Transform to Sustainability

Arlington County removing dangerous bollards from trails

2012-02-05T14:46:00.000-05:00

Arlington County has been removing some of the dangerous bollards and collars that riders have identified on the bollard map, which is here:

View Arlington Bollards in a larger map

Last week I noted that the two bollards on the connector from N. Van Buren St. to the Custis/W&OD, just east of Lee Highway and west of the East Falls Church Metro station, have been removed and new pavement has been smoothly added. I updated the Bollard map to show this change. Please check out my previous post on why bollards are mostly unnecessary.

If you have noted other bollards or collars (or other similar hazards) on Arlington's trails, please add them to the map. Please also note any bollards that have now been removed, as I did.

Kudos to Arlington for using the information provided through this public forum to improve cycling for all of us.
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Steve Offutt is a member of the Arlington Bicycle Advisory Committee

Transforming the market for electric cars: The solution to "Range Anxiety"

2012-01-31T11:38:00.000-05:00

Building the market for electric cars presents a tricky conundrum: charging. People are less likely to want to buy an electric car if they are uncertain about being able to get it charged, and charging stations are not likely to pop up to serve these vehicles if there are few electric cars around. This fear of running out of charge, "range anxiety," is a significant obstacle to more widespread adoption. I believe a forward-looking gas company can help break this logjam while also improving their market positioning. Here's how.

Suppose one company, let's say Shell, installed chargers in every one of their stations in the Greater Washington area (or another region where there are electric cars on the road). The key here is to install in every station, even though many will hardly get used. It's a marketing strategy: make your stations synonymous with electric charging. One company getting out ahead on this could create a very long lasting market advantage. Put a charger in every station and make that information common knowledge to everyone. The marketing has to be comprehensive, so that everyone knows those gas stations have charging stations; it becomes common knowledge. The stations and the marketing are loss leaders; a marketing strategy that pays off in more than one way.

As a driver, keeping this meme in my head is easy. Rather than having to keep track of where the few charging stations are or having to look them up on my smart phone while driving, I just look for a Shell station. If I know that every single one will have a charger, my level of anxiety is reduced. AND, it's the most likely place I will go, because it's easy.

Granted, it takes time to charge a vehicle, more time that it takes to pump a tank of gas. Nonetheless, the peace of mind created by the knowledge that I could stop for 10-15 minutes and take on enough charge to get home could be a key piece to increasing market share. It also creates an enormously positive brand image, even if I never use it.

The marketing effort to make the availability of these stations well known serves to position this particular gas company as greener than its competitors. This strategy is far better than BPs original "Beyond Petroleum" campaign, because this one shows an actual physical commitment that the general public can see everyday right with their own eyes. Everyone: not just those with electric vehicles. The brand value of this would be enormous. This branding strategy is likely to increase market share among regular drivers who are environmentally minded, because they appreciate the environmental commitment of the parent company.

Although another ubiquitous type of shop (Starbucks?) could do this as well, gas stations are the sensible choice. For one, they have the money to invest in this. It would take a few million to really do correctly, but I have little doubt that the brand enhancement would more than make up for the costs, even if the bottom line profit from the stations themselves never did.

Robert Samuelson redefines "reassuring," downplays seriousness of climate change

2012-01-26T12:38:00.000-05:00

In a short op-ed piece today in the Washington Post (January 26, 2012), Robert Samuelson invokes a strange reality on our future.

"A week after President Obama denied the application for the Keystone XL pipeline — which would carry oil from Canada’s tar sands deposits in Alberta to U.S. refineries along the Gulf of Mexico — it’s time for an energy reality check. What does the future hold? It may be better than you think."

That's how he starts the article. Not that he supports the canceling of the KXL pipeline. No, he's optimistic because we will continue to burn fossil fuels on into the interminable future no matter what. That's the "better than you think" line.

He cites the Energy Information Agency's (EIA) estimate that fossil fuels will represent 77% of energy use in 2035, which is a lower percentage than now, but an increase in total usage. That may unfortunately be right, but it's not "better than you think." It's disastrous.

Then he goes on:

"U.S. oil and natural gas production are growth industries. For years, they seemed in irreversible decline. Oil imports were rising, and higher natural gas demand would be met by foreign liquefied natural gas (LNG). Now, advances in “fracking” have opened new fields. From 2007 to 2010, U.S. oil production rose from 5.1 million barrels a day (mbd) to 5.5 mbd. By 2020, it will hit 6.7 mbd, projects the EIA.

"Viewed this way, our energy future seems reassuring." (my emphasis)

Just a paragraph earlier he wrote:

"In 2035, emissions of carbon dioxide are reckoned to be 3 percent higher than in 2010. This contrasts with the declines of 50 percent to 80 percent by mid-century that some scientists say are needed to stabilize global temperatures."

Reassuring, indeed. This rosy interpretation is in dire and stark contrast to the warnings of the International Energy Agency's (IEA) Chief Economist, who in November declared that we have but a five-year window to reverse our dependence on fossil fuels to avoid catastrophic climate change.

It's also in stark contrast to the Stern Review, which estimated that unabated climate change could reduce global GDP by 20%. What's so "reassuring" or "better than you think" about that?

Only in an alternate universe, where the rules of physics are suspended, could one make these optimistic statements with a straight face.

Royal Netherlands Embassy achieves LEED Silver

2012-01-23T15:01:00.005-05:00

I am pleased to report that my work with the Royal Netherlands Embassy in Washington, DC has resulted in their achieving LEED Silver for their building. They were awarded Silver for the Existing Buildings: Operations and Management (EBOM) track. The building was constructed in the 1950's and underwent pretty significant improvements in the early 90's.

The project started in the spring of 2010 and was completed in June of 2011. Preliminary review by the Green Building Certification Institute (the official certifying body) was followed by a re-submittal of additional documentation in September. This re-submittal resulted in 49 points, just one shy of Silver. We were able to successfully appeal one credit to achieve the necessary 50 points.

Me and the Embassy's facility Manager, Pauline Roukens

The Embassy hired a Dutch firm named Corporate Facility Partners (CFP), which managed the overall project--primarily in regards to energy performance and mechanical operations. My role was to navigate the LEED process and assist the team with whatever other needs were necessary to meet the goal.

LEED EBOM is significantly different than the other LEED certifications that primarily focus on construction. EBOM focuses on the performance of the building itself as well as the management of environmental issues within the building.

In general, one can think of EBOM as a method of looking at and tracking everything that comes into and goes out of the building: electricity, gas, chemicals, office supplies, waste, food, etc. If it comes into the building it is tracked; if it leaves the building it is tracked. The idea, then, is to reduce the environmental footprint associated with all of those things.

EBOM requires re-certification at least every five years, and the building needs to continue tracking their performance throughout. Or else they would need to restart their certification from scratch.

As a LEED AP, I provide services to building management to help understand, pursue and achieve LEED certification. I would be pleased to talk with any interested parties about LEED and its applicability to your project. Please feel free to contact me or pass along my information to others.

Ped/Bike bridge replacement will improve connection from W&OD to East Falls Church

2012-01-15T17:41:00.001-05:00

Arlington County is replacing the footbridge across Four Mile Run that connects the

Existing bridge as approached from the east

W&OD/Custis Trail east of Sycamore Street with the East Falls Church Metro station. The current footbridge is very narrow, very old and has become obsolete. Its replacement is necessary for safety reasons. However, with input from the Arlington County pedestrian and bicycle advisory committees, the County has taken advantage of this opportunity to improve the bridge. The replacement bridge will meet ADA standards, will be wider and is in a better location for reducing confusion among trail users.

On numerous occasions I have offered confused trail users directions at this location, because it is not obvious which direction is the main trail. Obviously, better (or any) signage would be helpful as well. Signage is not included in the current project budget.

This map shows the locations of the original bridge and the new bridge and estimated placement of the new trail connector. As noted on the map, a significant area of asphalt will be removed and replaced with landscaping. The total amount of permeable surface is likely to be increased even though the new bridge and trail connector will be wider than the original.

View East Falls Church trail bridge replacement in a larger map

The new bridge will be 50 feet long and 14 feet wide with a concrete deck (the existing bridge has a wooden deck). The cost for this project is $240,000, with half coming from Arlington's bridge replacement funding and half from pedestrian improvements. Expected life of the bridge is 75 years and the project is planned for completion in mid-March.

Below are some photos.

Existing bridge as approached from the direction of the East Falls Church Metro station

W&OD trail passing by construction zone. Sycamore Street can be seen in the back left.

Current pathway to the footbridge. Construction zone is to the right of the existing bridge

Location of the new bridge. Traffic signals at Sycamore and N. 19th St can be seen in the background.

View of the construction as of Dec. 31

I-66 "Spot Improvement" now completed

2012-01-07T15:57:00.003-05:00

I-66 looking westbound from Ohio St.

The project to widen I-66 westbound between Fairfax Drive and Sycamore Street is now completed. This is one of several projects that VDOT calls "Spot Improvements." In this case, the "spot" is about 1.5 miles long (map). This is the first of these projects, and was begun in the summer of 2010. Neither of the other two projects is currently underway nor scheduled for the immediate future.

The roadbed was widened and new drainage had to be designed and built. The VDOT web page says that the shoulder is designed to handle full traffic and thus could be used as a travel lane in emergencies. The project did not affect the Custis Trail in any way nor any of the soundwalls or adjoining neighborhoods. In my post last year I expressed concern that the widened bridge over the Custis Trail where it passes under I-66 would make it darker and the lighting should be reassessed. My opinion is that the lighting is still essentially the same as before and that the project did not change the daylight on the trail much if at all.

I'm not sure why the shorter dotted lines are used to delineate the right lane. Perhaps to indicate that the lane is not continuous, although I have not seen this treatment in other locations, even where lanes exist for short distances.

According to this VDOT press releas e, the other two spot improvements are on hold in the engineering phase until after the completion of the I-66 Multi-Modal study.

Arlington looking for help with bollard locations

2012-01-06T20:41:00.000-05:00

Arlington County has created a public Google Map that people can edit with bollard locations and issues.

View Arlington Bollards in a larger map

In particular, they are asking for locations where bollard collars (that part in the ground that holds the bollard itself) may be sticking up causing a hazard. Since we have the map, it will also be useful for identifying other bollard-related locations, such as where bollards are needed or where they should be removed.

I have posted on this topic before (here and here). Those who know me know that I am opposed to bollards in general and believe they should only be installed where there is documented need, rather than at every intersection just as a policy. The W&OD trail removed all its bollards along the entire 45 miles some years back and experiences few problems with cars. Not zero, though. However, they have decided that the positive aspects of better aesthetics and safer travel for cyclists outweigh the negatives of a rare car encroaching on the trail.

Please check the map out and add any locations that you believe could use attention. It's easy, just click on the EDIT button and you will be able to edit the map. Remember to save when you are done. Thanks for your help.

On-street Crescent Trail will be worse for bikes and peds

2011-12-11T07:32:00.007-05:00

(This is an unedited cross post from Greater Greater Washington)

This post is in response to a Greater Greater Washington post from Dan Reed: On-street Crescent Trail may be better for bikes and peds

I disagree with almost everything Mr. Reed suggests in his post.

For a year or so I commuted through that tunnel almost every day. It is an excellent amenity.

Mr. Reed suggests that the on-street alternative may be safer because of the likelihood of crime, and he points out crime problems at other bike/ped facilities. This is a red herring argument. The tunnel has been open since 1998 and crime has not been an issue. Undoubtedly it will be even less so with greater usage. The safety benefit of not having to cross Wisconsin Avenue at grade is much greater than any potential danger associated with crime.

He argues that bikes should be on the streets, because then all users will see them as "belonging" there. I agree with this idea, but it makes no sense when there is already an excellent grade-separated facility in existence. I suspect that way over 95% of all bike traffic in the region is already on the streets, so eliminating this one tunnel will not make any difference. Eliminating one of the very best grade crossings in the entire region does nothing to improve cycling; it degrades it. Also, the existence of the much better future Capital Crescent Trail itself will likely increase the number of cyclists in the Bethesda area, so this goal is achieved anyway.

Back in the 90's cyclists fought long and hard to get the tunnel opened because it was a terrific alternative to the on-street routes. It was an enormous success and trumpeted in the biking community when it happened (I remember, in fact). Were we all wrong about it then? Would cyclists have been better off these last 13 years riding on the streets?

photo of Amsterdam underpass by Brent Granby on flickr

Or turning the argument in a different direction, would it be better to eliminate the Custis Trail through Arlington in order to put more bikes on the streets? Or the W&OD through Falls Church? Creating cycling facilities like those found in Copenhagen or Amsterdam--including grade-separated facilities like the one shown here--makes it better for cyclists, and more cyclists are everywhere, creating a better atmosphere all around. Those cities did not achieve their high biking mode share by eliminating grade-separated crossings. Boulder, CO has added 20 new grade-separated crossings in the last 20 years, and cycling has gone up, not down. And there are lots more cyclists on the streets, too--not just the trails. Minneapolis's new Greenway is celebrated as a fantastic success for cyclists and pedestrians. Those are all examples of adding to the bicycling infrastructure, not subtracting from it. And in all cases, street cycling has increased as well.

