By John Addison (4/30/08). Talking with the former Mayor of Curitiba and architect, Jamie Lerner, is like talking with Santiago Calatrava about designing buildings or having an imagined conversation with Frederick Olmsted about designing parks. Jamie Lerner designs cities. More accurately, he helps all create a strategic vision of cities for people, not cities for cars.I talked with Jamie Lerner at the EcoCity World Summit after he delivered his keynote speech to political leaders and urban planners from over seventy countries.

As one of Brazil’s most popular mayors, Lerner was elected three times. He helped transform Curitiba from collection of shanty towns to a beautiful and sustainable city of about two million. At a time when many Latin Americans were disenchanted with their politicians, Jamie Lerner had a 92% approval rating. Following his success as mayor, he served as governor of the state of Parana for 8 years.

In the late sixties, Curitiba had a contest for the best urban design for their city’s future. In 1968, the city incorporated many of the ideas of young architect Lerner into the Curitiba Master Plan. In 1971, he was appointed mayor of Curitiba.

Facing a budget crisis, he had to search for big ideas that could be implemented with little money. He greened the city by involving citizens in planting 1.5 million trees. He solved the city’s flood problems by diverting water into lakes in newly created parks. He lifted some children from poverty by paying teenagers to keep the parks clean.

Educating and involving children are at the heart of solving most problems, from poverty to transportation, observes Governor Lerner.

Any leader will tell you that change is likely to be met with strong resistance. Thinking like an architect, Jamie Lerner wanted to beautify the city with pedestrian boulevards that were car-free. Shop owners were up in arms, fearing that the change would destroy them. Then Mayor Lerner convinced some to take part in a thirty day trial. Shoppers loved it. Before the trial ended, the merchants asked that the pedestrian zone be expanded to include more streets.

Like most cities, Mayor Lerner saw a city with clogged roads that divided where people lived from where they worked. Jamie’s wisdom sparkles with humor, “A car is like a mother-in-law, you must get along but not have her run your life.” He envisioned solidarity. Ecocity Videos

Lerner got the city moving. Curitiba could not afford the light-rail systems of Europe and the U.S. which often cost more than $20 million per mile. Curitiba invented rapid transit using buses.

Bus rapid transit is successful for many reasons. Payment is simple, fixed price regardless of distance traveled. For those without prepaid passes, payment is made when entering bus shelters not while boarding the bus. Curitiba’s shelters are inviting transparent tubes with LED lighting that allow all to wait in safety. Express buses travel on dedicated lanes on major streets. The buses are double articulated to carry up to 300 people per bus, and up to 50,000 per day. Buses arrive frequently. Inviting pedestrian walkways and bikeways bring people to the stations.

Since implementing bus rapid transit, Curitiba’s population of people has tripled, yet its population of cars has declined thirty percent. Governor Lerner explained that there were only 25,000 daily passenger rides on Curitiba buses in 1974. By 2008, there are more than 2.4 million passenger rides daily. In Curitiba, bus rapid transit is far more popular than cars. 85% of the systems use the rapid transit.

Jamie Lerner, the inspiring architect and governor, has been invited around the world to help with new urban design and transportation solutions.

Transit is getting more popular in the United States, with gasoline now at record prices in all fifty states. Increasingly the United States is adopting the secrets of Curitiba. In Los Angeles, when Richard Hunt, Executive Vice President of LAMTA, showed me the Orange Line, the lessons of Curitiba were everywhere. Stations were safe and inviting. Electronic signs displayed minutes until the arrival of the next bus. Fares were paid before boarding the bus, so that there would be no cue delays as people paid drivers. Articulated buses use dedicated bus pathways. During peak hours, buses arrive every three to seven minutes.

The Orange Line has been so popular that ridership not expected until 2020 was achieved in seven months. Soon LAMTA’s bus rapid transit system will cover 35 southern California cities and cover 420 miles.

Chicago has announced similar plans for bus rapid transit. Green Post writer Sarah Lozanova’s article about Chicago.

Bus rapid transit invites millions in U.S. cities such as Las Vegas, Pittsburgh, Boston, Orlando, Miami, Oakland and Kansas City. As America falls into a recession while oil and gasoline prices soar, rapid transit and smart growth urban development provide solutions.

Jamie Lerner has an answer, “cidade não é problema; cidade é solucão.” The city is not a problem; the city is a solution. Cities like Curitiba are model solutions from driving less and enjoying life more.

Copyright (c) 2008 John Addison. Permission to reproduce this article is granted when this copyright notice is preserved. John Addison publishes the Clean Fleet Report.

