Feb

3

Re: Green Transit

Filed Under Environment, Great City, Innovation, Transit, Transportation, Uncategorized | 3 Comments

In the comments of Michael’s post, Josh throws it down.

Bait accepted…

A very similar set of questions went around the office the other day.  Nice for us in the Pacific Northwest we have tons of options for ways to deal with planted surfaces that are low maintenance and easy to apply in the right-of-way.  The first thing that came to mind for me was sedums. These are the tough-as-nails plants that love sun and are often used for green roofs. We have several native varieties that would do really well including the lance-leaved stone crop (Sedum lanceolatum), Oregon stonecrop (Sedum oreganum), or Broad-leaved stonecrop (Sedum spathulifolium). I particularly dig the Oregon stonecrop due to it’s more vigorous coverage, waxy leaves and punk-rock yellow flowers in the summer.

image via Wild Ginger Farms
image via Wild Ginger Farms

There are plent of other options of low growing plants that we see all the time in the right of way, but the sedum is more interesting, I think. Beach strawberry (Fragaria chiloensis), periwinkle (Vinca spp.) and Ornamental raspberry (Rubus calcynoides) would all do well.   But anything is better than this, right?

Image via Sound Transit
Image via Sound Transit

Jan

30

Growing Green for less Green

Filed Under Development, Environment, Great City, Innovation | Leave a Comment

More of these please... (via flickr user bmaryman)

More of these please... (via flickr user bmaryman)

For years, industry officials, planners, architects and landscape architects have been singing the praises of green roofs. But reports from around the country have also noted that in order for green roofs to be implemented, government needs to provide incentives.

The reason that relatively few green roofs have been implemented is largely due to concerns about warranties, membranes, liability, cost, etc etc….all of the “real world” ideas that get in the way of us getting sustainable solutions today.

All of which is why sustainable policy makers matter just as much as “green builders and developers”. That’s why it is exciting to note that Washington’s own Maria Cantwell is getting digital props from folks like the American Society of Landscape Architects and Green Roofs for Healthy Cities.

From the ASLA’s e-blast:

Senator Maria Cantwell (WA) introduced the Clean Energy Stimulus and Investment Assurance Act of 2009 (S.320), legislation geared toward creating high-wage green-collar jobs and revitalizing the economy through clean energy investments. ASLA worked with Senator Cantwell’s office to ensure that a section of the bill was dedicated to green roof tax incentives.

Section 506 of the bill gives a 30% tax credit for qualified green roof property expenditures on residential and commercial buildings. The language puts the cap at $5000 on residential buildings, and no cap for commercial buildings. The bill outlines specific, ASLA-recommended language, defining ‘qualified green roofs’ to mean any green roof at least 50 percent of which is a vegetated green roof system. The credit applies to any retrofit or new construction green roof.

Let’s hope it goes on and get passed into law. We all know that SAM could use a little relief after WaMu, nee Chase,  jumped ship on it’s green roof, pictured above.

Jan

23

shovel ready?

Filed Under Alaskan Way Viaduct, Community, Environment, From A to Green, Innovation, Neighborhoods, Parks, Pedestrians, Spokane St. Viaduct project, Streets For People, Transit, Transportation, Zoning | 3 Comments

Is anyone else sick of hearing the phrase ‘shovel ready’ in reference to stimulating the economy and rehabilitating our infrastructure? Most projects that are truly shovel ready (drawings, check. permits, check. fire up the bulldozer!) aren’t what will truly aid the regeneration of 21st century cities. They are very likely to be things like road widenings and interchanges that fuel sprawl and shred urban fabric. Some estimates suggest that three quarters of infrastructure stimulus funding will be for roads. The other quarter will be used to buy the silence of all us bike, tree, transit, urbanism, art, ped, waterfront, etc. advocates. We’ll all get in line and try to get a few good things done with the crumbs from the stimulus table, but can’t we HOPE for more?

Republicans are already rallying around giving more money to rich people instead because even the shovel ready projects can’t get started until 2010. I saw a CNN interviewer chew out a mayor that requested money for parks and trails in his city’s stimulus package. She asked him if he was ashamed of himself since everyone knows those aren’t ‘real’ infrastructure projects like roads and bridges. Frankly, i’d rather leave our economy a little less stimulated than waste the resources of many generations on the shovel ready road projects cluttering the shelves our our state highway departments.

Eighty years ago the united states stimulated itself out of a depression, but also made civic art of our public works. will a random-ass extra lane to redmond be viewed as such eighty years from now? And don’t forget that after this splurge funding of all types, perhaps for decades, will be diminished to pay for this bump. Whether we get it right or wrong now, we’ll be paying for it for a long time to come. So it is time for all urban and environmental minded folks to remind our politicians that great projects in this day and age-reconnecting seattle to a healthy puget sound, mass transit and mobility options, vibrant neighborhoods, and a robust network of green infrastructure-are complex in a good way. They will need talented artists, NGOs, designers, engineers, lawyers (yes, even them), inventors, community organizers, legislators, and developers to make sure the bulldozers and shovels are headed in the right direction on the right projects. If we want to strengthen the economic and environmental foundations of cities for the long-term, we don’t want to waste this opportunity on what happened to be shovel ready in the panic of 2008. we need pencil ready, people ready, carbon ready, future ready!

I’d be interested in your thoughts on how we can shift the messaging on this subject.

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