The alternative on-street route could certainly be designed well. Even at that, though, it is not as good. The shortest alternative adds about 400-500 feet to the trip (the longest one about 1500 feet), but it also entails a 30-foot elevation rise and fall and a major road crossing that will require a wait for a signal. This route is likely to add at least 1 minute to any cycling trip, costing as much 10,000 hours per year cumulative for cyclists and peds (at current usage rates, before increased traffic when the trail is completed to Silver Spring). In addition, auto traffic will also be delayed by longer signal cycles to accommodate trail traffic (which some might argue is good, but it's time lost, nonetheless).

Should MontCo propose closing lanes and parts of streets and eliminating parking in order to create this route, they are likely to get pushback in the public process from drivers and businesses. Compromises in the design are not unlikely. There's no guarantee that the alternative on-street route will end up being as wonderful as Mr. Reed or Matt Johnson suggest. It could very well end up a lose-lose for cyclists and pedestrians: the tunnel option is eliminated and then the on-street alternative is compromised down to adequate instead of excellent.

This trail is already busier than the Custis Trail through Rosslyn, so building a grade crossing at Wisconsin may end up creating as big a problem as the Custis Trail/Lee Highway crossing that is a huge headache for planners there and a significant hazard to users (admittedly, this on-street route does not suffer from the same design issues as the Arlington one and can be made safer).

Should the cyclists and pedestrians lose this battle, it will once again send the signal that they are are lower priority citizens. Cyclists showed up in droves a couple of years ago to keep the tunnel open during the upcoming development by JBG and, with the help of Commissioner Berliner, were able to get that concession from the developer. Obviously the cyclists would rather have the tunnel than the street.

Mr. Reed suggests that taking the trail out of the tunnel will somehow make this a "better experience." Thanks, but I can decide for myself if I want to go to a shop or not, and so can other cyclists and pedestrians. When I was commuting from Arlington to Silver Spring, I wanted to get home--not browse some shop windows, thank you. And I couldn't wait for the tunnel during the dark winter nights, and it made for great shelter during summer thunderstorms. But other times when I was actually visiting somewhere in Bethesda, I could *gasp!* not go through the tunnel and proceed directly to my destination on the streets. As mentioned previously, cyclists fought to get the tunnel opened originally and fought to keep it open during potential building construction. If they thought they would have a "better experience" on the street, then why did they fight so hard?

And nothing is precluding Montgomery County from building excellent on-street bike amenities, too. In fact, they should: the existence of the trail will complement good on-street facilities and vice versa. They go hand in hand, just as pointed out above in good-cycling European cities.

Once it's done, it's done forever; they will never put the trail in the tunnel if they don't do it at the same time as the trolley. Fifty years from now no one will care how much it cost way back then, but they will be really happy it's there. Does anyone remember how much it cost the B&O to build that tunnel 100 years ago? No. But boy are we happy it's there now.

Keeping this excellent piece of the regional bike infrastructure is critical to the ongoing growth of cycling and continuing to improve Washington's standing as a good biking area. As Dan mentions in his post, the trail has been included in plans for the Purple Line for more than 20 years, including the tunnel portion. It's a promise that should be honored. It should not be eliminated to save a few dollars that no one will remember a decade from now.

New bridge design serves pedestrians and cyclists better

2011-12-09T14:41:00.008-05:00

Arlington County has chosen a design (pdf) for its upcoming rehabilitation of the Carlin Springs bridge over George Mason Drive.

View Larger Map

The current bridge has five-foot sidewalks and no accommodation for cyclists. The new bridge will have 8-foot sidewalks and 5-foot bike lanes on both sides. The rest of Carlin Springs Drive does not currently have bike lanes, but it is important to plan for the future by including them now. Had the County not included better bike/ped accommodations, then those decisions would have been difficult to change for 30 or more years.

Carlin Springs Drive is currently not pedestrian friendly. There are no signalized crossings for 1.3 miles from its origination at the Ballston Mall all the way to the interchange at Route 50/Arlington Boulevard. I know of several families who live nearby who will not allow their Middle School age children to ride the bus, go to the Arlington Forest pool, or bike to the Bluemont Junction Trail unaccompanied because they cannot safely cross Carlin Springs Road. Hopefully this improvement will be the first of many steps to improve the overall design of Carlin Springs through North Arlington to better serve all users of the road.

For more information about this project, click here.

Skeptics are not statisticians: 1% of a data set does not disprove the whole data set.

2011-11-20T23:45:00.000-05:00

A friend of mine likes to provoke me by sending links to posts and articles that contradict the established science on climate change. Recently he pointed me to this post that appeared in Watt's Up With That: NCDC data shows that the contiguous USA has not warmed in the past decade, summers are cooler, winters are getting colder. My friend accompanied this link with this comment:

Well, the figures are in from the NOAA National Climate Data Center and the rest is just high school math. While US CO2 emission has gone up precipitously in the last 100 years the average temperature in the US has gone down. Of course you could look at just the last 15 years and ignore the rest. In this case CO2 has still gone up a lot and temperature was flat. Does this fit with saying the controversy is over and global warming is an established fact.

I countered with some points, but only later realized the biggest flaw with this reasoning, which I'll get to shortly.

The WUWT post does not outright dispute global warming, but rather presents these data as somehow bringing into question the validity of global warming through implication more than direct assertion. That's the way with many of the more careful skeptical bloggers: be careful not to state outright what we know to be false (e.g., global warming is not happening). Rather throw up some graphs and spend time nitpicking at details to create the illusion that there's a problem with the overall argument. In this post, there is a subtle suggestion that the existence of a counter-trend in data somehow calls into question the conclusions of the BEST report

But that's an absurd position. Keep in mind that all temperature data worldwide are included in the BEST data. So the data upon which this post is based are a subset of the BEST data. Essentially for this post, they ignore 99% of the BEST data, find a selected set that shows different results than the full set, and subtly imply that somehow the tiny subset calls into question the entire set. Since when does a subset supercede a full set of data? Yet that's the implication of this post.

As an analogy, say polling is done and 60% of men prefer women with green eyes. Then someone looks at just the data of left-handed men. Only 25% of them prefer women with green eyes. That may be interesting to note, but it does not have any bearing whatsoever on the fact that the majority of men prefer women with green eyes. It's still 60%.

Likewise with BEST. The full data agree with the other well-known temperature data sets that show an overall warming of about 1 degree C over the last century. This particular subset may tell us something interesting about a tiny portion of the globe during a particular period in time, but it does not change the conclusion of the overall data one miniscule iota.

"Does this fit with saying the controversy is over and global warming is an established fact?" my friend asks. That's a senseless question. The BEST data strongly support the established fact of climate change. A tiny subset of that data changes nothing.

Note to Carol Browner: Even if the idea is right, you gotta make sure it's backed by the truth

2011-11-14T23:00:00.000-05:00

Carol Browner was quoted in the Washington Post on Sunday. The quote was from an energy conference held in Washington a week earlier. Here's the quote in its entirety:

People like to pooh-pooh regulations and suggest that, somehow or another, regulations are not good for business. But, in fact, regulations can create business certainty and business opportunity. When the government puts in place a requirement and standard, that means there’s the certainty of a return on capital investments.

And we have a long history in this country of doing just that. If you go back to 1990 when the Congress decided to ban chlorofluorocarbons, CFCs, a market opportunity was created. And we found a solution or a replacement for CFCs, which were dangerous to the upper ozone, and we did it more cheaply and more quickly than anyone anticipated.

Some in this industry and the natural gas exploration extraction industry have not been as forthcoming as others. . . . I would just encourage the industry to be as transparent as possible in an effort to ensure that this is a thoughtful discussion about how we move forward.

I agree wholeheartedly with Ms. Browner's sentiments (hey, she used to be my boss!). However, focusing on the second paragraph, I found it shocking that she presented the CFC phase-out that way. I know that she knows what she said there is not true; she was around back then and working on these issues. Congress did not decide in 1990 to phase out CFCs. The US signed the Montreal Protocol in 1987 and Congress ratified it in 1988. That's when they made the decision to phase them out, but the US had already decided to be part of the international effort much earlier. She makes it sound like Congress was somehow instrumental in the decision itself, which is completely untrue. What happened in 1990 was the passage of the Clean Air Act Amendments that created the mechanisms to actually carry out the Montreal Protocol.

This may seem like a minor detail, but for people like me who know this, it's very transparently wrong. It serves no purpose to mischaracterize or misrepresent the truth when it would be just as easy to tell it correctly. Getting it wrong just reduces one's credibility, especially when the rest of the message is exactly on target.

"Natural" equals Magic

2011-11-13T15:14:00.000-05:00

photo from Purple Phoenix on flickr

Follow the comment thread after virtually any on-line article on climate change, and you will find deniers/skeptics who will claim that the warming we are experiencing is just "natural forces," not caused by humans. They will often make a statement like, "since it is UNPROVEN that CO2 is a contributor to climate change." or " I believed global warming was occurring not because of mankind's actions but because of the natural rhythms of the planet and our sun."

A friend of mine, in fact, has invoked this same idea to me: that climate change is some sort of natural artifact. This is the equivalent of saying that what is happening is caused by magic.

The problem with this, of course, is that when you ask what this "natural force" is, they cannot name it. Sometimes they will claim it's the sun or, more crazily, cosmic rays or something. But all of the other potential forcings have been dismissed as reasonable scientific explanations for the c. 1.0C rise in temperature that has occurred over the last 100 years or so. In fact, the most plausible explanation--and the only one that stands up to scrutiny--is that the excess greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, combined with land-use changes, is the culprit.

Here's the magic analogy:

At a magic show, the illusionist saws a lady in half and then restores her. Amazing! We know it's not really magic; he didn't actually saw her in half. After the show, the illusionist shows you and your friend how his assistant has this special space she can hide her body in while he saws the boxes in half. Because of the way they are constructed, though, the audience is fooled into thinking it's impossible--that there is no space. Your friend, though, refuses to believe it, because he doesn't want to believe it was so simple. He continues to claim that the illusionist actually did saw the woman in half and magically restored her.

Cue climate change. The world is getting warmer and the climate scientists show the people how it is happening. It's not magic, it's the excess greenhouse gases in the atmosphere causing the atmosphere and the oceans to hold more heat. My friend, who claims "natural forces," is the same as the friend in the tale above. He refuses to believe the plausible explanation and hangs dearly onto the "magic" explanation.

It seems so silly in the story of the magic show. It's just as silly in the climate change debate. When someone claims "natural forces" are changing the climate, just substitute the word "magic."

Farragut "Virtual" Tunnel (Farragut Crossing) Now Operational

2011-10-31T11:54:00.001-04:00

I don't know if I should claim any credit for this finally happening, but I have been fairly vocal about it for a long time on several forums. Finally on Saturday, October 29, 2001, the "Farragut Crossing" virtual/invisible tunnel transfer option began between Farragut North and Farragut West stations.

Here's the first line from my original post below:

"I can't take credit for this idea--I read it somewhere else--but it's so good that it needs to be promoted and publicized until Metro takes notice and implements it."

That was August 30, 2008, 38 months ago. I'm glad to see it finally happened, but it's a bit discouraging to see that a no-brainer idea like this one can take so long. Imagine how long something expensive or contentious would take.

For history buffs, here's a comprehensive listing of all my posts and some other relevant links.

Build the Invisible Tunnel (Aug. 30, 2008) (picked up on GGW's breakfast links) (cross-posted on CommuterPage.com) (commented on by Steve Eldridge's Sprawl & Crawl)
More of the Invisible Tunnel (Sep. 15, 2008) (picked up on GGW's breakfast links) (cross-posted on CommuterPage.com)
The Invisible Tunnel - Now Even More Invisible (Sep. 24, 2008)
Testing the Invisible Tunnel (Oct. 8, 2008) (cross-posted on Greater Greater Washington) (cross-posted on CommuterPage.com)

Metro's Response to Latest Invisible Tunnel Query (June 30, 2010) (cross-posted on GGW)
WMATA readying software for Farragut "Virtual Tunnel" (Dec.11, 2010 on GGW)(cross-posted on CommuterPage.com)
Farragut "Virtual Tunnel" Close to Reality (July 22, 2011) (cross-posted on CommuterPage.com)

Enjoy! Give it a try and let me know how it works.

Kids keep getting smarter. More and more bicycling to school.

2011-10-26T22:17:00.000-04:00

Twice in the past (here and here) I reported on the bikes that were parked in the racks at Swanson Middle School in Arlington. Two years ago there were thirteen. Last year there were eighteen, and they had expanded the racks. This year on bike-to-school day there were twenty-one, and as you can see in the photos below, they are just about out of room in the bike racks again. One rider's bike is parked on a nearby tree.
It's great to see more and more school kids riding bikes to school (and some staff, too). There are about 800 students and staff at Swanson, so these bikes represent 2-3% of the total population.

