The Adopt-A-Watt program allows people to sponsor clean energy (Photo courtesy of Adopt-A-Watt)
A new program gets businesses and
groups to pay towns to switch to alternative
energy. Lester Graham reports it’s a
little like an “Adopt-A-Highway” program:
Transcript
A new program gets businesses and
groups to pay towns to switch to alternative
energy. Lester Graham reports it’s a
little like an “Adopt-A-Highway” program:
Imagine seeing a bank of solar panels that power nearby street lights, and a sign
underneath which recognizes the company that sponsored the project.
Thomas Wither is the founder of the National Adopt-A-Watt program.
“Our program mimics the very successful “Adopt-A-Highway” program. Only instead
of giving supporters community recognition for picking up litter alongside the road,
we have come up with a means of giving community recognition for supporting clean
energy and the funding for alternative fuels.”
Wither says several airports are among the first to use the “adopt-a-watt” program.
Sponsors get the benefit of being connected to clean energy – like solar power – and
airports, towns, and other government entities get the cost of using clean energy
subsidized by those sponsors.
For The Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.
Researchers have found that breathing the air near busy streets can actually be markedly worse for your health than the air that's even just 200 yards away from that busy street. (Photo by Karen Kelly)
Cyclists take the scenic route along the Rideau Canal in Ottawa, Canada... and their lungs thank them. (Photo by Karen Kelly)
A lot of people like to wake up with a morning run.
But where you choose to exercise can have a big impact on
your health. Karen Kelly has the story:
Transcript
A lot of people like to wake up with a morning run. But where you choose to exercise can have a big impact on your health. Karen Kelly has the story:
In downtown neighborhoods like mine, in Ottawa, Canada, most people walk to work.
And there are two ways to get there – take one of the main drags like Elgin Street…
(sound of traffic)
Or, take the foot path along the Rideau Canal – just two blocks away.
(sound of quieter path)
Now, if you’re in a hurry, you might choose the busier, more direct route. But researchers at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario have found if you do that, you’ll be sucking in a lot more pollution.
Brian McCarry is an air quality expert who led the study.
“If you’re back from a major road – typically 200 yards from a major road – then the air pollution is about 10 times less than if you were on that major road.”
Now, it sounds like common sense – you’re near traffic? You’re going to breathe in exhaust.
But McCarry says they were surprised by the difference in pollution between the busy street and a quieter street even one or two blocks away.
“I think what we’re really surprised by is the impacts of cars and trucks along major roads, and how quickly that impact, or the concentrations, disperse. When you are actually driving around seeing this, you go ‘wow, that’s amazing.’”
Now, usually instruments that measure pollution are stuck in one place. What’s different about this study is that they piled their instruments into a van and measured the air quality while they were driving. So they saw the number of particulates surge on the highway – those are tiny particles that come out of our tailpipes – and then quickly drop off when the van goes into a quiet neighborhood.
McCarry says those particulates, along with oxides of nitrogen, are bad for our lungs and our heart, and can be deadly for someone who already has health problems.
“It’s not just the dying, but there are many people who do show up at their doctor’s complaining of not feeling well, of having headaches, shortness of breath, and then there are a number of people who don’t show up at their doctor who just simply don’t go to work because they don’t feel very good during these high ozone events.”
And for those of us driving on highways?
McCarry says the air quality there is horrible. He says keep your car windows closed and use the recirculate button to avoid bringing in more pollution.
The same goes for people who live near these roads: close your windows during rush hour.
I talked to some commuters who live in my neighborhood and asked them if pollution influenced their decisions.
“Even though I live right downtown, what I tend to do is find a route that actually skirts the city completely.”
“If I can avoid main streets, I will go out of my way to do that. It’s not necessarily first and foremost an environment thing but I do appreciate good air quality and I also like the scenery of the canal and the pathways in Ottawa.”
These findings on air pollution have led to some changes.
In Hamilton, Ontario, they passed a no-idling law and plan to build future bike paths away from major roads. Plus, they and Toronto replaced their old street sweepers –
that kicked up toxic dust – with new ones that remove dust completely.
That’s attracted interest from some American cities.
But while there are many changes that cities can make, researcher Brian McCarry says these findings can help all of us make healthier choices.
