Each year the Monitor shares some brief descriptions of ideas which may be worthy of wider interest in the region.
Community Greens, an organization based in Arlington, VA, is working with community groups and local governments to encourage the development of shared green spaces within urban blocks in cities across the US. Two local projects featured on the Community Greens Website are Stoney Creek in Livermore, built by Eden Housing, and St. Francis Square in San Francisco, an affordable cooperative apartment development built by the ILWU. Other projects include Jackson Heights in New Yorkthe original "garden apartments"and sites in Baltimore and Minneapolis.
In a related move, San Jose is buying up buildings in older, crowded neighborhoods, tearing them down and using the space for parks. Common green spaces are also an amenity in "cottage" developments in Washington State, where developers are creating smaller homes with shared gardens or courtyards as infill projects. The cottages are popular with one- and two-person households.
For more information: http://www.communitygreens.org; http://www.cottagecompany.com, or http://www.rosschapin.com
"Rain gardens" are designed to capture runoff from impervious surfaces to recharge groundwater levels, and they can also prevent flooding.
Rain gardens are designed with a base level of sand and gravel under a soil layer which contains plants. During a rainy period, water soaks the soil layer and percolates into the sand and gravel layer which acts as a sump to hold the water and let it slowly penetrate the less-permeable ground below. This prevents the rainwater from flowing rapidly across a paved surface into a stream or pond, creating flooding and erosion, or overloading storm drains.
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin are working on rain garden designs which are appropriate for particular purposes. The gardens can be incorporated into many community settings, counteracting the increase in impermeable surfaces caused by development.
For more information: http://clean-water.uwex.edu/pubs/raingarden/gardens.pdf
Working with large employers may be one answer to improving the jobs/housing balance. In Seattle, employers such as Boeing, a major bank and the city library system are using a computer matching system to compare employees' job skills and locations to home locations. Employees who could work in sites closer to home are then offered job transfers, reducing their commutes. Estimates indicate that applying this to the 53% of Boeing employees who qualify would eliminate 168 million miles of driving each year, with savings in gas consumption and air pollution to match.
Taxis and other fleets of heavy-duty vehicles in Los Angeles are beginning to move to low-emission vehicles under a South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) rule which became effective in January. Airport taxi drivers are now required to buy clean-burning vehicles when they add new vehicles or replace older gasoline-burning taxis. An exemption is available if funding is not available to reduce the taxi owner's cost to $10,000 for a natural gas-fueled vehicle. The district approved $2.9 million in incentive funds in February to assist in purchasing natural gas vehicles for the airport taxi fleet.
The heavy-duty fleet rule requires operators of public fleets with more than 15 vehicles to purchase only vehicles which use alternative fuels, or use gasoline or diesel in combination with something cleaner. The rule affects cars, buses and other public vehicles such as street sweepers.
More alternative fuels are becoming available to meet new requirements such as the SCAQMD rules. The San Francisco Bay Area Water Transit Authority and Tri-Delta Transit have tested a diesel-water mixture known as PuriNOx that reduces nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions and particulate matter.
Both agencies found the test results promising. Biodiesel continues to shine as an alternative fuel, with Alameda's public utility, Alameda Power and Telecom, shifting to biodiesel to fuel backup generators used to prevent power outages.
Palo Alto is the first Bay Area city to try a neighborhood "pace car" program, which began recently in the area along Ross Road between Colorado and Loma Verde avenues. Participants, who display a program bumper sticker, agree to drive within the speed limit, stop for pedestrians, stop at all signs and obey some additional road-safety rules. The program, which originated in Australia and spread to the Bay Area via Idaho, relies on the concept of leading by example to create safer road conditions in neighborhoods for pedestrians and bicyclists as well as drivers.
For more information: City of Palo Alto, 650-329-2552.
The League of Women Voters of the Bay Area recently completed a "white paper" on existing and potential intermodal hubs in the Bay Area. The paper was based on interviews with transportation officials around the region. It may be read online at http://www.lwvba-ca.org.