Bike racks are full on bike to school day 2011

One cyclist's bike is parked on the tree due to full racks

State of Folly 5 - How Crichton is wrong about glaciers

2011-10-21T00:01:00.001-04:00

This is the fifth in a series of posts related to Michael Crichton's State of Fear, which I just read this summer. [previous posts here and here and here and here]

From page 530, a conversation between Kenner and Ted Bradley:

"How many glaciers are there in the world, Ted?"

"I don't know." "Guess."

"Maybe, uh, two hundred."

"There are more than that in California. There are one hundred sixty thousand glaciers in the world, Ted. About sixty-seven thousand have been inventoried, but only a few have been studied with any care. There is mass balance data extending five years or more for only seventy-nine glaciers in the entire world. So, how can you say they're all melting? Nobody knows whether they are or not."

Oh, where does one start?! There is just so much wrong with this. I suppose we can forgive Mr. Crichton for not being a statistician, but actually 79 glaciers can make a useful statistical sample--even for a population of over one-hundred thousand. But more importantly, he doesn't mention that although there may not be comprehensive mass balance data on that many, there is photographic and descriptive information on thousands of glaciers that is sufficient to determine whether or not they are retreating or advancing. And non-continuous mass balance information has been collected on hundreds. Even if you skip a few years, you know whether it has grown or shrunk.

Yes, some glaciers are advancing, but the vast majority of glaciers on the planet are retreating--whether or not Michael wants to believe it. So perhaps it's not possible to determine with pinpoint accuracy the total amount of ice being shed by glaciers, it is very possible (in fact, it's been done) to determine what percentage of glaciers are retreating and what percentage are advancing, as well as estimate the total ice loss.

But actually his contention about how much studying has been done of glaciers was very narrowly stated. A more accurate statement (taken from Wikipedia) would be:

A world glacier inventory has been compiled since the 1970s, initially based mainly on aerial photographs and maps but now relying more on satellites. This compilation tracks more than 100,000 glaciers covering a total area of approximately 240,000 km², and preliminary estimates indicate that the remaining ice cover is around 445,000 km². The World Glacier Monitoring Service collects data annually on glacier retreat and glacier mass balance From this data, glaciers worldwide have been found to be shrinking significantly, with strong glacier retreats in the 1940s, stable or growing conditions during the 1920s and 1970s, and again retreating from the mid 1980s to present.

And, of course, satellites make it possible to inventory glaciers pretty much everywhere in the world. And even though State of Fear was published in 2004, there were, in fact, satellites even way back then. Mr. Crichton obviously did not get his information from the best source of all, the World Glacier Monitoring Service, which was started in 1986, plenty early enough to have provided him with useful information.

Who owns the signs? And why won't they take them down?

2011-10-17T21:48:00.000-04:00

I've noted a couple of signs in Northern Virginia that indicate the way to Dulles Airport. One is on Route 50 in Arlington just past the Courthouse exit at the 10th St. exit. The other is on Little River Turnpike between Braddock Road and Old Columbia Pike.

View Dulles Airport signs in a larger map

Here's what they look like:

This is the sign on Route 50 in Arlington.

Here's its location. You can see the 10th St. exit sign that is in the median.

Here's the one on Little River Turnpike.

The existence of these signs raises a number of questions:

Who owns them?
How long have they been there?
Why are they still there?
What purpose do they serve?

I suspect these signs date from before I-66 was built, since no one would take Route 50 to get to Dulles with I-66 available. Also, neither of these--as far as I have noticed--has any follow on signs, so a traveler who noted the sign would never see another one to guide them on their way. A single directional sign far from its destination without any more to assist the traveler is probably worse than no sign at all.

There may be more of these Dulles airport signs. Have you seen any? Where?

Taking a macro view, who is responsible for signage in general? Once a sign is placed is it ever taken down? I've seen signs in my neighborhood that have rusted so badly they can barely be read and that are completely outdated. Signs like these are everywhere, and they just accumulate.

Perhaps every sign should have information on the back of it that tells who owns the sign and who is responsible for it, as well as contact information. At least that way someone could try to follow up and notify the owner if it gets damaged or becomes obsolete.
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Steve Offutt, Arlington

State of Folly 4 - How Michael Crichton was wrong: 1970s Global Cooling

2011-10-13T23:44:00.000-04:00

This is the fourth in a series of posts related to Michael Crichton's State of Fear, which I just read this summer. [previous posts here and here and here]

On page 394, the "arch-villain" Henley (in the plot, he is the key character behind the efforts to manufacture big climate events) says:

"Back in the 1970s, all the climate scientists believed an ice age was coming. They thought the world was getting colder. But once the notion of global warming was raised, they immediately recognized the advantages. Global warming creates a crisis, a call to action. A crisis needs to be studied, it needs to be funded, if needs political and bureaucratic structures around the world. And in no time at all, a huge number of meteorologists, geologists, oceanographers suddenly became 'climate scientists' engaged in the management of this crisis."

Crichton presents this again as some sort of fact. Of course, those who have actually done any research know that scientists did not widely share the view that the earth was cooling in the 1970's. This is one of those commonly stated misconceptions. In fact, since the book was written, an excellent report (pdf) published by the American Meteorological Society, which surveyed the scientific literature of the time, concluded that most scientists actually believed the opposite: that humans were likely to warm the world if, in fact, we had not already started.

There was some concern from scientists at the time that "in the absence of" rising CO2 levels from human activities that we might have been moving towards another ice age within a couple of thousand years. However, the huge impact humans have had on the climate (and are still propagating) totally overwhelm any countervailing cooling trend. Sorry, Crichton, wrong again.

Solving the Lynn Street/Lee Highway Bike/Car Conflict

2011-10-11T01:06:00.000-04:00

The intersection of Lee Highway and Lynn Street in Rosslyn, where the Custis Trail crosses Lynn St., has been the subject of great scrutiny lately. (GGW reported on a recent meeting at this very intersection.) This is one of the most dangerous intersections for cyclists in the Greater Washington area. By reconfiguring the exit ramp for the Key Bridge, this conflict can be entirely removed, dramatically improving safety while also potentially improving traffic flow. (This post has been cross-posted at Greater Greater Washington, including a number of reader comments.)

The problem at this intersection is traffic turning right from the I-66 off-ramp onto Lynn Street traveling towards the Key Bridge. This traffic has a green light at the same time as the pedestrians and cyclists have the cross signal. There are two lanes of right turning cars (and sometimes cars in the third lane turn right illegally). By shifting the Key Bridge traffic to the north of the Custis Trail crossing, this conflict will be eliminated.

This diagram shows a potential redesign that can significantly improve the situation for all users: bikes, peds and cars. The numbers below correspond to the red numerals on the diagram.

1. Split I-66 offramp: Currently the I-66 exit ramp is one lane that curves up to Lynn Street, dividing into three lanes as it approaches Lynn. The right lane is right-turn only, the middle lane is right turn or straight onto Lee Highway, and the left lane is straight only.
My proposed configuration would divide the ramp just after its split from I-66. Lee Highway traffic would follow the existing ramp up to the light at Lynn Street. Traffic headed for the Key Bridge would curve down under the existing Custis Trail ped/bike bridge over the GW parkway and then curve left to join the existing Key Bridge ramp from the southbound Parkway.

2. Reconfigure southbound offramp intersection: The combined Key Bridge ramps could be reconfigured into a 90-degree intersection at Lynn Street with a traffic light. While I proposed all three lanes to be right turn only, the far left lane could potentially allow movement onto the ramp for the northbound GW Parkway. This intersection would have no-right-turn-on-red restriction, which would eliminate the current conflict for cyclists and pedestrians also headed for the Key Bridge.
Cyclists and pedestrians could cross with the Lynn Street traffic while it has the green, and would wait with the Lynn St. traffic while the ramp traffic has the green. With three right turn lanes and no time lost yielding to bikes and peds, there could easily be an increase in capacity for cars, even with right turns on red prohibited. In evening hours, right-on-red movements could be allowed from the right-most lane only.

3. Narrow existing Lynn/Lee offramp: The existing ramp/Lynn St. intersection can then be narrowed to two lanes, allowing more space for the trail, improving sight lines, and reducing crossing distances. Both lanes would be straight only onto Lee Highway. This would completely eliminate all conflicts with Custis Trail traffic, since there would be no turning cars. Lee Highway and Custis Trail traffic would cross on the green and would wait on the red while Lynn Street traffic proceeded.

Additional notes:

- The ped/bike bridge appears to be wide enough to accommodate one ramp lane if all the space is used, including shifting the current GW lanes over and using the median. I'm not an engineer, but if that is possible, then this solution allows for eliminating the conflict without the need for significant additional infrastructure like a tunnel.

- A permanent solution like this one is eventually going to be necessary. The conflict at this intersection can only get worse. Bicycle use is increasing rapidly, and both DC and Arlington are promoting more cycling and investing in it with Capital Bikeshare and other efforts. As bike traffic increases, the right turning cars will become more and more frustrated by having their travel impeded, and conflicts will escalate.

- The redesign also would nicely complement the N. Lynn St Esplanade and Lee Highway/Custis Trail improvement project that is currently being planned (note upcoming meeting on October 5).

Upcoming Event: Transforming energy performance in Houses of Worship

2011-10-10T14:43:00.002-04:00

The Environment Group of the National Capital Presbytery is sponsoring/presenting a key session open to all churches and other houses of worship interested in saving $ from their annual operating expenses.

Presentation and Q&A session on: Updating your energy system to the 21st century & reducing your carbon footprint: how to do it for free (or almost).

Date: Saturday, October 22
Time: 10 am to noon
Location: Warner Memorial Presbyterian Church
10123 Connecticut Avenue, Kensington, MD (map)
This is a free presentation.

Click here to RSVP

Presented by: Zach Fettig, President of the innovative company, Shenandoah Sustainable Technologies (SST). A graduate of James Madison University (JMU) College of Integrated Science & Technology, Mr. Fettig is passionate about significantly reducing energy use in buildings and doing so with creative financing to reduce or eliminate up front costs.

SST projects range from self-sufficient buildings, custom Net Zero homes, commercial and residential retrofits using geothermal, solar PV and thermal, wind and water treatment systems. Projects are located across Virginia.

He has been particularly interested in helping communities of faith improve their environmental footprint. In the N. Virginia area, SST has completed projects that employ geothermal technology and partnership maintenance & operation contracts with St. Mark's Lutheran Church in Springfield and Mt. Vernon Unitarian Church in Alexandria. His innovative approach has made it possible for churches to significantly upgrade their heating and cooling systems, reduce maintenance and operating costs and improve reliability and comfort.

Mr. Fettig will present information about:
- Geothermal technology and its applicability to houses of worship
- Innovative financing mechanisms that can eliminate or substantially reduce capital costs
- Long-term operations and maintenance contracts
- Risk reduction
- Renewable energy
- Details about the St. Mark's and Mt. Vernon Unitarian projects
- Next steps your congregation can take

Many churches and other houses of worship have older, poorly maintained and/or outdated heating and cooling systems. Most do not have professional engineering staffs to oversee and maintain their equipment. Come to this presentation to see how others have creatively improved these situations and positioned themselves for lower energy and operating bills for years to come.

More Information: Terry A Nagi, 202-342-1727; terryanagi@aol.com
Steve Offutt - steve@offuttemail.com

It's already here. Not far in the future. Climate affecting politics and disaster relief, that is.

2011-10-02T17:28:00.001-04:00

The most recent political skirmish in DC was over $1.6 billion in disaster relief funding. The GOP was working to turn this into a political negotiating tool to extract other concessions. It didn't end up making much difference, and the political blogosphere saw it as more examples of dysfunctional government.

I, however, see it as not only that, but also a canary-in-the-coal-mine moment. As the future of climate change bears down on us faster than anyone was expecting, disasters like this year's (9 $1-billion+ disasters already this year) are going to require more and more emergency funding. Eventually these disasters are going to require much bigger political decisions than what we see now. Remember, Nicolas Stern predicted that climate change could take up to 20% off global GDP. That's not only a huge hit on available resources, but there will also be enormous costs to actually deal with the floods, droughts, storm surges and other direct effects of warming-enhanced events.

If our government is already unable to marshal the modest resources to deal with this year's disasters, just wait. Undoubtedly, climate change is going to affect politics enormously, exactly how is difficult to predict. But the populace is going to demand government step in and help more and more and more as the catastrophes get bigger and bigger and bigger. This is exactly what current conservatives, Tea Partiers and others fight against: more, bigger government. Yet it is these same conservatives who are battling efforts to do anything about it, thereby assuring that government will have to grow to deal with the outcomes. Cruel, and sad, irony.

Science textbook gets science right!!!

2011-09-30T23:54:00.002-04:00

Last summer my son was required to read "State of Fear" by Michael Crichton in preparation for his Geosciences class that all high school seniors are required to take at his school (it's a school that specializes in science and technology). That made me nervous, knowing that "State of Fear" has been widely debunked as a source of useful information on climate science (see my series on State of Fear here). I was hoping that his teachers were not going to use it as some sort of instructional material on climate change.