The South Shore Commuter Rail Line runs between South Bend, Indiana and Chicago. The line's reaching its 100th birthday, and as it does, its ridership is near a 50-year high. It serves many sizable towns, such as Hammond and Gary, but commuters from smaller towns, suburbs and even rural areas drive to, and sometimes cram, the rail lines' stations. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
More and more people who live in
suburbs have been climbing onto commuter
trains over the past few years. They’ve
got every reason to: they’re fighting high
gas prices, traffic congestion, or even big
road construction projects. But oddly enough,
cars remain a problem even when people choose
commuter rail. Shawn Allee found
that out first hand when he checked out one
system:
Transcript
More and more people who live in
suburbs have been climbing onto commuter
trains over the past few years. They’ve
got every reason to: they’re fighting high
gas prices, traffic congestion, or even big
road construction projects. But oddly enough,
cars remain a problem even when people choose
commuter rail. Shawn Allee found
that out first hand when he checked out one
system:
I’ve just got into a parking lot in a commuter rail station in Northwest
Indiana. This rail line runs from towns like Gary and Hammond Indiana to
Chicago, where there are a lot of jobs.
Anyway, officials with the rail line tell me parking happens to be one of the
biggest complaints. I’m here to check it out, and I gotta tell you I’ve been
driving past hundreds of parked cars, and I haven’t been able to see an
open spot yet.
Okay, finally found one.
(sound of door slamming)
Shawn Allee: “Getting a parking spot in this station took a lot longer than I
expected. This commuter here, Celia Ramirez, says she has the same
problem. What’s it usually like?”
Celia Ramirez: “It’s a dread, because I don’t know where to park.
Sometimes I park where I’m not supposed to park, on the residential
streets.”
Allee: “And then you’re taking your chances.”
Ramirez: “Yes, of getting a ticket.”
Allee: “In fact there are signs all around us right now that pretty much
warn you not to do that.”
Ramirez: “And I break that rule.”
Well, you can guess spillover parking around the rail station in Hammond ticks off
the neighbors.
To make matters worse, a lot of the commuters, they don’t even in live in Hammond.
They’re from towns or suburbs even farther out.
In fact, the local government and The Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation
District don’t always agree on how to solve the problem.
John Parsons is the rail line’s marketing director.
John Parsons: “We have over 700 spaces in Hammond. Unfortunately, we
need more. But the residents in the area are reluctant to expand parking.”
Shawn Allee: “How difficult is it to convince towns to do that, especially if
they feel that they’re creating parking for people outside of their area?”
Parsons: “It’s a difficult problem. For one thing, we’re a tax-exempt
organization and what we’re doing is acquiring residential property that
currently pays taxes and that property’s no longer on the tax rolls.”
Now, this particular rail line had a growth spurt a few years ago. It’s lightened up,
but parking’s still an issue.
So, just imagine pressure other rail lines have, especially ones that saw double-digit
growth over the past year.
The situation’s familiar to transportation experts.
Joe Schwieterman teaches at DePaul University.
He says, when it comes to parking, suburban commuter rail is often behind the ball.
“The ridership is surging on our transit system, and parking spots, you
know, it’s a five a five-year process. If we start now, we have new spots you
know, in 2013. Clearly that’s not fast enough to tap into that new market.”
So, is there a way out of the parking – commuter rail conundrum?
Schwieterman says one idea is to add bus service that branches out from stations.
But not all towns can afford it, or they don’t have enough riders to justify buses.
So, Schwieterman says some commuter rail lines are stuck.
They advertise that they’re a cheap, convenient alternative to driving. And when gas
prices rise, people take that advice.
“It’s a bad idea to encourage floods of people to take public transit if you’re
not ready to accommodate them. You lose them for life, frankly, if it’s a bad
experience.”
Still, Schwieterman says you can look at the parking problem two ways.
Sure, you can shake your head because suburban stations’ parking lots fill up.
But, at least for now, those drivers aren’t clogging roads and spewing even more
pollution on their way to work.
Heavy traffic on a Houston freeway. (Photo by Ed Edahl, courtesy of FEMA)
Whizzing tires, whining engines and booming car
stereos are just about everywhere. Those sounds are a
form of pollution, and can affect the way we feel. Kyle
Norris has this story:
Transcript
Whizzing tires, whining engines and booming car
stereos are just about everywhere. Those sounds are a
form of pollution, and can affect the way we feel. Kyle
Norris has this story:
The engineers at Chrysler are hard-core about noise.
Right now they’re inside a high-tech studio.
And there’s a car on rollers.
The engineers are trying to pinpoint the noises that a driver would hear.
Inside the cabin it’s pretty quiet (quiet sound inside cabin).
But outside, well… Engineer Taner Onsay explains.
(yelling over whirr of tires) “This is how it sounds outside. See, I cannot
communicate with you, with this sound. Inside this would be totally unacceptable.”
