Expat Thanksgiving in London

Happy Thanksgiving!

I had to work today, but my job was nice enough to let me blog about one Thanksgiving tradition. Click here for my “Black Friday Shopping” clip on World Reviewer.

This year I’m thankful for 1. Gmail letting me call my family for free 2. My experience in London 3. My friends (especially those visiting from Rome) and 4. The new friends here who put together such a nice (vegetarian friendly) Thanksgiving dinner here in London

New York City May Plank the Way to Sustainable Boardwalk Design

Originally published at http://americancity.org/buzz/entry/2546/

Christine Fisher | Sep 8th, 2010 | Topics: Infrastructure | Region: East Coast | Cities: New York

Photo Credit: Phillie Casablanca

With summer still fresh on the mind, it is easy to conjure up memories of beach trips, walks and bike rides along coastal boardwalks. Delve deeper into these bright, carefree memories though, and you may just find yourself standing atop a highly debated environmental issue. That is, you may discover the boardwalk you stood, walked, or biked on is made of tropical hardwood, a valuable rain forest timber being logged for urban use.

In New York City recently, Manhattan architect Scott Francisco thrust this issue into the spotlight. The use of tropical hardwood on city boardwalks and other infrastructure is a long-debated topic, and New York City is no stranger to the issue. The Brooklyn Bridge boardwalk, with 11,000 tropical wood planks, is just one of the many icons at the heart of this issue. Though some favor tropical hardwood for its aesthetic, Mayor Bloomberg is committed to reducing the amount of tropical hardwood the city uses, and countless activist groups work to protect the rainforest’s timber supply.

Francisco wants to ensure the Brooklyn Bridge boardwalk will always be planked with natural wood, and to do so, he isproposing a plan that he hopes environmental advocates will approve. His initiative, The Brooklyn Bridge Forest, aims to create a 2,000-10,000 acre forest to sustainably grow tropical hardwood specifically for the bridge’s boardwalk planks. That way, as the boards wear out, they can be replaced with this timber and without permanently destroying acres of rainforest.

Tropical hardwood is ideal for boardwalks because, even with high foot traffic, it can last up to 35 years. Because of its durability, the wood is extremely popular in cities across the country. In New York City alone, 12.5 miles of coastal boardwalks have been converted to this tropical hardwood. Estimates say this required approximately 10 million board feet and the logging of over 130,000 acres of Amazon rainforest. Attention to the issue is not lacking. In 2008, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced his plan for reducing the city’s use of tropical hardwoods before the United Nations General Assembly.

While Francisco values sustainability, he also values the iconic nature of the Brooklyn Bridge, and he feels the boardwalk should thus be made of natural wood. He notes that the wood has a different feel than other green alternatives, many of which he adds are not actually as environmentally friendly as natural wood.

Though plans are still in the works, the project is already committed to meeting Forest Stewardship Council standards and to allowing visitors to experience the forest. The project hopes to get at least 11,000 committed sponsors and to have the project up and running before the boardwalk planks need to be replaced (6-8 years by their estimates). Sponsor specifics are still in the works, but it is estimated sponsoring one plank will cost approximately $1,000. Additionally, the project seeks companies and organizations to sponsor research and development.

More information on the project, still in its early stages, can be found at http://www.brooklynbridgeforest.com

New York City and Washington D.C. Promote Green Transportation

Christine Fisher | Jul 21st, 2010 | Topics: Infrastructure | Region: East Coast | Cities: New York, Washington, D.C. |

Credit: Adventures of Pam & Frank

Two of the country’s premier East Coast cities are using this summer to get a jump-start on progressive plans for environmentally conscious transit. Last week on July 14, New York City, in partnership with HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan and Coulomb Technologies CEO Richard Lowenthal, announced the installation of the first of the 100 electric-vehicle charging stations that the city plans to install this summer. In Washington D.C. this week, Capital BikeShare, a city funded program, announced the locations of its 100 anticipated bike share stations, set to be in use this fall.

New York City’s step toward more environmentally conscious transit is part of Coulomb Technologies’ ChargePoint America pilot program. A leader in electric vehicle charging infrastructure, Coulomb Technologies plans to install 4,600 personal and public charging stations in nine cities across the country. The project has a $37 million price tag largely funded by The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act’s Transportation Electrification Initiative.

The metropolitan New York City area will receive 100 of the proposed 4,600 charging stations. Mayor Bloombergattributes the country’s lacking electric vehicle use to a chicken-and-the-egg scenario, in which consumers do not buy electric vehicles because the infrastructure is not there to support them and the infrastructure is not built because the demand is not there to support it. Bloomberg hopes ChargePoint America will change this, and the city plans to promote demand for both vehicles and infrastructure by adding electric vehicles to its SCOUT fleet, which monitors street conditions, and through continued promotion of gas-electric hybrid taxis.

Plans for increased green-transit infrastructure were announced in Washington D.C. as well. In D.C.’s case, this week’s announcement unveiled 100 proposed locations for Capital BikeShare bicycle pick-up/drop-off stations. Capital BikeShare, a city-funded program, has been created in response to the high demand for shared bicycles generated by theSmartbike DC program. Smartbike DC, which when launched in 2008 was the first bike-sharing program of its kind, met such success that the District Department of Transportation decided to expand the program by creating Capital BikeShare.

The initiative aims to have the 100 pick-up/drop-off stations running by this fall. The stations will make 1,000 bicycles available to city residents and visitors alike at membership rates of $80 per year, $30 per month or $5 per day. Members will be able to pick up a bicycle at one station and return it to one of the 99 others located around the city. Concentrated downtown and at strategic points, the locations are intended to help fill the gaps left by transportation options that are lacking or overcrowded.

As both Capital BikeShare and ChargePoint America aim to establish infrastructure that can be used long term, they hope to set an example for the rest of the country. Already ChargePoint has plans to operate stations in Washington state, California, Texas, Michigan, Washington D.C. and Florida, and Capital BikeShare is using Bixi, a public biking system also used internationally and nationally in Arlington, VA and Washington State University. With major progress being made this summer, it appears both programs have the momentum to make change in their cities and promote it across the country.