I was immensely relieved, though, when I read the very first sentence in his textbook:

Earth is currently being altered at an unprecedented rate by human activity. The buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has already warmed Earth's climate by a small amount, and may warm it significantly in the future unless steps are taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions globally.

And on the same page it goes on even more directly:

Our world is changing. In fact, Earth as always been changing and will continue to do so for ages to come. Yet, there is a difference between the changes occurring now and those that occurred previously. Earth is changing faster today than it has throughout most of its 4.6 billion year history. Indeed, it may be changing faster than it ever has, except perhaps in the aftermath of giant meteorite impacts. The cause of this accelerated pace of change is simple: human activity. Human populations have expanded in numbers and in their technological abilities to the point at which we are now exerting a significant influence on our planet.

Wow! That is some really straight talk. I live in Virginia, where our Attorney General has been attacking climate scientists like Michael Mann. I wonder if he knows that we are teaching our students such heretical thoughts!
===============
(the textbook is The Earth System, 3rd ed., by Lee R. Kump, James F. Kasting and Robert G. Crane)

State of Folly 3 - How Michael Crichton was wrong: Humans insignificant?

2011-09-29T12:31:00.003-04:00

This is the third in a series of posts related to Michael Crichton's State of Fear, which I just read this summer. [previous posts here and here]

On p. 709, one of Crichton's key characters, John Kenner, who he presents as the level-headed, intelligent understander of all things climate, says, after describing the ordinary violence of the earth's weather:

The nasty little apes that call themselves human beings can do nothing except run and hide. For these same apes to imagine they can stabilize this atmosphere is arrogant beyond belief. They can't control the climate.

Yet we know that to be undeniably false. We are, in fact, already controlling the climate. We've raised it a degree or so Celsius in the last 100 years. "Unequivocally" according to the best climate science on the planet. We may not be "controlling" it very well--more like sending it out of control. The point he was trying to make is that humans are just too small to make any difference to the enormity of the earth's systems. Wrong.

In fact, we humans are not only affecting the climate, but we've even been affecting the daily weather for quite some time. A 1998 study by ASU climatologists Cerveny and Balling showed that it rains more on the weekends on the East Coast. Since a 7-day week is a human contrivance, the only explanation is that it's human influenced. (Most likely caused by pollution in the air, which varies according to the work week.)

So we "apes" are affecting the climate AND the weather. Crichton may be right that we will be unable to stabilize this atmosphere, but we sure better stop destabilizing it faster and faster.

Bike commuting in DC highest in US Northeast - among highest in nation

2011-09-25T22:13:00.001-04:00

According to a recent article in the The Atlantic Cities, bike commuting has seen significant increases across the US between 2000 and 2009. In the Northeast region, DC led the pack, tied with Philadelphia, at 2.2%. That is up from 1.2% in 2000.
Although DC's increase in cycling was not as remarkable as some of the other Northeastern cities, DC started the decade with more bike commuters.

Of the 55 cities reported in the study, only 9 showed a decline in percentage of bike commuters, while 21 cities doubled or more than doubled their biking percentages. The city with the greatest percentage of bike commuters is Portland OR with 5.8%. The only other cities with higher bike commuting percentages than the Washington DC region were:

Minneapolis - 3.0%
San Francisco - 3.0%
Seattle - 3.0%
Oakland - 2.5%
New Orleans - 2.5%
Honolulu - 2.3%

Having bike commuted fairly regularly since the mid 90's, I can vouch that there are a lot more bike commuters now than there were then.

State of Folly 2 - More Why Michael Crichton is Wrong

2011-09-22T13:46:00.004-04:00

This is the second in a series of posts about Michael Crichton's State of Fear. (Previous post here)

Mr. Crichton's book was widely hailed by the climate deniers/skeptics, despite the fact that Mr. Crichton has no credentials whatsoever in regards to climate science. Nonetheless, the book covered a lot of ground related to global warming.

On pages 490-492 (in my paperback version), in the chapter titled "Culver City: Tuesday, October 12, 1:20 PM" Mr. Crichton presents 14 different temperature graphs from around the world showing temperature trends from 1875 to 2003. Some go up, some go down, some go sideways. In the story, one of the main protagonists comes across a stack of these graphs and is disturbed that so many do not seem to agree with his preconceived notion of global warming.

Of course, 14 charts, or even 140 charts that have been hand selected, have no meaning whatsoever. Crichton could pick whatever graphs he wanted to put in his book, so one must assume he did not come up with a random selection. The IPCC, the National Academies and other scientific organizations have said repeatedly that rising temperatures are "unequivocal."

Besides, one does not need thermometers to know the temperature is rising: the earth is telling us. Birds, insects, freezing lakes and rivers, glaciers, sea level, flora ranges, blossoming flowers, seasons and dozens more systems are telling us the temperature is rising. These changes have been documented in literally tens of thousands of studies. 14 charts do not tell us anything. 30,000 studies do.
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(following post here)

State of Folly - How Michael Crichton was Wrong

2011-09-20T23:36:00.004-04:00

I finally got around to reading State of Fear by Michael Crichton. Interestingly, my son was assigned this book as a summer reading assignment (I'll follow up on that shortly). So I read it, too.

There have been many people who have reviewed and criticized the book. This is the first of a series of posts that look at particular claims and issues raised in the book as I see them. Enjoy.

Crichton adds an "Author's Message" at the end, in which he clarifies his personal views on the climate science. One of his bullet points reads:

Nobody knows how much warming will occur in the next century. The computer models vary by 400%, de facto proof that nobody knows. But if I had to guess--the only thing anyone is doing, really--I will guess the increase will be 0.812436 degrees C. There is no evidence that my guess about the state of the world 100 years from now is any better or worse than anyone else's.

That is not true. His guess is not as good as anyone else, any more than if I predict unemployment will be 5% three years from now, my guess is as good as professional economist's. His guess is NOT as good as estimates based on actual science and modeling. That's not to say those estimates will not be improved over time, but to suggest that picking a number out of the air is somehow equivalent to the output of a highly calibrated supercomputer is just hubris and bluster.

Secondly, he fails to note (or realize?) that the reason the models differ by a factor of 4 is not because we don't understand the science. It's because we don't understand humans, and what we will do. That's the hardest part to model. Given a particular emissions pathway, the model estimates have a much smaller range of uncertainty. Only by including the wide range of emissions scenarios do the models show such a wide range. Note how each color band is not that wide. Those are the bands of uncertainty for each emissions scenario.

Unfortunately, his book and the assertions of others who share his views (or even more vehemently deny climate change) are putting greater certainty on the higher emissions scenarios, reducing the uncertainty, but in a bad way.
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(next post in series here)

Climate Reality Project is now - September 14-15

2011-09-15T00:18:00.002-04:00

You can watch a little. Or you can watch a lot.

Stream videos at Ustream

Capital Bikeshare featured on Streetfilms

2011-09-08T13:39:00.000-04:00

The amazing success of Capital Bikeshare is being noted not just here in the DC area (such as in the Wash Post), but nationwide and around the world. The acclaimed Streetfilms featured Capital Bikeshare last month.

Seven Corners Safeway fixes sidewalk

2011-09-02T10:51:00.001-04:00

Back in March I reported that the newly renovated Safeway at Seven Corners had designed their shopping cart corral in such a way as to block sidewalk access, forcing pedestrians to walk into traffic.

Two weeks ago, the Safeway removed this barrier, and now the sidewalk is completely open, allowing for safe and convenient pedestrian passage as shown in this photo.

The manager said that a few months ago they were made aware that their design did not meet ADA requirements, thus prompting the removal of the wall and corral. He did not indicate whether or not any publicity or blog postings were instrumental in making them aware.

He expressed pleasure at the new design and said that he supported the change from the beginning. Score one small victory.

How Capital Bikeshare is making D.C. a better place

2011-08-30T12:06:00.002-04:00

Photo by M. V. Jantzen

The Washington Post ran a Local Opinions piece last Saturday (How those red public bikes are changing D.C.) by D.C.-area blogger and founder of the Greater Greater Washington blog, David Alpert. The article laid out all the great reasons Capital Bikeshare is doing well and should be supported and expanded.
Here's an excerpt:

Building roads or trains is expensive, while growing CaBi (usually pronounced “cabbie”) is one of the cheapest ways we have to quickly improve mobility. Consider this: Simply rebuilding the Gainesville Interstate 66 interchange will cost about 18 times as much as setting up the whole CaBi system.

Paris has 20,000 bicycles at 1,202 stations (vs. our 120) in a space smaller than inside-the-Beltway Washington. We should have that many, too, and could for about the same price as that Gainesville interchange. Not that CaBi has to limit itself to inside the Beltway: Rockville is getting a small set of bikes and stations. College Park wants in, too. Something in Tysons Corner could ease the third rush hour that occurs when office workers drive to nearby restaurants.

A fascinating consequence of CaBi’s success has been more people taking their own bikes. Many people started riding around the District or Arlington with CaBi, then began riding more overall. I’m one of those people. Previously, I used my bike only on occasion, but I now ride it, or CaBi, much more often. Even for those who primarily use personal bicycles, CaBi is handy for one-way trips or quick lunchtime errands.

It's worth reading the whole article, and then run out and get your membership, if you haven't already.

Caribou beats up on Starbucks (400% greater savings!)

2011-08-05T15:45:00.001-04:00

I've beaten up on Starbucks before (here and here) for their lackluster effort to get people to use reusable cups. On a recent visit to Caribou Coffee, I encountered this sign in their bathroom.

The sign says: "Think Happy Everyday. 50 cents off any drink with reusable drinkware."

Starbucks offers only a dime for a reusable cup, and they hardly market it. It's posted in the smallest font possible on their wall menus if it appears at all.

Go Caribou!

Falls Church Folly

2011-07-31T23:08:00.004-04:00

The BJ's Wholesale Club that opened in Falls Church near Seven Corners last October was a short-sighted decision by Falls Church and works against taking steps towards an improved urban/suburban environment. Rather than taking maximum advantage of an opportunity to improve an area that is in dire need of better design, Falls Church resorted to the same-old, same-old, big box store, with an enormous parking lot out front and little regard for the future urban design or long-term planning.

The BJs opened last October 9 to much fanfare and pretty big crowds. Most of the press leading up to and at the time of the opening was very positive: people were excited about the new store.

The original deal between the property owner, JBG Properties, and the City of Falls Church was announced two years earlier in October of 2008. In that deal, the City agreed to provide $250,000 in annual tax relief to the property owners (total of about $3 million over 12 years). This deal was intended to help offset some of the costs of site preparation that included retaining walls and infill in order to make the site work for a BJs. At least one Falls Church resident perceives it as providing an unfair advantage to a business that doesn't really need that advantage against some of the small businesses already in the area.

The site is approximately 8.5 acres, and the store is reportedly 87,000 square feet, about 24% of the site area. (For comparison purposes, the wildly popular, mixed-use Clarendon Common in Clarendon sits on a slightly larger 10 acres.) It is exactly 1 mile from the East Falls Church Metro. It is a typical big box retailer, with a large parking lot along the street and the store set considerably far back behind the parking. To their credit, the parking lot is nicely landscaped, including trees. Much of the site was formerly forested and as many as 100 mature trees were sacrificed for the store. The lot was full the first weekend it opened. On the numerous occasions I have passed by there since, I have never seen it more than about 2/3rds full and often more than half empty.

(Note: the lot is empty because this photo was taken about 7:30 AM)

As the above resident points out, there is not the tiniest chance that Falls Church would have allowed this BJs anywhere near the center of Falls Church. It is in the absolute far southeast corner of the city (map), bordering both Fairfax and Arlington Counties, and away from the "village" part of Falls Church. One could argue that the BJs fits into this area around 7-Corners--which is not like the center of Falls Church, with its mom and pop stores--and tends to be very car-centric. However, it could have been at least somewhat better with some minor adjustments and considerably better with bigger changes.

If they had simply moved the store next to the street with a wide, inviting sidewalk and put the parking behind, that would have been a nice first step to transforming this area into a more inviting pedestrian area. Better yet would have been to include a couple of small storefronts along the street, too, integrated into the streetfront. The BJs could still have been just as large, but the entry for those who drive would be in the rear. Pedestrians, instead of walking past an enormous parking lot, would walk past storefronts.

Yes, it would have been the first property in the area to not put parking in front, but someone's got to move first if change is going to occur. Presumably Falls Church, with its more progressive population and policies, would be a strong candidate to try something innovative. Falls Church has been, in fact, working with Arlington County on a more progressive, long-term plan for the East Falls Church Metro station area--just one mile away.

Just moving things around would have been a minor, positive change. Potentially this site could have been developed completely differently. Eight acres is pretty big and could have supported some sort of mixed use. I doubt the market in this area could support something as dramatic and dense as Clarendon Common, but certainly a more 21st century outcome could have been created.