Fiona Ma was nervous about getting on a train that was about to set a world speed record. Just before Easter 2007 in the countryside outside Paris, she saw the people lining the green and flowered route. The French were flying flags, waving, and cheering. Less reassuring were those of faith who crossed themselves as the new train accelerated past 200 miles per hour. The people blurred into a collage of spring time colors. The train vibrated much as when a jet plane roars down the runway and starts to ascend. Fiona hoped that this train would not leave the tracks.At three hundred miles per hour, the train was still on the tracks, accelerating. Out the window, only one image was distinct. A plane that was filming the historic event flew along side the train. Surrealistically, Fiona and the eleven other dignitaries could see what was filmed from the plane on a screen inside the train. Another LCD displayed their world record - 357 miles per hour on a train. Everyone cheered. The train slowed over the next few miles. Fiona took a deep breath, exhaled, and smiled; she took part in history.

These days, Fiona Ma, needs to find new courage every day. As California Majority Whip, she takes on the tough issues and is a force in making things better. For every important issue, there are vested interests on all sides whether it is better health care, better transportation, stopping global warming, or keeping California’s $1.7 trillion economy moving forward. Among her many responsibilities, Assemblywoman Ma chairs the Legislative High Speed Rail Caucus.

The California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) believe they just may have the answer — an 800 mile statewide high-speed rail system that would serve more than 32 million passengers per year by 2020. Because the rail will be powered by electricity, and because of the efficiency of moving up to 1,200 people per train, CO2 emissions may be reduced by 12 billion pounds per year by 2020, and 18 billion pounds by 2030.

If you have ever been stuck in gridlock trying to get to work between Orange County and LA, or between San Jose and San Francisco, you will appreciate that the high-speed rail would add the equivalent of a 12-lane superhighway. Express high-speed trains will take one hour and fifteen minutes between San Diego and Los Angeles, and a little over two and one-half hours from San Francisco to Los Angeles.

CHSRA is upgrading their 2020 forecast to 68 million, from 32 million, and 94 to 117 million passengers by 2030. As Hall of Fame baseball great Yogi Berra observed, “It is difficult to forecast, especially about the future.” 2020 annual passengers will depend on California voters approving the November bond, matching funding, and regulatory approval. CHSRA forecasts are achievable. By comparison, Europe already provides 250 million annual rides, and Japan over 300 million.

High-speed rail systems, using the new grade-separated high speed lines planned for California have not had one fatality in 41 years. Neither automobiles nor airplanes can match the safety of high speed rail.

California high-speed rail addresses a number of goals. Our current highways cannot support the planned growth to 50 million people. Only the USA and China use more oil than California. If there are more price hikes, or if supply is disrupted by war or terrorism, where will California get its needed billions of gallons of gasoline, diesel and jet fuel? Draughts, likely caused by climate change, are already hurting California agriculture and industry. California is unlikely to meet its targeted reduction of greenhouse gases without high-speed rail. Especially damaging are the greenhouse gas emissions from short-haul air travel. The per passenger greenhouse gas emissions of flying from LA to SF are equivalent of each person driving solo in a large SUV. Carbon Calculator

Although California faces rush-hour gridlock without high-speed rail, a project with a starting price north of $33 billion is certain to face some opposition.

With HSR, it’s about money. Proposed is that Californians approve a bond of $10 billion for one-third of the cost. One-third would be matched by federal funds and one-third by private investment. Although some anticipate cost overruns, more are worried that the price of not acting will be much higher. Because California is implementing AB32, the high-speed rail may be able to sell carbon credits to help finance the project and operations.

Since high-speed rail will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 18 billion pounds per year, you would think that all environment groups would support the measure. While there has been some support, the Sierra Club opposed disrupting environmentally sensitive areas and areas of wildlife migration, specifically in the Los Banos area. Beyond some local opposition, however, the national Sierra Club strongly supports high-speed rail.

Southwest Airlines successfully sued and stopped high-speed rail in Texas in the 1990s. Texas is now staring at a $183 billion price for the Trans Texas Corridor as a 4,000-mile-long stretch of 10 auto lanes and six railroad tracks for high-speed freight and commuter trains. This is over twenty times higher than if they had not been stopped from implementing high-speed rail years ago. Opponents of high-speed rail carefully follow Mark Twain’s advice, “Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.”

Airlines may not oppose high-speed rail. Today, Southwest cannot get the expanded gates and routes in California due to lack of airport expansion everywhere from San Diego to Los Angeles to San Francisco. Some airlines may support high-speed rail as it will more easily bring people to SFO and be part of bringing passengers to other airports more quickly.

