From the foilks at National Complete Streets Coalition – In Washington State HB 1071, which would establish but not fund a grant program for communities adopting Complete Streets ordinances, has passed out of both the House and Senate and now awaits signature from Governor Christine Gregoire.  This is great news and if grant funding appears it would provide a source for local agencies to implement missing links and improvements for peds, bikes and transit modes.

Well that’s an interesting perspective on the history of work. But what does it mean for businesses now? “Seeing this impressive data compiled into one neat document has us convinced more than ever of the necessity to work within our communities and organizations to start adopting these practices in a very meaningful way,” said Robyn Bews, Program Manager for WORKshift. “This paper not only clearly supports the bottom-line benefits for the commuter, it hits employers over the head with supportive facts they can no longer ignore.” She continues:

“Every commuter in Canada should be sitting in their boss’s office tomorrow morning with this paper as a discussion point.”

So here’s the pitch: according the research, Canadian employers can see savings of $10,000 per two-day-a-week telecommuter annually. But the benefits are not just for employers. Employees who telework can also expect savings between $600 – 3,500 per year through reduced commuting and other work-related expenses. Better than taking ridiculous surveys eh?

What about for the wider economy? Well based on figures in these reports Canadian companies could realise annual average savings from reduced employee turnover calculated to over $1.8B. So what does that look like?

Well, this is what one billion dollars in $100 bills looks like (by Art Marcolici vianotcot)

But the savings don’t stop there. Emplyoers are likely to see an increase of 20 per cent in productivity, a seven per cent reduction in attrition and increased employee empowerment and morale. What kind of jobs does this apply to?  “Four out of 10 Canadians hold jobs that could be done at home, at least part of the time. Eight in 10 would work from home if they could. Yet, only about three in 100 do,” says Kate Lister, principal researcher and lead consultant at the Telework Research Network.

Here’s the bottom line from Kate: “If the rest of those with compatible jobs and a desire to do so worked from home just twice a week, the national savings would total over $53 billion a year and the greenhouse gas reduction would equate to taking the three out of 10 Montreal commuters off the road. Telework should be a no-brainer. There’s simply no quicker, easier, and more popular way to solve labor shortages, reduce energy consumption and pollution, save money, and so much more” says Lister. That’s a huge payoff no matter how you slice it.

Maybe not so crazy after all.

Highline Project Brings a Green Stripe to New York

Earth Day in Puget Sound is often celebrated with trail, park and greenbelt clean ups. No shortage this year as The Friends of Narbeck Park, the Boy Scouts, Boeing employees, and local community members put together a work party for Narbeck Wetland Sanctuary.  The cleanup that occured onApril 16th  included trimming alder to preserve views and maintain environmental education, refreshing the parking lot planting beds, removal of invasive plants, refreshing the overlooks, picnic areas, and signs, and general park clean-up.  Our parks, trails, shorelines, heck the whole earth needs us and nice to see corporations  respond.  The media attention, recyclable, reusable bags from Target and Starbucks rallying for park volunteers to clean-up local parks.  So that’s where I’m headed on Saturday to clean up Juanita Bay Park a neighborhood jewel.  Hope the weather cooperates.