In the end, the decisions about this property were driven a lot by timing. Because of the recession, Falls Church was desperate for tax revenue and decisions were being driven almost entirely by how much taxes the site could generate than by anything else. During a different time the City might have had more opportunity to negotiate or may even have been willing to generate somewhat lesser taxes for a more interesting use. I wouldn't be surprised if at the end of the 12-year tax break period, the owners try to either negotiate an extension or just move off to a more inviting jurisdiction. The building itself is single use and could not be repurposed for virtually anything else (as evidenced by the long-empty Big Lots store that sits less than 1000 feet away in the Eden Center). Even so, some design changes could have been implemented at no cost that would have served as a small step towards transforming this area. Unfortunately, that effort was not made and we're left with another cookie-cutter, big box.

I believe that the Seven Corners area has more potential than many give its due. However, unless Falls Church and Fairfax County decide to work together to develop a vision, it will remain a poorly designed, unsafe, unattractive part of the Washington region.

The heat wave and human influence on climate

2011-07-26T00:19:00.006-04:00

Most of the United States just endured a remarkable heat wave in which hundreds of daily temperature records were broken and a number of all-time high records were also broken. Additionally, because of the flooding of the Mississippi River, humidity levels were also very high, leading to extremely high heat indexes, as high as 131 degrees in Knoxville, Iowa on Monday, July 18.

The standard line regarding extreme weather events has generally been, "It is almost impossible to attribute a particular weather event to climate change, so--no--this heat wave was not caused by climate change." I think that statement has become more and more inaccurate as the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere continues to rise.

I think the new statement should be, "Because humans have changed the chemistry of the atmosphere, all weather now has the fingerprint of human-caused climate change on it. So, yes, this extreme weather was affected by climate change."

The exact differences between this heat wave and the hypothetical heat wave that would have occurred in a world with a CO2 concentration of 290 ppm is impossible to know. But what we do know is that it was different. It almost certainly was hotter and more humid that it otherwise would have been. So, no, this heat wave was not "caused" by climate change. But it most certainly was exacerbated by it.

Enjoy the new world we now inhabit!

Farragut "Virtual Tunnel" close to reality (after only 3 years!)

2011-07-22T14:10:00.000-04:00

The Washington Post reported today that Richard Sarles has included in his first 6-month report as full-time Director of Metro, that the "Virtual Tunnel" between the Farragut stations will be functional this fall.

I first promulgated this idea almost three years ago on the CommuterPage blog and have followed up numerous times since (More of the Invisible Tunnel, Testing the Invisible Tunnel, Now Even More Invisible?, Metro's response). Here's what the Post said today: "In his first six-month report since being hired as Metro’s permanent chief, Sarles also said the agency will create a 'virtual tunnel' between Farragut North on the Red Line and Farragut West on the Orange and Blue lines, allowing riders to go from one station to the other without paying a new fare."

Why it took this long is a bit of a mystery. Metro has been tying this service to changes in the SmarTrip card, which are finally just now being completed. However, I learned way back in 2008 that the capability has always existed--even with paper farecards--to implement this service.

It will be interesting to see how popular the tunnel is once the ridership is educated about it.

Another missed opportunity to provide better service on Metro during track work

2011-07-14T15:54:00.002-04:00

Metro has another opportunity to provide enhanced shuttle service to Orange Line riders the next two weekends while they perform work on the tracks. Thousands of hours could be saved by travelers with an intelligently designed and managed shuttle service.

Metro has announced that shuttles will run between East Falls Church and West Falls Church stations. Between West Falls Church and Vienna trains will single track while workers perform track work in this area. Metro's announced plan is to operate single-tracked trains on 24-minute headways between WFC and Vienna.

As I suggested previously (and received a reply from Metro), a better strategy for customers would be to not run trains at all for the three stations west of East Falls Church. Instead, they should run express shuttles from Vienna to East Falls Church and a secondary shuttle serving the other two stations.
There are approximately 20,000 boardings and deboardings at the three westernmost stations on a Saturday, divvied up as follows:

Vienna - 50%
Dunn Loring - 20%
West Falls Church - 30%

(Note: only about 1% of riders travel between two of these stations.)

There are several advantages to this better shuttle service. The primary advantage is that it will save thousands of hours of time for passengers, a worthwhile customer service goal. Another advantage is that the workers in the work zone will be able to work in a completely safe area, since no trains will be running at all, rather than single tracking. This might even allow for the work to be completed faster resulting in further cost savings.
Additionally, by not opening the stations, they will save those costs. Instead they would have staff outside the stations directing customers. I would suggest that all the shuttles be free. So there would be some lost revenue with customers paying at the origination of EFC rather than farther out. However, that seems like a reasonable accommodation for the inconvenience they are asking customers to tolerate.

How much time would be saved? Using the above data of approximately 20,000 boardings and deboardings on a Saturday at these three stations, with approximately 50% of those at Vienna we can estimate how much time would be saved for these riders. Let's compare:
Vienna to East Falls Church
via Metro's plan:
12-minute average wait time (on 24-minute headways)
7 minutes to West falls church
3 minutes to walk to and board bus (we'll assume with 24-minute headways, that Metro is smart enough to have buses waiting for passengers; perhaps an optimistic assumption)
7 minutes bus ride to EFC
29 minute average travel time (Metro recommends adding 30 minutes to travel time during this maintenance period, but if they operate the system well the actual delays should be less than that.)

Via express shuttle:
4-minute average wait time (assume 8-minute headways*)
13 minutes to EFC
17-minute average travel time

That's a 12-minute savings x 10,000 passengers = 120,000 minutes = 2,000 hours.
There would be more modest savings from the other two stations, depending on how the shuttles are routed and managed, but if done intelligently, hundreds more hours could be saved.

One of the reasons cited in Metro's response last year to this suggestion was that it might confuse riders. I find that reason to be weak. Good communication and staffing could easily overcome that obstacle, and the thousands of hours saved by their customers could go a long way towards building trust and positive relations with their ridership.

They also suggested that it would cost more. Given that every single passenger is going to have to get on a bus regardless of how they are routed, 20,000 passengers (at 40 per bus) will require 500 bus trips in any case. Granted the runs will be longer, so they will need a couple more buses, but there will be no costs for running trains, so it might just be a wash.

Probably the biggest obstacles to this suggestion are lack of imagination and an operational mindset rather than a customer service mindset at Metro. Creative thinking and putting themselves in the shoes of their customers would show them that this solution is much preferred over their announced plan.

*(How did I come up with 8-minute headways? If 10,000 riders need to ride between EFC and Vienna and we assume 40 persons per bus, that's 250 bus trips, 125 round trips. At 8 minute headways, that's 16 hours. Realistically, headways would have to be shorter during busier periods and could be stretched at less busy periods)

New bike/ped bridge on W&OD over the Beltway is now open

2011-07-08T13:40:00.002-04:00

The bridge that carries the W&OD trail over the Capital Beltway is now open. According to the W&OD Trail Report, it opened on June 15. I've been out of town for most of the time since then, so this was my first time using it. The new bridge replaces the old one just to its south. The replacement was necessary, because the highway is being widened, and the old bridge was not long enough to span the wider road.

See photos below. The new bridge is wider than the old one. There is still a little work to complete on the approaches and landscaping as well as the removal of the old bridge.

Approaching the new W&OD bridge from the east

Approaching the new W&OD trail from the west

The new bridge (looking west) being used. Note the 12-foot width.

The partially deconstructed old bridge

As an aside, I was told that VDOT offered the old bridge to Arlington County. Although staff at the county identified a possibly beneficial location for the bridge, it was determined that by the time it was taken down, all that would be left would be a couple of long, steel supports that would be very difficult to move anyway. So they declined.

Turn out the lights!!!

2011-07-07T15:07:00.000-04:00

Why is it that lights are on so much when they make no difference whatsoever? And sometimes they seem deliberately wasteful. I notice this all the time. Here's one example.

For the last couple of years I have attended a UConn football game on the Saturday after Thanksgiving in East Hartford CT at Rentschler Field. The game is played in the early afternoon. In both cases it was a bright, sunny day. Also in both cases, all the field lights were on from the time we arrived. I have no idea how early in the day they were lighted, but they were on for at least a couple of hours prior to the start of the game.


Note the bright sunshine. This was late in the game; earlier there were no shadows on the field at all

According to the Rentschler Field website, there are 316 fixtures affixed on four light towers and above the press box. My best guess is that each fixture is 600-1200 watts. The lights were on for at least 6 hours. I'll concede that it may have been worthwhile to turn on some of the lights towards the end of the game as the sun got low, but they could have played the entire game without the lights, and no one would have noticed until at least 3:30 PM and probably not at all if they had never come on.

Six hours at 190,000 to 380,000 watts comes to 1100-2300 kWh. Commercial electricity in CT is about 10 cents per kWh, so the cost to the facility is likely less than $200. Not an enormous amount. But completely wasted. Why should they send their money to Connecticut Light & Power when they can just keep it for themselves?

More importantly, the electricity used at the field results in carbon dioxide and other emissions. The average emissions per kWh in CT is about 0.3 kg per kWh. Converting to pounds, that's 750 - 1500 pounds of CO2 emitted because of these unnecessary lights.

The University of Connecticut has embraced sustainability. It has a Climate Action Plan and has committed to being carbon neutral by 2050. So we know they are not ignorant of these issues. Even though they do not own or operate the stadium, they could certainly let their preferences be known to the State of Connecticut (the owner) and Bushnell Management Services, which operates it.

I see this all the time: lights that are on in broad daylight or in places where there is no need (such as no people). I'll blog on this again in the future.

CentralSpace in Rosslyn demonstrates cooperation between developer and local organizations to create a positive community amenity

2011-06-27T00:10:00.001-04:00

There's a nice little urban space in Rosslyn that is a good example of how several organizations working together can make a small but positive impact on the urban form. It's called CentralSpace, and it's pictured here. What would typically be a weedy, fenced-in lot awaiting groundbreaking has been transformed into a usable, aesthetically interesting urban space.

Photo by M.V. Jantzen

JBG Companies will be building a million square foot, 2-tower development on this space, located at the corner of Wilson and N. Moore Streets in Arlington. While they continue to secure tenants in order to begin construction, they have teamed up with the Rosslyn Building Improvement District and Rosslyn Renaissance to create this attractive outdoor space. It also includes a rain garden to help reduce runoff. According to the Rosslynva.org website, the idea to use this space in this manner came from the planning organization, Rosslyn Renaissance, and was a cooperative effort among them, the Rosslyn BID and JBG Companies. Volunteers were also engaged to help clean and paint the space, so it was a total community effort.

On the few occasions I have had to go past CentralSpace, it appears to be getting regular use.

Cities are constantly in flux, with new development replacing old and changes being made to our urban forms. Well executed and creative ideas like these can make the perpetual evolution that much more pleasant and exciting.

Electricity industry executives are either delusional or math illiterate. You choose.

2011-06-21T14:41:00.013-04:00

The consulting firm, Black & Veatch conducts a survey (pdf) of the electricity industry each year, which provides insight into what the industry itself believes is happening and will happen in the future. (Thanks to Grist for bringing this to my attention).

One of the questions and answers in particular caught my attention, because it struck me as being totally absurd. Upon further digging, it turns out I was right; it is absurd.

Nissan Leaf

The question asked of the executives was:

What proportion of your annual energy load do you expect electric vehicles to represent by the end of each of the following years?

Here is the graph showing how they answered.

At first glance, this seems normal enough. The table shows a pretty rapid growth, but many people believe the market for EVs is going to grow pretty rapidly, too.

But let's do the math. Executives claim that more than 1% of the electricity generated next year, 2012, will go to charging electric vehicles. How much is that, and is it even possible?

Here's the calculation to show that they have either lost their minds or have no idea how much electricity is generated at their own utility company.

Chevy Volt

- In 2008 the US generated about 4400 TWh of electricity (a TWh is 1,000,000,000 kWh)

- 1% of 4400 is 44 TWh

- A Chevy Volt or Nissan Leaf can travel about 3 miles on a kWh of charge.

- 44 TWh of electricity then translates into 132 billion miles of driving

- Let's assume 12,000 miles per EV. That's probably a high estimate, given that most EVs won't be used for longer trips.

- Result: 11 million EVs on the road for the entirety of 2012!!!! (according to electric industry executives)

Through May 2011, fewer than 2,500 Volts had been sold in the US. As of mid-June about 2,100 Leafs (Leaves?) had been delivered in the US.

Extrapolating out to their response for 2025 gives a similarly absurd result: Electric utility executives expect there to be more than 100 million EVs on the road in 2025!!!

To do that would require that more than 1/3rd of all the cars sold between now and then to be electric. But since it would take years to develop that manufacturing capacity, what it really means is that virtually all the cars manufactured after 2018 or so would have to be electric vehicles. All of them. What are they smoking?

It's hard to believe we pay executives as much as we do to be so ignorant of their own market. Crazy.