Cars that are quiet are the inside are a huge selling point in the auto biz.
But what about the sounds that a vehicle puts into the world?
Like road noise.
What are people doing about that?
Not a whole lot.
Story goes, there used to be a federal office that dealt with noise.
It was the EPA’s Office of Noise Abatement and Control.
But President Reagan shut that baby down in 1982.
Basically to save on cash.
The idea was that state and local governments could deal with noise.
The noise office did a lot of good things just to help protect our ears.
It had noise standards and regulations – on the books.
And the office was just a really good resource for state and local organizations, and also for people who were just having problems with road noise.
But since it’s been gone…
“Well a lot of the local noise-control programs at the city and county level just dried up
and blew away. It’s hurt the noise program tremendously throughout country.”
That’s Bill Bowlby.
He’s president of an engineering company that consults about road noise.
He’s also worked for state departments of transportation and for the Federal Highway
Administration.
He says that state departments of transportation are concerned about road noise.
And that they’re thinking about things like quieter tires and quieter pavements.
And about not building residential areas near highways.
But states are only required to do so much about road noise.
For example, when states are widening or building highways and using federal money –
which they almost always are – they’re required to study road noise and obey certain
standards.
But when it comes to road noise coming from an existing highway, it’s totally voluntary if
a state wants to deal with it.
So you get a range of how different states deal with it, which they call retrofitting.
Bill Bowlby that says although some states take the issue very seriously…
“…other states have had little interest in idea of retrofits usually because they’re looking
to spend their limited amount of money on highway related projects.”
And the kicker about road noise is that it can seriously, seriously affect people.
For people who live near noisy roads, it can make their lives miserable.
Plus it can make it hard to concentrate as a driver.
And to hear the vehicles around you, like motorcycles and other sounds, like sirens.
Dennis Weidemann is a guy who’s thought a lot about all this.
He wrote his thesis about road-noise.
He says that road noise isn’t dramatic or flashy.
So it doesn’t grab our attention.
And road noise does not have a villain, so we’re all responsible.
Weidemann says it can seem hopeless to people.
“They know they don’t like it but they don’t know how it effects them. And if you don’t
know that, you just get the impression, well, it just bothers me, I’m weird, I’ll let it go.”
Noise experts say we need to re-open the federal noise office.
Or something like it.
And we’ve got to figure-out how to make things quieter.
This is starting to become a hot topic in the pavement industry, where different
businesses are trying to one-up their competitors by making the quietest pavement.
But for car companies there’s really no incentive to make cars that are quieter on the outside.
And right now there are no regulations of how quiet a car needs to be when it comes off
the assembly line.
Although that’s not the case in Europe,
where vehicle noise regulations are much more strict.
And where the whole subject of road noise is taken a lot more seriously.
The bioswales are planted with species that are hardy and beautiful,
like this snowberry. (Photo by Ann Dornfeld)
Bioswales look like an extension of the homeowners' property, but
they're actually in the public right-of-way.
(Photo by Ann Dornfeld)
Each home's bioswale looks different; the plants were chosen in
conjunction with homeowners.
(Photo by Ann Dornfeld)
Some cities are looking at taking away parking
on residential streets and replacing it with shallow
ditches full of native plants that filter stormwater.
It’s a way to reduce the polluted runoff that flows
into lakes, rivers and the ocean. As Ann Dornfeld
reports, not everyone is thrilled with the idea:
Transcript
Some cities are looking at taking away parking
on residential streets and replacing it with shallow
ditches full of native plants that filter stormwater.
It’s a way to reduce the polluted runoff that flows
into lakes, rivers and the ocean. As Ann Dornfeld
reports, not everyone is thrilled with the idea:
We’re walking down a winding lane lined with maple trees, tall, dry grasses and
evergreens. Bright white snowberries dot the dark branches. It feels like a walk
in the country. But we’re actually admiring a big-city sewer system.
This little valley – a sort of shallow ditch – is called a “bioswale.” Its plants filter
out pollutants that run off the street. And special, thirsty soil helps the water
absorb into the earth. Sections of the street are narrowed to make room for the
bioswales, so some parking along the street is lost. But houses without
driveways get two parking spaces between the swales.
The bioswales have thick layers of native grasses, shrubs and other plants. It’s
kind of a wild, natural look. Debbie Anderson lives on a nearby street. As she
walks by the bioswale she says to her it just looks messy.