Most are optimistic that voters will approve a bond issue for high-speed rail. Voters are faced with record gasoline prices and concern about California’s economic future. More people are commuting longer distances as they are unable to sell their homes in today’s difficult real estate market.

The major concerns are addressed in new legislation proposed by Assemblywomen Cathleen Galgiani and Fiona Ma - AB 3034 “Safe, Reliable High-Speed Passenger Train Bond Act for the 21st Century.” The governor wanted more private funding of the rail. The new bill allows for private rail funding provided by law. The Sierra Club does not want a Los Banos station. The new bill provides: “Preserving wildlife corridors and mitigating impacts to wildlife movement, where feasible as determined by the authority…” Also the bill, “Prohibits a high-speed train station between Gilroy and Merced.”

On April 14, the legislative committee approved the bill with 10 voting yes and no one opposing. It is expected to get the approval of the full Assembly and Senate and the Governor. Read the Bill and Post your Comment

Even if voters approve the bond, high-speed rail will not move forward unless there are matching federal funds. Congressman Jim Costa believes that will happen. As he states in his op-ed: “Congress has begun to take action to help make the idea of high-speed rail in California a reality. Two bills I introduced, HR 4122 the American Investment in Safe, Reliable High Speed Rail Act and HR 4123, the High-Speed Rail Authority Development and Formation Act, will help bring federal dollars to California to invest in the proposed high-speed rail system. The Senate also passed S. 294, which will help high-speed rail development in America…. Overall, for every dollar invested in this system, we will see two dollars in return.” Capitol Weekly Article

Will Californians park their cars and ride the rails? Last year, LAMTA carried 64 million riders. In the Bay Area, BART carried 47 million riders. With gasoline prices rocketing, Amtrak ridership on the Capitol City Corridor is up 16% this March over a year ago; on the San Joaquins it has jumped 27%. Although Californians will not exclusively ride rails and rapid transit, but they will ride more and drive less. In fact, high speed rail will integrate with public transportation. All 25 HSR stations will be multi-modal. For example, to get to Sacramento I currently take BART to Richmond, then get on Amtrak in the same station.

As a manager covering several states, I used to travel weekly on airplanes. Point-to-point always required at least four hours to get to the airport, get thru security, taxi in the runway, fly, taxi in the runway, then rent a car. In contrast, when taking a train from Washington D.C. to New York, I found that train travel was faster than airlines and better integrated with public transportation. With high-speed rail, airline travel to cover a few hundred miles would never be a personal option.

Travel between Washington D.C. and Boston is now even faster with speeds of up to 150 miles per hour on Amtrak’s Acela, the only high-speed rail in the United States. Now you can get from the nation’s capital to downtown Manhattan in less than three hours; an impossibility with airline travel and the fastest taxi driver in New York history. Over ten million passengers road this Northeast Corridor in 2007, making it the most popular train route in the U.S. Acela is now profitable.

In 12 years, 32 to 68 million passengers may be riding on an even faster system in California. The high-speed rail will keep California’s economy moving forward, with more jobs, more energy security and far less emissions.

Copyright (c) 2008 John Addison. This article may be reproduced if it preserves this copyright notice. John Addison publishes the Clean Fleet Report.

Food prices have rocketed 83% in the past three years. The World Bank just released the figures. If you are trying to raise a family in much of the world, you are already painfully aware of the crisis. There are a number of causes that are likely to be linked to a climate crisis caused by increased greenhouse gases: draught, groundwater scarcity, eroded soil, disease, and food being used to make biofuel. 

People ask if I could provide guidelines on green ratings. There are a number of wonderful organizations with helpful guides to reduce our emissions, often saving money in the process. The following are excellent:

Carbon Calculator & Going Carbon Neutral

www.carbonfund.org

Green Guides

http://www.treehugger.com/gogreen.php

Energy Efficient Homes, Appliances, Lights

http://www.energystar.gov/

Buildings and Communities

http://www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CMSPageID=222

Fuel Efficient Cars and Transportation

www.Fueleconomy.gov

www.cleanfleetreport.com

Consumer Products

http://www.greenerchoices.org/

Food and Water

http://www.localharvest.org/

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/12/how_to_green_your_water.php

http://edf.org/page.cfm?tagID=1521

Corporations

http://www.innovestgroup.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=169&Itemid=61

http://www.cleanedge.com/

U.S. Cities

http://www.sustainlane.com/us-city-rankings/

Enjoy Earth Day,

John Addison

By John Addison. Like all great universities, the University of California at San Diego, must either spend millions for car parking or spend millions for improved transportation. Using transportation demand management, UC San Diego is spending millions less in both areas.