When the Mississippi River Finally Wins. Let's Start Planning.

2011-06-15T14:12:00.003-04:00

The Mississippi River flooding of 2011 is one of the greatest flood events in the river's history. High water mark records were set in many places along the river, and the US Corps of Engineers has used every trick in its book to reduce the impact on cities. Millions of acres of land have been inundated and economic losses are enormous throughout the basin.

One story that was not as widely disseminated, but needs to be understood is the story about how the Mississippi River reroutes itself every 1000 years or so and is trying to do so again. This article by Thomas Lewis discusses the scenario in great detail.

View New Mississippi River Route in a larger map

Essentially the issue is this: The US Corps of Engineers has "tamed" the river and caged it in. The river actually wants to reroute itself into the Atchafalaya River basin, which would then take a shorter, more western route to the Gulf of Mexico through Morgan City, LA. Right now the Atchafalaya riverbed is about 18 feet lower than the Mississippi's. Eighteen feet! Without the current control structures, the river would have already (and eventually will) shift into the Atchafalaya.

This change of route will be devastating to our economy. The Port of New Orleans will become a backwater; most of the industries along the lower part of the river will go out of business; shipping will be disrupted for years; Morgan City itself will be devastated and much of the river basin north of it will be destroyed, because the infrastructure (bridges, etc.) were not built to accommodate the entire Mississippi River.

The river is going to win. We beat it in 2011, but someday the river will win. It might be next year; it might be in ten years; we might fight it off for another fifty. But it's going to win this battle, and it will be a catastrophe.

So we know it's going to win. We know. Wouldn't it be smart to manage the change than just keep whistling in the dark until it finally happens? What if we were to plan now to deliberately reroute the river in some future year, say 2050? That gives us forty years to plan and get ready. Because of the way the river is currently managed, we can even transition the shift over a period of time--diverting more and more of the flow into the Atchafalaya in advance of the full change.

During those forty years we can:

Build new and rebuild existing infrastructure along the Atchafalaya River so that it will accommodate the new Mississippi.
Work with the industries along the way to transition their operations from their current locations to new locations.
Plan for use of the freed up land in the current river basin: parks, farms, etc.
Work on redesigning New Orleans so that its economy will be resilient to this change
Building up Morgan City and other cities along the new route to take advantage of their new asset.
Creating a more modern management system for the river that maintains a more natural ebb and flow, allows for regular flooding and helps to maintain the delta rather than destroying it.
Putting in place the navigational elements that will be needed to utilize the new river as a shipping channel
Planning for rehabilitating the current "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico at the current Mississippi River Delta. This could be a boon for fishing.
Etc.

If we consider this rerouting of the river as an opportunity rather than a problem, and by giving ourselves forty years to implement, we might even come out the other side better off. For instance, as the industries along the current Mississippi relocate, their existing facilities and land can be cleaned up and repurposed in better ways. The new plants built along the new route can be designed at the cutting edge of sustainability. The end result could be a huge improvement over the status quo.

But if we wait for the river to win, then our response will be crisis driven. Decisions will be made that will be regretted later. Opportunities will be missed. The entire event will be an enormous economic, social and humanitarian disaster. Which one will it be?

How is Renewable Energy like Swine Flu?

2011-06-06T13:11:00.001-04:00

Recently I visited an old friend of mine, and at one point our discussion turned to climate change and renewable energy. He made the comment that renewables certainly make a lot of sense, but it's "up to the market" to determine their viability. My initial response was that the fossil fuels we have depended on for so long have been getting, and continue to get, subsidies already. So it makes sense to subsidize the renewables. He conceded this point, but I don't think I totally convinced him.

What I didn't tell him, because I thought of it later, is that renewables are more like swine flu vaccine than like a regular marketplace technology.

It was not "up to the market" to create and distribute a vaccine for the H1N1 virus. That would not have worked. Imagine that we allowed the market to determine if there would be enough demand to justify researching and manufacturing the vaccine. Pharmaceutical companies would do market research and determine pricing and market size and then make a decision. Probably they would have found that it would be too expensive and risky to invest in developing the vaccine.

There was not an option to take that chance. Government not only created the market for the vaccine, but also supported the development and distribution. The US spent about $9 billion getting the H1N1 vaccine into the market in order to stave off a potential epidemic.

This is s good analogy; we are now facing and "epidemic" of climate change. No more can we rely on the market to address this all by itself than we would have allowed the market to address the swine flu.

Interestingly, the swine flu had a greater degree of uncertainty than climate change does.

We didn't know exactly how virulent it would be
We didn't know how effective--if at all--the vaccine would be
We didn't know how communicable the disease would be, nor how widespread

We knew none of this for certain, yet we did not hesitate to invest significant public resources to head off the threat. The certainty about climate change is much greater than that of H1N1, so why are we not investing significant government resources in fighting it, too?

That's a question for another day. But the next time someone suggests that renewable energy is too expensive and can't compete in the market, ask if those same questions should have applied to the swine flu vaccine.

Innovations Towards Zero. Upcoming event at House of Sweden re: electrification and safety in vehicles

2011-06-02T15:09:00.002-04:00

9th of June, 2011 ∙ House of Sweden ∙ 2900 K Street, NW ∙ Washington, DC

Join us for a seminar that will focus on the latest findings on safety and electrification of

vehicles and discuss how manufacturers, government and the public can work together to

reduce emissions as well as reduce fatalities and injuries on our roads.

Agenda

8:30 - 9:00 a.m. Breakfast around exhibition in Anna Lindh Hall
Exhibition will include:

C30 Electric Cars
Ener1 Battery
One Tonne Life House Model

9:00-10:30 a.m. Speakers program:

Welcome Remarks
               H.E. Jonas Hafström, Ambassador of Sweden to the United States
Welcome Remarks
               Mr. Bradley J. Olson, Chairman, Swedish-American Chamber of Commerce, Washington DC

Seminar Introduction
               Dr. Jeffrey Runge, Principal, The Chertoff Group, and former Administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)

Innovations Towards Life
              Mr. Stefan Jacoby, President and CEO, Volvo Car Corporation
US Electrification Policy
              Senator Byron Dorgan, Senior Policy Advisor, Arent Fox LLP, and former U.S. Senator from North Dakota

Safety in Electrification
             Mr. Lennart Stegland, President, Volvo Cars Special Vehicles
US Vision for Sustainable Mobility
             Mr. Patrick Davis, Program Manager, Vehicle
Technologies Program, Vehicle Technologies Program, U.S. Department of Energy

Saving Lives While Supporting Innovation
            Mr. Kevin Vincent, Chief Counsel, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)
Enerdel Vision for Electrification
             Mr. Charles Gassenheimer, CEO & Chairman of Ener1, Inc.

10.30 – 10:50 a.m. Coffee Break

10:50 – 11:30 a.m. Panel Discussion

Moderator: Dr. Jeffrey Runge
Panelists:

Stefan Jacoby
Lennart Stegland
Charles Gassenheimer
Kevin Vincent
Patrick Davis

Register now via this link!

Contact: innovationstowardszero@sacc-dc.org or (202) 536-1570

Clive Hamilton Says:

2011-05-31T21:55:00.000-04:00

"In sum, the most important assumptions on which international negotiations and national policies are founded—that we can stabilise the climate at some level, that overshooting and returning to a lower target is feasible, and that we can accommodate 2 or more degrees of warming by adapting to it—have no foundation in the way the Earth’s climate system actually behaves. When one understands these facts, the state of political debate around the world takes on an air of unreality. Rich country policies—including cutting emissions by a few per cent and outsourcing most of the cuts to developing countries; waiting for carbon capture and storage technology to save the coal industry and continuing to pollute at high levels until that happens; planning the construction of new coal-fired power plants; and even, in Australia, entertaining the idea of exporting brown coal—are so at odds with the scale and urgency of the emission cuts demanded by the science as to be almost laughable. They reflect a child-like belief that climate change can be averted by ignoring the truth and hoping for the best, a form of wishful thinking whose costs will prove incalculable."

- Clive Hamilton
Clive Hamilton is Professor of Public Ethics at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics in Australia.

Arlington County installs new bike signal on Custis trail

2011-05-18T10:59:00.008-04:00

Arlington County has installed a bike-only signal in the Rosslyn area of the Custis Trail at the corner of N. Oak Street and Lee Highway, which went into service on Tuesday, May 17. This is one of the intersections on the "Rosslyn Hill" section of the Custis that includes several crossings. There have been collisions at some of these crossings in the past. This area is definitely the most dangerous section of the Custis Trail.

View Custis Trail bike signal location in a larger map

This crossing already had a walk/don't-walk pedestrian signal, which would inform cyclists about the status of the cross traffic. There is no right-turn-on-red at this intersection, so cars waiting on Oak Street should (theoretically) not create a conflict when the bike signal is green and the pedestrian signal is in the walk mode. Cyclists need to take care about right-turning traffic from Lee Highway onto Oak. Although these cars are supposed to yield to bikes and peds in the crosswalk, one should always take care that they actually do.

Here are some photos of the new signal:

New bike signal at N. Oak looking east along Lee Highway

The bike signal remains green after the pedestrian signal starts flashing. Since bikes can cross much faster than pedestrians, this makes good sense. The photo below shows the bike signal still green while the ped signal is flashing "don't walk" with 3 seconds left. There is a yellow bike signal that illuminates for a 2-3 seconds before changing to red.

Bike signal at N. Oak street looking west along Lee Highway. Custis Trail is visible behind sound wall. Signal is green while "don't walk" signal is flashing.

Here's a close-up of the red "stop" bike signal.

Red bike signal

I did not observe bicycle behavior at this intersection with the new signal. The signal is green for much more of the time than it is red, probably 75% of the time. So most of the time cyclists will be able to proceed through this intersection without pause. It will be interesting to see how cyclists behave with this new signal: if they will treat it like a car would treat a traffic signal or more like an "Idaho stop."

Even the IEA can't do math. No one understands growth!!

2011-05-13T22:39:00.001-04:00

I was looking at the IAE statistics about coal, and I came across a couple of different statements that stand in sharp contrast. First there was this:

Total recoverable reserves of coal around the world are estimated at 909 billion tons—reflecting a current reserves-to-production ratio of 129 years.Historically, estimates of world recoverable coal reserves, although relatively stable, have declined gradually from 1,145 billion tons in 1991 to 1,083 billion tons in 2000 and 909 billion tons in 2008. Although the decline in estimated reserves is sizable, the large reserves-to-production ratio for world coal indicates that sufficient coal will be available to meet demand well into the future. (emphasis mine)

Above this statement on the same page was this graph

accompanied by this statement:

The growth rate for coal consumption is uneven, averaging 1.1 percent per year from 2007 to 2020 and 2.0 percent per year from 2020 to 2035.

So what if we apply the growth rate they predict onto the reserves they claim exist. Then how long do we have? Well, applying their own rates of growth, by 2035 we will have used up 23% of reserves, but then it only takes 19 more years, until 2054, to use up half of all reserves. In the real world, we would have peaked by then, and production would be declining. However, if we continue to assume a 2% rate of growth, all the reserves would be gone by 2078. That's only 77 years in the future--not 129. Still a long way off, but possibly within the lifetime of my daughter. So IEA is overoptimistic by more than 50 years. Since a typical coal plant is designed for a 40-year life, but is often recommissioned for even longer, we'd have to take into account that ones being built just 15-20 years from now would not have anything to burn before they are retired.

It's actually much worse than that, though. Since unmanaged peak production would likely occur within 40-50 years, plants being built now would start being underutilized prior to their retirement.

Although for climate change reasons, we need to start retiring coal plants last year, and we need to see declines in the use of coal really fast, even a total skeptic would have to see that continuing to build at a willy-nilly pace doesn't even make economic sense.

We see these sorts of statements all the time. Whenever a statement is made about how much of a resource is left, it will always be "at current rates of consumption." But often almost in the same breath we will hear that use of this resource is growing at some x% growth.

This dangerous mistake is so endemic, that I recommend everybody watch this series of videos:

Corporate Responsibility & Energy as Design - May 17 event at House of Sweden

2011-05-10T14:05:00.007-04:00

House of Sweden on the Potomac River

I want to bring to your attention an upcoming event that may be of interest here in DC. This was forwarded to me from Maja Persson, a friend and colleague who works at the Swedish-American Chamber of Commerce.

Please note the information about RSVPing

Corporate Responsibility & Energy as Design
Enriching Lives by Inspiring Form Beyond Function

House of Sweden, 2900 K Street NW, Washington, DC 20007
Tuesday, May 17th, 2011
8:30 am – 10:30 am

Continental breakfast will be served from 8:15 am and the seminar starts at 9:00 am

An increasing number of companies in today’s fast-paced and multilayered international economy understand the strong link between advancing core strategy and business practices and improving the common good. This is being showcased in a variety of ways, including through energy. Energy drives the future. This seminar focuses on ways in which responsible corporate citizens utilize energy as design to increase energy efficiency, and in turn benefit society, as well as their company constituents.