“We think it looked nice when it was first built, but it hasn’t continued to
look good, I don’t think. We moved out here because there was no
sidewalks and the streets were wide open and we like that. Lots of parking,
we can have lots of company. This way you can have, what, two people
that can come? That’s it! No. I don’t want it.”
That’s a pretty familiar argument to Bob Spencer. He’s with the City of Seattle’s
Public Utilities office.
“The big thing is the lack of parking. People really get into using these
street right-of-way shoulders as their personal parking spots.”
But not everybody thinks parking spots are more important than doing something
to reduce water pollution. Spencer says the neighbors on this street actually
competed with other blocks to get these bioswales. It’s free landscaping – and
the city even worked with each homeowner to choose plants that would blend
with their existing garden.
Spencer says the city’s traditional method of dealing with stormwater has washed
contaminants into a nearby creek.
“Well, in the surrounding streets around here, we have what’s called ‘gutter
and ditch’ drainage. And what happens is the water runs off the property
and the impervious streets and rooftops. And it enters a ditch and then
goes pell-mell screaming down to our local salmon-bearing creek, Piper’s
Creek.”
It’s not just Seattle’s creeks that are flooded with runoff. Untreated rainwater
flows straight into lakes and the ocean, polluting them. Cities across the country
are looking for ways to deal with toxic runoff like that.
Spencer says Seattle is pioneering
large-scale natural drainage. In other words, the rain is allowed to drain like it
does in the wilderness. The plant roots slow the water so it can absorb into the
earth. That helps prevent flooding. Pollutants like heavy metals, pesticides
and fertilizers are trapped in the soil, and some of them are broken down in these bioswales.
“So we’ve got a little bit more like a forested system in that we have a duff
layer that acts as a sponge.”
Spencer says the city hasn’t tested the water quality of the runoff that eventually
enters the creek. But he says the runoff has been slowed to a trickle.
“It infiltrates and holds and keeps here 99% of that runoff. So that’s a
pretty large flush of water that’s not entering the creek with this system.”
Officials in Seattle’s city government like the green look of the bioswales. And
they help the city meet federal pollution guidelines. City Council President
Richard Conlin says over the course of three bioswale projects, the city has been
able to lower the cost to about the same as conventional stormwater treatment.
Seattle’s newest bioswale system will be at the foot of Capitol Hill. That’s where
seemingly half of the city’s young people live, in blocks full of apartments,
nightclubs and parking lots.
“It’s actually the densest urban neighborhood west of Minneapolis and
north of San Francisco. So it has a lot of impervious surface.”
Stormwater from Capitol Hill rushes off the hard surfaces and down to a lake. So
the city is taking advantage of new development at the bottom of the hill. It’s
planning to filter the runoff through bioswales before it pollutes the lake.
“And once we’ve done that, I think we’re pretty much ready to say this is
the standard from now on.”
Conlin says the city will likely install bioswales in all new developments, and on
streets where the most runoff enters waterways.
He says cities around the country are contacting Seattle to find out how to install
bioswales of their own.
Overuse of salt can cause damage to concrete, steel and the environment. (Photo by Lester Graham)
Liquid salt (brine) works more quickly than road salt and ultimately means less salt in the environment. (Photo by Lester Graham)
Specialized equipment is used to clear sidewalks and roadways better, while using lower-salt solutions to melt ice. (Photo by Lester Graham)
Mountains of salt are dumped on highways. Some road crews are working to use salt more efficiently. (Photo by Lester Graham)
Each year about 118,000 people are hurt and 1,300 people are killed on
the roads during snowy and icy conditions. So, snowplows hit the
roads, scraping snow and ice off the surface… and spreading
incredible amounts of salt on highways, streets and roads to help keep
them clear. Lester Graham reports there’s some concern about the long-
term effects of all that salt:
Transcript
Each year about 118,000 people are hurt and 1,300 people are killed on
the roads during snowy and icy conditions. So, snowplows hit the
roads, scraping snow and ice off the surface… and spreading
incredible amounts of salt on highways, streets and roads to help keep
them clear. Lester Graham reports there’s some concern about the long-
term effects of all that salt:
This dump truck is getting ready for a load of salt for a coming
winter storm. Salt helps make icy roads safer. It helps prevent
people from slipping and falling on sidewalks. And… it’s pretty
cheap. But there are problems with salt. Salt pollutes and salt
corrodes.
Mark Cornwell has spent a good deal of his career trying to convince
highway crews that there are better ways to keep things safe and reduce
how much salt is dumped on roads and sidewalks:
“Salt basically damages just about everything it comes in contact
with. Salt moves through concrete and attacks structural steel,
bridges, roads, parking structures; it eats the mortar out of bricks
and foundations. It damages limestone, you know, just on and on and
on.”