A panel of experts from leading Swedish and American companies will discuss energy beyond function, where form is a fundamental design element. Come learn how the interconnection of industry, creativity and lifestyle impacts the future of energy. This seminar is part of the Embassy of Sweden 2011 program “Fabric of Life”.

To attend: Please send an email with your name and affiliation to rsvp-hos@foreign.ministry.se with “May 17” in subject line.

Panelists:

Michael M. Wood is Chairman of Redwood Investments LLC and served as the U.S. Ambassador to Sweden from 2006-2009. During Wood’s three years in Sweden he traveled to all 21 län (counties) looking for alternative energy companies that could benefit from cooperation with American venture capital and research institutions. The Ambassador’s list of the best of these Swedish companies contains 52 firms and the embassy estimates the resulting volume of activity between Swedish firms and US interests is $150-200MM.

Elizabeth J. Heider is Senior Vice President of Green Markets for Skanska supporting the development, design and construction of high performance green/LEED projects throughout their lifecycle. Her 32-year career encompasses all phases of design and construction from master planning through project closeout as architect, construction manager, cost manager and VE facilitator. Heider serves on US Green Building Council’s Board of Directors which she will Chair in 2012.

Rebecca Ranich is a Director with Deloitte Consulting LLP and a senior international energy industry executive and commercial strategist with more than 20 years of experience. Rebecca advises on alternative and renewable energy strategies and issues, with a special focus on the commercial integration of new energy sources with existing infrastructure, and assessing the pending U.S. policy and regulatory initiatives at the State and Federal levels.

Tracey Kelly is Corporate Communication Manager at IKEA US in Philadelphia.

Keynote Address by: Gunnar Oom, State Secretary to the Swedish Minister for Trade.

To attend: Please send an email with your name and affiliation to rsvp-hos@foreign.ministry.se with “May 17” in subject line.

The perfect bike trail bollard installation

2011-05-02T14:51:00.001-04:00

For those of you have read my previous post on this topic, you will know that I am not a fan of bollards on bike trails. Hence this photo of what I consider to be the perfect bollard installation.

Yes, replacing street car parking with bike parking is a good idea.

2011-04-28T11:28:00.001-04:00

Over the last week there has been a small controversy regarding the expansion of Capital Bikeshare into Arlington County, VA. In particular the Arlington County GOP has complained that as many as eight metered parking spaces have been replaced with CaBi stations.

This is virtually a non-issue. Prior to this, 100% of street parking in Arlington was for cars; now it's maybe 98-99%. That still seems remarkably unbalanced toward automobiles. Watch this video (yours truly appears near the beginning).

The contention that replacing these parking spots with bikeshare parking costs the county money and is a bad idea is wrong in so many ways.

First, the only way it costs the county money is if EVERY SINGLE spot within blocks is completely parked up. That's because someone seeking street parking (like the woman in the video) will likely find another spot and pay there, albeit may be less conveniently located.

Second, these spaces will get utilized much more than a car parking spot. If even 2-3 people use the bikeshare station over a two-hour period, that's likely more people than would have used the metered spot it replaced anyway.

Third, it's good for business. As this recent economic article clarifies, the use of public space for bike parking is far more cost effective than for car parking.

Last (for now), it actually can make it more convenient, even for car drivers. As I point out in the video, I parked my car near a CaBi station with plenty of street parking adjacent to it and then took the CaBi bike the 5-6 blocks to where I needed to meet my friend. This undoubtedly was quicker and easier than trying to find a spot (whether or not any had been given to bikes) near the intersection of Moore and Wilson in Rosslyn. I would have almost certainly circled the block at least once and, if I had found a spot, it would have been not that close to where I was trying to go--forcing me to walk several blocks anyway. What I did was much faster and more convenient.

Monday What's on the Web: DC Green Scene

2011-04-25T22:28:00.001-04:00

The DC Green Scene web site (and email service) provides a list of upcoming environmental events in the Washington DC area. I highly recommend subscribing to their weekly email notifications if you live in the DC area. Even if you are unlikely to attend many (or any), it is very useful to know what is going on.

There are typically several listings for every single day, and many of the events are free. Here are some examples, taken from tomorrow's list:

2011 EIA Energy Conference

April 26 - April 27
Location: Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center
Sponsor: U.S. Energy Information Administration

The 2011 EIA Energy Conference brings together thought leaders from industry, government, and academia to discuss current and future challenges facing energy markets and policymakers.

GW Solar Institute Symposium 2011

April 26 | 8:30 AM - 5:30 PM
Location: GW Media and Public Affairs Building
Sponsor: George Washington University Solar Institute

The third annual GW Solar Institute Symposium, "Solar Energy: A Critical Component of Meeting the Clean Energy Challenge," will bring together major figures in the solar arena, including key industry leaders and influential energy experts. The Symposium will feature a keynote address from Minh Le, Chief Engineer of DOE's Solar Energy Technologies Program who will discuss the President's clean energy challenge and the Department's $1/W - SunShot Initiative. Key solar companies will have an opportunity to discuss and respond to the challenge, followed by exciting sessions on private industry use of solar energy and its technological frontiers. The afternoon will address the variability challenge facing the grid, and discuss distributed versus centralized solar with transmission.

FREE Energy Benchmarking Training with DDOE & EPA

April 26 | 10:00 AM
Location: American Association for the Advancement of Science
Sponsor: Apartment and Office Building Association of Metropolitan Washington
Sponsor: District Department of the Environment
Sponsor: Pepco
Sponsor: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Sponsor: U.S. Green Building Council

The District Department of the Environment, in cooperation with the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Apartment and Office Building Association of Metropolitan Washington (AOBA), Pepco, and the U.S. Green Building Council - National Capital Region Chapter (USGBC-NCR), is sponsoring a series of trainings and information sessions for building owners and managers preparing to meet District of Columbia buildings benchmark requirements. In-person and webinar training will be available from April through June to help owners meet their July 1st reporting deadline.

Hypermiling in our Camry Hybrid

2011-04-25T00:40:00.002-04:00

We purchased our 2007 Toyota Hybrid Camry in March of 2007 and I have previously written about it six times (first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth postings).

Last week I set a personal best for mpg on a trip we made to and from Philadelphia. Our car records the mileage continuously from the time the tank is filled until it is filled again. On the trip back, we stopped at the Chesapeake House rest area on I-95 at Mile Marker 98 in North East MD. From there to our house in Arlington we traveled about 94 miles. The mileage reading shown when we parked in front of our house is shown to the left.

Over that distance we averaged 50.9 miles per gallon, which is the best mileage I've ever gotten (by a lot) over a similar distance.

A couple of factors worked in our favor. Probably the most important was the weather. It was cool enough outside to not require any air conditioning, which generally reduces mileage by 10-15%. Also, traffic was fairly smooth and not congested, which allowed me to travel in ways that maximized efficiency. In particular, I used the downhills to gain speed and allowed the car to slow somewhat on the uphills. We generally drove about 60-65 mph while on I-95 and the BW Parkway..

Driver behavior is a huge factor in fuel efficiency, accounting for 20% or more of the difference in fuel economy from person to person. I have seen this demonstrated between my wife and me. Our mileage on average differs by about 10%, a difference I can only attribute to our driving behaviors.

Since our car provides constant and instantaneous feedback (it shows real-time fuel efficiency on a gauge next to the speedometer), it makes it easy to train yourself to drive more efficiently over time. This type of feature included in all cars could help improve the overall fuel economy of the US fleet by several percent--conceivably enough to reduce our oil imports by 1 million barrels per day.

So crunching the numbers, it required approximately 1.85 gallons of gas to cover that 94 miles, costing about $7 at current prices. For comparison, a car that averages 35 mpg would have cost $10, while a car that averages 25 mpg would have cost about $14 for that same portion of the trip.

Metro's "Service Nearby" tool

2011-04-12T15:47:00.001-04:00

Last summer a friend of mine moved to a new apartment in Alexandria, an area of town he was not particularly familiar with. He got in touch with me about trying to find a good way to commute by transit to his job in DC. He knew that I was pretty savvy at figuring out the transportation system.

I pointed him to Metro's "Service Nearby" tool as a first step in figuring out his various options. The tool identifies all the transit stops within 1 mile. One can then use that information to look at schedules or use the Trip Planner to determine various ways to go where you want to go. The trip planner does not always provide the complete list of options (and often not even the best options), so using "Service Nearby" can be really helpful.

Metro doesn't market this tool very well, however. You can find it under the "Rider Tools" tab as shown here:

Then you enter in the location you want to find service near on the next screen:

The tool will then list all the services within a mile of that location. Some are not as useful as others, because it will list every bus stop along the same bus line, so there is redundancy. Nonetheless, you can use this information to help figure out how to get to a variety of locations and to other transportation, such as Metrorail stations. Here's an example. The complete results went on much longer than this screen shot. As you can see, this only shows locations within 0.12 miles:

Rationalizing services between Shirlington and the Pentagon

2011-04-12T08:19:00.004-04:00

Travelers between Shirlington and the Pentagon have more than 160 buses in each direction per day that they can ride. However, the design of the bus bays and the lack of combined schedules creates inconvenience for passengers, requiring them to choose between bus bays that are far apart and knowing multiple schedules, among other issues that could be rationalized.

There are several routes between Shirlington and the Pentagon: Metrobus routes 7A, C, E, F, Y; 22A; 25A, D; and ART87. The 7 and 25 buses are express, traveling directly between these two stations in 6-9 minutes depending on traffic. The 22A makes a few stops before getting on I-395, resulting in a travel time of about 12-14 minutes. The ART bus takes a local route that takes about 23-27 minutes. (In almost all cases, those traveling between these two endpoints will get there sooner by waiting for the next, quicker Metrobus than taking the ART.) There is also an ART 87X, which is express to the Pentagon during rush hours.

At Shirlington, the bus bays that serve these passengers are not ideally located. At Shirlington the 7 and 25 buses are located at Bus Bay C while the 22A is located at the farthest possible point away, bus bay A. Compounding the problem is that the 87X stops at bus bay E.

Because these buses are traveling in opposite direction, it's not possible to locate them all at the same bay, but they could be placed in adjoining bays A & E or B & C. That way a passenger wanting to go directly to the Pentagon will not have to dash around the station to the far end to catch the other bus.

The situation at the Pentagon may be about the best they can do, with the 4 adjoining bays, Upper 3, 4, 5, and 6 serving these routes. Riders have to be astute to note the alternate buses arriving and knowledgeable of their various options. ART bus locations are not shown on this map, which appears to be somewhat out of date.

(Interestingly, I was unable to locate these diagrams on WMATA's website. I found them instead on ART's site)

Additionally, because there are several routes that serve these two points, many riders probably only learn over time that they have several options. There is no combined point-to-point schedule of the 160+ buses per day that would make this information easy for passengers to have, hold and use (see previous post on this topic here). Also, since NextBus treats each bus bay as a separate stop, it doesn't effectively serve these customers, who don't care what bus number they get on--they just want to get between these two points as quickly and easily as possible.

However, there are other cases in which changing the locations of bus bays at the Pentagon might help customers with options. For instance, the 29 and 17 buses both serve some of the same parts of Annandale, but are located on separate levels at the Pentagon. Similarly, the 25 and 8 buses share parts of Alexandria, but are located far apart at the Pentagon.

Some bright person could probably create a simple smartphone app using NextBus data that would combine the Shirlington and Pentagon bus stops (or other highly-used point-to-point locations), which would be quite useful.

As mentioned above, there are more than 160 buses per day in each direction between Shirlington and the Pentagon, with the majority of these during rush hours. For instance, there are 16 inbound between 7:00 and 8:00 AM and 19 between 8:00 and 9:00 (although a few of these take longer than waiting for the following one). Even in the middle of the day, there is no 60-minute period with fewer than 6 buses--an average of one every 10 minutes or less. However, there are some gaps in service such that in a few instances combined waiting and riding time can take more than 30 minutes to travel this 4-mile distance. Aligning the schedules somewhat could make travel from between these points equivalent to taking Metrorail--just go to the station and wait for the next one. No schedule required.
These simple changes and enhancements are the sorts of things that cost little or nothing, but that help make the experience better for passengers. It's important for transit agencies to put themselves in the shoes of the passenger at all times in order to see these opportunities and provide them to the riding public.

My Commuter Mug Reprise

2011-04-04T14:18:00.000-04:00

photo by Scott Feldstien on flickr

Long ago I posted that by carrying my commuter mug around with me I would save money on my coffee purchases. Starbucks always offers a dime and sometimes they just charge me $0.50 for a refill even though it isn't a "refill."

This morning I was in Shirlington and dropped into the Caribou Coffee shop. They offer a $0.50 discount for bringing your own mug. Wow! And, it was prominently displayed on their big chalkboard.

I recently blogged on how Starbucks has failed in their efforts to improve use of reusable mugs. Well, Caribou is kicking their butt!!

Google adds skateboard directions to Google Maps

2011-04-01T11:39:00.002-04:00

Google announced today that it will be adding skateboarding directions to its currently available driving, walking, transit and biking directions. Simply click on the new icon that appears on the Google Directions page as shown below.

(Just in case - this was an April Fools post)

Pocket Bus Schedules Being Tested

2011-03-23T22:49:00.000-04:00

A while back I suggested the idea of creating simple point-to-point bus schedules as a way to both simplify information for riders as well as make it easier for new riders to take the bus. The example I used was between Westover Village in Arlington and the Ballston Metro (see original blog post here).

I finally got around to creating these little pocket schedules and they are now available at Toby's Ice Cream Shop in Westover. Toby tells me that several customers have commented on the usefulness of these schedules. although so far not a lot of them have been taken.

Monday What's on the Web: The Geological Society Climate Statement

2011-03-22T09:31:00.000-04:00

Last November, the Geological Society of London issued a "Statement on Climate Change." It's a relatively clear and straightforward statement that summarizes the current state of our climate and relates it to significant climatological changes in the past.

The Geological Society of London was founded in 1807. It is the UK national society for geoscience, and the oldest geological society in the world. As a highly regarded professional, scientific organization, one should take statements like these very seriously. When individual scientists make statements, it is possible they are tainted by personal bias. When the Geological Society of London makes a statement, it represents thousands of scientists, and carries much greater weight than any one particular scientific paper or one individual scientist's perspective. There are 10,000 members of the Geological Society.

The Geological Society's statement is mirrored by statements made by virtually every other reputable scientific organization on the planet. There are no reputable scientific organizations that dispute the scientific consensus that: 1) the planet is warming; 2) humans are partially to mostly responsible; and 3) the outcomes are likely to be significant and negative for human civilization.

Green Business Roundtable now on Facebook

2011-03-17T23:15:00.000-04:00

I chair a monthly gathering of professionals called the Green Business Roundtable. In partnership with the Wharton Club of DC, the GBR usually meets at the National Press Club for a buffet lunch and a guest discussion leader. Click on the Facebook link to the right for updates and notifications of upcoming meetings.

Hope to see you there!

Monday What's on the Web: Reconnecting America

2011-03-14T11:34:00.000-04:00

Recommecting America is a web site dedicated to promoting, advocating for and improving Transit-Oriented Development.

This is how they describe their mission on their site:

Reconnecting America is a national non-profit organization that is working to integrate transportation systems and the communities they serve, with the goal of generating lasting public and private returns, improving economic and environmental efficiency, and giving consumers more housing and mobility choices.

Their sister site, the Center for Transit Oriented Development is focused more on that specific topic, but the two are interrelated.

I recommend joining to receive their daily updates, which link through to a tremendous number of articles related to this topic. I learn something new almost every day.

Newly renovated Safeway at Willston Center in Fairfax County totally disses pedestrians

2011-03-11T23:19:00.000-05:00

The Safeway in the Willston Center near Seven Corners in Fairfax County recently underwent a major renovation. This renovation provides no access for pedestrians along the sidewalk in front of the store, forcing pedestrians to walk in the parking lot.

The new renovation is a vast improvement over the old Safeway store that was here. It's bigger, newer, cleaner and includes a Starbucks Coffee. Unfortunately, no one paid any attention to how the front of the store interacts with the parking lot and the sidewalk. This Safeway is not a stand-alone store. It is in a strip that contains a dozen other establishments. It is also adjacent to and very near a large number of apartment buildings, and a significant number of users (myself included) can and do walk to this strip. So it is not a suburban, car-only type of place, even though it has a large parking lot in front. Although many users come to the Safeway, many also come to the other establishments, and if they wish to visit any that require them to pass by the Safeway (which is in the middle), they must walk into the parking lot to pass in front of the store.

Here are some photos to help explicate the situation.

The BB&T Bank is to the west (left) of the Safeway. To walk past the Safeway to stores on the right, one must walk out into the parking lot

This narrow section of sidewalk is navigable without going into the parking lot, but there's not a lot of room.

The point where the trash can is located is the place where there is no sidewalk option available. All pedestrians must walk out into the parking lot in order to pass this section. Depending on where the cart storage is, pedestrians may also be forced out at the left of the photo where the leaning sign is located.

This is just past the trash can. The sidewalk is about 12 inches wide, but there is also a sign in the way.

Here's a look from the opposite angle. The sign and trash can are visible on the left side of the photo.

This photo is also taken from the east. The trash can is visible. The BB&T Bank is beyond the Safeway

Fairfax County's zoning ordinance is hundreds and hundreds of pages. A search through the sections that deal with commercial retail properties like this shopping center resulted in virtually no mentions whatsoever of sidewalks or other pedestrian amenities.

The designers of this Safeway were therefore not required to give any consideration to pedestrians, which is obvious from the outcome. Only those who drive cars were considered in their design choices. Even those who drive here and may also want to go to the bank or to the dollar store nearby are forced to step out into the parking lot traffic in order to do so.

To his credit, when this problem was pointed out to the manager, he was surprised and concerned and expressed his opinion that this design would provide a disservice to his customers. Too bad they didn't ask him before they started.
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(cross posted on Greater Greater Washington)

Bicycle Facility Film Screening ar Arlington Central Library Brings Biking Community Together

2011-03-10T18:38:00.000-05:00

More than 100 people attended the film screening held on Monday evening at the Arlington Central Library. This film screening was hosted by the Arlington Bicycle Advisory Committee, with additional assistance (including sponsoring the food) from BikeArlington.

Although many attendees were from Arlington, there were also representatives from Fairfax County, Falls Church, Alexandria, DC, Montgomery County and even one from Kentucky who was in town to attend the National Bike Summit.

Mark Blacknell, Chair of the Advisory Committee, made some remarks and introduced and thanked a number of people, including Arlington County staff who work on bicycling related matters and the staff of BikeArlington, who work to spread the word about biking throughout the community.
The film, a documentation of bicycle practices compiled by James MacKay during a 2009 European tour, was relatively technical in nature. However, it catalyzed an animated discussion afterward among attendees. As a member of the Bicycle Advisory Committee, I was excited to see so many people with ideas and opinions about how to improve bicycling in our community and the region.

Afterward, approximately 20 attendees retired to a nearby bar/restaurant to carry the discussion further.
The Arlington Bicycle Advisory Committee is open to the public, and all are invited to attend. Meetings are held the first Monday of the month at 2100 Clarendon Boulevard in the ground-floor conference rooms. We hope to see you there.

If you are interested in keeping up with news about bicycling in Arlington and would like to be notified about future events, please visit the BikeArlington Forum or send an email to BikeArlington.

Film Screening, Discussion and Advisory Committee Meeting on Monday, March 7 in Arlington

2011-03-03T22:44:00.000-05:00

Wouldn't it be great to have the kind of bike facilities that can be found in many parts of Europe right here in the DC area? Local jurisdictions like DC and Arlington are improving their facilities all the time, but there's still a long way to go.

Next Monday, March 7, the Arlington County Bicycle Advisory Committee will be hosting a film screening of the 2009 SCAN tour of Europe that was sponsored by AASHTO (the American Association of Highway and Transportation Officials), FHWA (Federal Highway Administration) and NCHRP (the National Cooperative Highway Research Program).

You are invited! Please come, see the 45-minute film and participate in a follow up discussion afterward. Here are the details:

Date: Monday, March 7, 2011
Time: 6:30 PM - gathering & snacks; 7:00 PM - film screening; 8:00 PM - discussion
Location: Arlington Central Library - 1015 N. Quincy Street (map)

Who should come: Everyone! Especially bicyclists, pedestrians, bicyclist wannabes, planners and those interested in transportation and urban design. Feel free to RSVP at our Facebook event page; it will help us plan, but it's not necessary in order to attend.

Everyone is also invited to join the Arlington Bicycle Advisory Committee afterward, about 9:00, at Carpool for our regular monthly meeting. Arlington BAC meetings are open to anyone, and all are welcome.

Monday What's on the Web: Compenhagenize

2011-03-01T08:20:00.000-05:00

Every Monday I highlight other bloggers or web contributors who are making important or interesting contributions to climate, sustainability, transportation or market transformation. Check back each week for another installment.
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"Each and every day roughly 500,000 citizens choose the bicycle in Greater Copenhagen. This blog highlights who they are, why they do and how it was made possible.

Forty years ago Copenhagen was just as car-clogged as anywhere else but now 37% of commuters crossing the city boundary ride bicycles each day. That number rises to 55% in the city proper. Copenhagenizing is possible anywhere."

That quote is taken from the Copenhagenize.com website, which is thankfully written in English. There's not much to say about the blog. It features stories, snippets, policy thoughts and other aspects related to how Copenhagen is (and how it became) the most bicycle-friendly city in the Western world. Here are a few sample posts:

It's a quick look every day at something cool or interesting about urban bicycling. Take a look.

Washington Post is shortsighted in its dismissal of high-speed rail: Post 2

2011-02-27T23:44:00.003-05:00

From Fred Dawson on Flickr

Recently the Washington Post printed an editorial dismissing the need to build high speed rail in the United States (A Lost Cause: The high-speed rail race). My first post responding to this op-ed, in which I argue that transportation diversity is an important consideration may be found here. I also responded to an op-ed by Robert J. Samuelson back in November with a 4-part blog series (1, 2, 3, 4) that addressed the issues raised in this op-ed plus some others.

The other problem I have with this opinion article, and that I find with many assertions about how to invest money, is that it is presented in a vacuum. In this case the author is criticizing Obama's proposal to spend $53 billion on high-speed rail projects. The implication is that we could choose to just not spend that money and save $53 billion. The problem is there is no comparison with what the costs are if that investment is not made.

In the US, both our air transport systems and our highways are becoming overwhelmed. Many billions of dollars will need to be spent just keeping these limping along. Intelligent investment in high speed rail could offset enormous costs in our air transport system. For instance, in a previous blog I argued that a well-designed Midwest system could potentially eliminate the need to build a third Chicago airport, which might cost as much as $20 billion.

Without comparing the investment in high-speed rail with what would need to be spent in its absence, the assertion that we could save all this money is worthless. One cannot say the $53 billion will just be saved, because other transportation will be taken, and costs will be incurred for that instead.

Are those other costs higher than the rail costs? I don't know for certain, but they are most certainly very high. Given all the other reasons for investing in rail: environmental, diversification, reduced need for imported oil, reliability, technological advancement, etc., it sure seems like a great investment to me.

Washington Post is shortsighted in its dismissal of high-speed rail: Post 1

2011-02-24T22:48:00.000-05:00

from scoutjacobus on flickr

Last week the Washington Post printed an editorial dismissing the need to build high speed rail in the United States (A Lost Cause: The high-speed rail race). You may recall that I traveled on Spain's impressive high-speed rail system this last summer, which I reported here. I also responded to an op-ed by Robert J. Samuelson back in November with a 4-part blog series (1, 2, 3, 4) that addressed the issues raised in this op-ed plus some others.

However, I'd like to make even one more point that I think speaks to our need to move aggressively on high speed rail in appropriate corridors. (I will point out that I do not agree that we should bring high speed rail to 80% of the population of the country, as President Obama has stated. Rather than set up an arbitrary number like that, we should focus our energies in areas where we can most effectively offset regional air travel.)

from ykanzawa1999 on flickr

A key reason we need to invest in rail is for diversification. Diversification is an indispensable strategy when it comes to investment portfolios, but for some reason, op-ed writers seem to overlook this important consideration when opining on rail systems. For decades we have invested in transportation systems that are virtually 100% dependent on petroleum availability to function. High speed electric rail is not. Powering trains with electricity allows for fuel flexibility--the energy can come from any source that can generate electric power: coal, solar, wind, nuclear, hydro or whatever. It is not bound to the price and availability of oil.

Oil is certain to become more expensive and may also become scarcer over the next decade or two, making our existing investments in highways and air travel look like the dot-com boom of the late 90's. Better to diversify our investments now, since it takes time to get them built and operating--time that we don't really have enough of.

A follow up post addressing another key flaw in their argument will be forthcoming shortly.

Monday What's on the Web: Coal Tattoo

2011-02-21T14:10:00.000-05:00

I like the name "Coal Tattoo" for this blog hosted by the Charleston Gazette. I think it captures the idea of how coal creates a permanent mark on our landscape. This blog covers the coal industry in pretty close detail. Its primary author is Ken Ward, Jr., who has been covering the coal industry for about two decades. Last fall, Joe Romm at Climate Progress singled out Mr. Ward as a "Game Changer" in the fight against climate change. Here's the one-sentence description they use to describe the blog:

This Charleston Gazette blog attempts to build on the newspaper’s longtime coverage of all things coal — with a focus on mountaintop removal, coal-mine safety and climate change.

The blog is quite active and very up to date, averaging about one new post almost every day. Here are some recent representative posts:

Big thanks to Ken Ward for the work he is doing on behalf of the people of the coal mining regions, the workers, and everyone on the planet who is dependent on a stable climate.