So, even though salt is cheap, the damage it does costs a lot. It’s a
hidden cost that’s seldom calculated. Imagine the cost of having to
replace a bridge five years early because the structure is weakened by
salt. And then there are your direct costs: trying to keep salt
washed off your vehicle, and still seeing rust attack your car.
Cornwell says there are some cities and road commissioners working to
reduce the amount of salt spread on the roads. But in most places, the
political pressure to get the salt trucks out early, and laying it on
thick to keep drivers happy, outweighs any concerns about trying to
reduce the salt:
“I’m sure the public expects full attention to snow and ice. And they
have absolutely no understanding, however, of what it costs to provide
that.”
Nobody thought a lot about the damage salt was causing until the last
couple of decades. In a few places, the people responsible for keeping
the roads and walkways safe have been trying to reduce the amount of
salt they use and still keep public safety tops on the list of
concerns:
“So, this is our shops. The brine-maker is right here.”
Marvin Petway is showing me some of the tools in his arsenal to reduce
how much salt is used and still keep things safe. He works at the
University of Michigan, where there’s a goal to cut the amount of salt
used in winter in half. What they’ve learned is using innovative ways
of putting down salt can actually help melt snow and ice faster. One
way is to mix it with water to get the chemicals in salt working
a little more quickly:
“Why use 5 pounds of rock salt when you can use 2 gallons of liquid
salt? We’re able to get better coverage, quicker, better cost, and
we’re putting the material that is effective in reducing ice build-up
directly to the area where we don’t want ice located.”
The crews trying to reduce salt use computer assisted spreaders to
measure out only the salt needed, they mix in less corrosive chemicals
that make salt brine more effective, and even just wetting the salt in
dump trucks with chemicals all help to melt snow and ice faster and in
the end use a lot less salt.
Nothing is going to replace salt altogether, but those efforts can add
up to a lot less salt. That means less destruction of infrastructure.
But there are more reasons for reducing salt than the damage to
roadways and parking decks. Salt also damages the environment:
Mark Cornwell first noticed the effects of salt because he was a
horticulturalist. He’d work all spring, summer and fall planting
shrubs, make the grass green, tending beds of flowers. Then the winter
would come:
“Unfortunately what we were doing in six months of winter was
undoing everything we did in the other six months of the year.
If you’re going to get ahead, you’ve got to solve the problem
and in my mind, that was misuse of salt.”
Use too much salt and it kills plants. And it turns out the cost of
using all that cheap salt could be even greater than anyone guessed.
For decades, it’s been assumed that rain washed away most of the salt, but
studies in Ontario find that a lot of the salt doesn’t get washed
away.
Instead, a good deal of it is percolating down into shallow aquifers.
Researchers predict that in the future we’ll start find salt is getting
into the groundwater that supplies many of the wells where we get our
drinking water.
For the Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.
A new study adds to the debate over whether race plays a role in the placement of hazardous waste facilities. The GLRC’s Tracy Samilton reports:
Transcript
A new study adds to the debate over whether race plays a role in the placement of
hazardous waste facilities. The GLRC’s Tracy Samilton reports:
Previous studies have shown that about 25 percent of the people living near
toxic waste treatment and disposal facilities are minorities, but University of Michigan
Professor Paul Mohai says that’s because researchers looked at the neighborhood in
which the facility was located. Since most of them are located close to the edge of a neighborhood, many people living just a street or two away weren’t included:
“Statistically they’d be considered no closer to the facility than someone living a thousand
miles away from it.”
Mohai says the minority percentage is closer to 43 percent when all neighborhoods in a
circle around the site are included. Researchers still have to find out if the facilities are being placed in existing minority communities, or if minorities move into them afterwards. Some environmentalists say there should be stricter regulations on toxic
waste facilities to protect all people’s health.
Everybody's got a gutter... and they're part of the urban runoff problem. Rain picks up dirty soot and other chemicals from roofs and heads into the gutter. During storms, the dirty water rushes down the gutters and down streets into storm drains... and can pollute beaches, drinking water and wildlife habitat. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
The pervious pavement at the Chicago Center for Green Technology lets water seep into the ground instead of heading into the sewer drain. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
The rain swale near the parking lot at the Chicago Center for Green Technology is full of native plants that absorb water that would otherwise head into the storm water system. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
One of the ten threats to the Great Lakes identified by experts across the region is nonpoint
source runoff. It’s a catchall category for pollution that’s not being spewed from one identifiable
source. The federal government’s finding that rain washing off concrete and asphalt in cities and
suburbs poses as big a threat to the Great Lakes as waste coming out of a factory pipe. Shawn
Allee has a look at the government’s effort to cut water pollution by remaking the urban
landscape:
Transcript
We’re continuing our series on Ten Threats to the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Lester Graham is our guide through the series. Today a look at a broad problem
with no simple solution:
One of the ten threats to the Great Lakes identified by experts across the region is nonpoint
source runoff. It’s a catchall category for pollution that’s not being spewed from one identifiable
source. The federal government’s finding that rain washing off concrete and asphalt in cities and
suburbs poses as big a threat to the Great Lakes as waste coming out of a factory pipe. Shawn
Allee has a look at the government’s effort to cut water pollution by remaking the urban
landscape:
(rain running into a sewer)
Water from a rain gutter is pouring into a nearby storm sewer drain. That protects property from
water damage and flooding. But at the same time, they pose an environmental problem for the
Great Lakes.
Roofs, streets and parking lots are made of hard materials like concrete or asphalt. During
storms, rain rushes off these surfaces into storm drains.
The problem is this: the runoff isn’t pure.
Brian Bell’s a storm water expert with the Environmental Protection Agency. He says rain picks
up pollutants on all those roofs and streets, things such as:
“Antifreeze from cars, motor oil, brake fluid, copper from the brake pads, cigarette butts from
trash, household hazardous waste, pesticides that may be overapplied.”
And for most sewer systems, that’s not the worst of it.
“The problem with storm water is, once its mobilized and goes into a storm sewer system, that
system does not treat the waste, so all of those things go to the local waterway untreated.”
In this region, runoff flows into the Great Lakes, where it pollutes beaches, drinking water, and
wildlife habitat.
To fight this, the EPA’s trying something new. It wants to make hard, urban landscapes softer.
The idea’s to replace concrete and asphalt with more soil and plants. That way, water can sink
into the ground and stay out of storm drains.
But how do you do that?
Well, the EPA’s working with places like the Chicago Center for Green Technology to show people
how. The city hopes residents and developers will use what they see here in their own projects.
(city sounds in)
Grace Troccolo’s guiding a tour of the facility.
First stop?
“Our parking lot is slightly pitched, so all of our rainwater flows off into these vegetated bioswales,
which when I’m not with people in the business, I call ‘ditch with plants.'”
The plants aren’t typical bushes or flowers. They’re mostly tall, prairie grasses native to the
Midwest. Their roots help water seep deep into the ground. The Center has several bio-swales,
and they all keep runoff on site and in the ground.
Another stop on the tour is a 40-foot section of the building’s roof. It’s covered with a matt of
short, tangled creeping plants. Grace explains why they’re here.
“So here we are at our green roof. Again, getting back to our issue of storm water management,
the city would like to see more vegetated surfaces and of course, in the city like Chicago there are
a lot of roof surfaces and so this section of the roof is designed to hold all of the rainwater that
falls on it during a one-inch storm.”
Again, the roof’s vegetation retains water and keeps it out of storm drains. Because of these
technologies, the building is an urban runoff success story.
All told, the Center releases less than half as much water to storm drains as similar buildings do.
The EPA wants the average home or business owner to follow suit, but price might keep that from
happening. Green roofs, for example, are more expensive than conventional ones.
But some observers say the biggest obstacles in fighting urban runoff are political. Stephen
Bocking teaches environmental policy at Trent University. He says the public’s used to pointing
fingers at a handful of big, industrial polluters.
People just aren’t used to seeing every house and business as a source of pollution.
“It’s much more difficult to deal with the problem when you’re talking about millions of separate
sources. People can’t just say well, it’s the job of industry or the job of the government to deal with
it. It’s the job of everyone to deal with it in some way.”
In other words, we’re all to blame.
Every new building in a city, or home in a subdivision, creates more hard surfaces, such as new
driveways, new parking lots and new roofs.
“It’s pretty hard to deal with a form of development which is intrinsic to our way of life. It involves
thinking about how we live our lives and how design and build our cities.”
Bocking says the EPA’s plan might not be enough to make up for all the roads and other hard
surfaces we’re building. He says, to succeed, we’ll need to change how we develop land.
There’s not much political support to stop that kind of development right now, so for the time
being, hard surfaces will continue to win out.
"Meter cruising" is when people drive repeatedly around the block to find an open curbside parking meter. A new book says that not only is meter cruising a waste of gas, but a symptom of a larger urban planning problem. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
Finding a free parking space on the street is sometimes a big hassle. But cheap parking is beginning to be viewed as an environmental problem. A growing number of city planners say free parking isn’t really free. It just shifts the cost to taxpayers and society at large. In the first of a two-part series, the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee has a report on this new view of the ongoing search for a parking space:
Transcript
Finding a free parking space on the street is sometimes a big hassle. But, cheap parking is beginning to be viewed as an environmental problem. A growing number of city planners say free parking isn’t really free. It just shifts the cost to taxpayers and society at large. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee has a report on this new view of the ongoing search for a parking space.
If you’ve ever played the board game Monopoly, you’ve probably crossed your fingers as you approached the spot called “free parking.” If your token lands there, it doesn’t cost you anything.
It’s free.
But a researcher says there’s really no such thing as “free parking,” at least not in the real world. UCLA Professor Donald Shoup has spent 20 years dispelling the myth that free parking is good for everyone.
In his latest book, titled The High Cost of Free Parking, Shoup tries to show that empty cars are taking the public and the environment for a costly ride.
“Bad parking policies are connected to a lot of other problems we have in society, but people haven’t been able to trace them to parking, and I think I’ve tried to do that.”
Take one of the biggest traffic issues facing large cities: meter cruising. That’s when drivers circle a block again and again, waiting for a curb-side meter.
“The average time it took to find a parking space was about three minutes. That doesn’t seem like too much for an individual to spending hunting for a free parking space, but it adds up if everybody else does it.”
Shoup says meter cruising wastes millions of gallons of gas every year. It also creates a lot of traffic congestion and pollution. Meter cruising’s common to downtowns, but even neighborhood shopping areas face the cruising problem.
Here’s an example. Devon Avenue is a bustling commercial strip on Chicago’s far North Side. There are lots of Indo-Pakistani restaurants, Muslim book stores and Jewish bakeries there. On a typical Saturday, the area’s so popular that only a handful of parking meters stay open for more than a few minutes. And it’s no wonder. Parking at the meter only costs 25 cents per hour.
The situation’s made worse by neighborhood parking permits. That’s a policy that keeps nearby residential streets off-limits to shoppers and restaurant-goers. Walking down the sidewalk, Grace is toting several shopping bags that heave with fresh fruit and Indian condiments.
“I went on the side streets and found a place about six blocks away without a need for a permit and took it and walked in. It’s one of the first really beautiful days of spring, so it wasn’t a hardship.”
If it hadn’t been such a nice day, Grace might have been circling the nearby blocks, wasting gas, trying to find a space at a parking meter.
Local shop owners say too many customers don’t like the parking situation. So the store owners complain to the local alderman, Bernard Stone. Seated in his office, Alderman Stone says no politician can afford to ignore demand for cheap parking. So he’s come up with a solution.
Stone: “If you look over your head, you’ll see a drawing of a new garage that’s gonna be built at Devon and Rockwell.”
Allee: “When’s that gonna be up?”
Stone: “Well, it should be started very shortly, I’ve been working at it for ten years.”
Developers for that project promised to create 200 low-rate parking spaces. It’s a deal they’ve struck in exchange for free city-owned land where they want to build. But the expert on parking, Donald Shoup says as politically appealing as that type of solution is, it doesn’t work. It really doesn’t keep cruising in check.
His suggestion?
Well, he takes a page from both the free-marketeers and grassroots activists. First, he says raise the price for metered parking. A lot. He says how much takes a little calculating.
“We could call this the Goldilocks principle of curb parking prices. The price is too high if too many spaces are vacant and too low if no spaces are vacant. If about fifteen percent are vacant, the price is just right.”
Traffic engineers say keeping fifteen percent of spots open stops meter cruising. To save money, people leave their parking spots sooner and everyone can find new spots faster. Next, make higher parking prices politically attractive to shop owners by letting the neighborhoods keep the meter money. Critics say that’s a hard sell because many times, people worry the money will go to city hall instead.
But Shoup says it works. He points to some California towns, where the money goes to repair streets and even hire security guards. Professor Shoup’s supporters say he might be too optimistic about the prospects for change in our impulse to hunt for the closest, most perfect parking space.
Shoup says he wants to be remembered as the first who showed, unless you’re just playing games, there’s no such thing as free parking.
Proposals to build greenways in Detroit are raising interest, hopes, and concerns. (Photo by Val Head)
Many cities looking to revitalize their urban centers
have turned to greenways to spur economic development. Greenways are pedestrian or bike paths that typically run between parks, museums, or shopping districts. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah Hulett reports on hopes that greenways will breathe new life into one of America’s most blighted urban landscapes:
Transcript
Many cities looking to reviatlize their urban centers have turned to greenways to spur economic development. Greenways are pedestrian or bike paths that typically run between parks, museums, or shopping districts. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah Hulett reports on hopes that greenways will breathe new life into one of America’s most blighted urban landscapes:
This abandoned rail line twenty-five feet below street level might not be many peoples’ first choice for a walk or a bike ride. But Tom Woiwode thinks soon it might be. Woiwode is the director of the GreenWays Initiative for all of Southeast Michigan. When he takes a look down this former Grand Trunk Western Rairoad line in Detroit, he doesn’t see the fast food wrappers, tires, and crashed and rusting shopping carts. He sees trees and grass and benches. And more importantly, he sees people, and places for people to spend their money.
“So maybe a bike repair shop, restaurants, some opportunities for music venues and those sorts of things, so people can ride their bike on down to the riverfront and along the way either stay here for lunch, or along the way stop and rest and enjoy the ambiance, or take their food and go on down to the riverfront where they can enjoy the extraordinary natural resources of the river as well.”
We’re standing near the city’s sprawling open-air produce market. It’s one of the most popular draws for people from inside and outside the city limits. When it’s complete, the greenway will link the market to Detroit’s greatest natural asset: the Detroit River. Greenways are a new redevelopment concept in Detroit. But elsewhere, Woiwode says, they’ve proven a well-tested urban redevelopment tool.
“In fact, back in the late 90’s, the mayors of Pittsburgh and Denver – two municipalities that are roughly similar in size to Detroit – both characterized their greenways programs as the most important economic development programs they had within the city.”
Minneapolis is another city that’s had success with greenways. In fact, backers of the greenway plan in downtown Detroit say they were inspired by a similar project there. Last month, Minneapolis completed the second phase of what will eventually be a five-mile greenway along an abandoned rail line much like the one in Detroit. It’s called the Midtown Greenway. And it’ll eventually link the Chain of Lakes to the Mississippi River thruogh neighborhoods on the city’s south side.
Eric Hart is a Minneapolis Midtown Greenway Coalition board member. He says even the greenway’s most avid supporters joked that people might continue to use it as a dumping ground for abandoned shopping carts like they did when it was just a trench.
“Since then, since it was done in 2000, there’s been a lot of interest in the development community to put high-density residential structures right along the edge of the greenway. And it’s viewed more like a park now.”
Since the first phase was completed in 2000, one affordable housing development and a 72-unit market-rate loft project have been completed. And five more housing developments – mostly condos – are in the planning stages. Hart says people use the greenway for recreation and for commuting by bicycle to their jobs.
Colin Hubbell is a developer in Detroit. He says he’s all for greenways, as long as they’re not competing for dollars with more pressing needs in a city like Detroit: good schools, for example. Or safe neighborhoods. Hubbell says the question needs to be asked: If you build it, will they come?
“I’m not sure. I’m not sure, if, given the perception problem that we have as a city, how many people on bikes are going to go down in an old railroad right away, I’m not sure even if that’s the right thing to do, given the fact that – I mean, we have a street system. And just because there’s a greenway doesn’t mean if somebody’s on Rollerblades or a bicycle that they’re not going to stay on a greenway.”
Hubbell says Detroit already has a lot of streets and not much traffic – leaving plenty of room for bicyclists. Hubbell says it might be cheaper to paint some bike lanes, and put up signs. But he says connecting the city’s cultural and educational institutions, the river, and commercial districts with greenways is a good idea – as long as they’re running through areas where people will use them.
Kelli Kavanaugh says that’s exactly what’s happening with greenway plans in the city. Kavanaugh is with the Greater Corktown Economic Development Corporation in southwest Detroit.
“You can’t just stick a greenway in the middle of a barren, abandoned neighborhood and expect use. But when you put one into a growing neighborhood, a stabilizing neighborhood, it really works as another piece of the quality of life puzzle to kind of support existing residents, but also attract new residents to the area. It’s another amenity.”
Greenway backers say for a city struggling just to maintain its population, Detroit can only benefit from safe, pleasant places to walk and bike. And if other cities are any indication, they say greenways should also help bring another kind of green into Detroit.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Sarah Hulett.
The Adopt-A-Watt program allows people to sponsor clean energy (Photo courtesy of Adopt-A-Watt)