27,500 students attend the university. “We encourage commuters to use alternate forms of transportation,” said Brian d’Autremont, TPS director. “Approximately 43 percent of UC San Diego commuters use some form of alternative transportation, including, bikes, buses, trains and vanpools.” In addition, last fall UC San Diego reduced the number of single occupancy vehicles on campus by 800 cars.

UC San Diego uses AlterNetRides as a platform, making it easy for staff and students to be matched with the van pool or carpool that best meets their destinations and schedules. Use of HOV lanes and access to preferred parking make shared rides considerably faster. Zipcar on campus makes cars available by the hour, helping students avoid the need for owning a car.

In 2006, UC San Diego doubled the number of people riding buses on campus. A key to this growth was establishing the best routes and schedules. UC San Diego uses realtime tracking and demand management software to do this. The University uses a hosted customized application from Syncromatics, which performs realtime tracking with GPS and cellular communication to determine the location and speed of each bus.

Another big payoff of UC San Diego’s alternative transportation is a reduction in needed parking spaces. Each spot in a parking structure costs the university $22,000 to $29,000.

More people will ride on transit if they know how to get to their destination and if long waits are not necessary. The Syncromatics realtime tracking system which integrates with Google Maps to show actual bus locations on an LCD in the student lounge, on arrival signage, on mobile devices, and even in text messages. Ridership continues to grow. Realtime Display

UC San Diego is supporting energy independence and climate solutions by encouraging clean transportation. The university fleet also is becoming more fuel efficient. Over time, the university’s 50-plus buses will be converted to hybrid CNG, reducing their emissions. UC San Diego Article The University is also purchasing 225 electric vehicles and 32 hybrid vehicles for its fleet.

The importance of climate solutions is integral to the institution. UC San Diego evolved from the Scripps Institute of Oceanography under the leadership of Roger Revelle, who with Charles Keeling first measured the growing atmospheric concentration of CO2. Revelle College is one of six of the university’s colleges. The National Academy of Sciences recognizes UC San Diego as one of the top ten science universities in the nation. Professors include Nobel Laureates Paul Crutzen and Mario Molina whose chemistry research with Sherwood Rowland lead to the discovery of the ozone hole and the Montreal Protocol.

The University of California has made a system-wide commitment to reduce carbon emissions, energy consumption and reliance on imported fossil fuels. The University supports and adheres to the UC Policy on Green Building Design, Clean Energy Standard, and Sustainable Transportation Practices.

Universities and Colleges are leading in many areas of transportation demand management. An encyclopedia of best practices is available at the Victoria Institute.

John Addison speaks at conferences and publishes the Clean Fleet Report.

Now you can save $1,000 per year, reduce stress and improve your health. How? Never face rush hour alone. Increasingly people are using one or more approaches to avoiding lost hours in gridlock: participating in flexible work, using the HOV lane, riding public transit, and walking. AAA determined that many drivers spend about $8,000 driving their vehicle. Save a $1,000 of that by using one of these strategies.

1. In the Oil and Coal Age, everyone drove solo during gridlock hours to their one work location to toil over their designated machine. Now people are most effective working some days at one location, other times at home, others at a customer or supplier locations. We can take advantage of the new flexible workplace solutions to annually save hundreds of wasted hours, thousands of gallons of wasted gas, and pocket thousands of dollars. Hewlett Packard saves over 2 million round-trip commutes for its North American employees with an effective Telework program. Info tech meets cleantech.

The semiconductor chips in your computers, electronic games and mobile devices are likely to be made with equipment from Applied Materials. Their program, "Applied Anywhere," addresses their global business environment and provides agility to be closer to the customer as well as supporting the needs of many employees who perform some or their entire job outside the traditional office place. The program “Applied Anywhere” supports eligible employees that at different times may need to work from one of several corporate offices, at home, at an airport, or at a customer site.

Investigate your employer’s flexible work program or simply spend the next rush hour working at home.

2. It is a joy to sail past gridlock traffic in the High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lane. HOV lanes have been a major success in encouraging people to save gas and ride together. A common requirement is that the lane only be used by vehicles with two or more passengers during designated rush hours. It is easy to join a carpool. See if there is one organized at work, or go to your favorite Internet site and type “carpool” and your zip code.

3. Public transit saved 1.4 billion gallons of gasoline in the USA in 2006. Public transit ridership increased 25% in ten years. 56% of transit trips are work related. Public transit is widely used in cities where light rail and buses are convenient and arrive frequently. 73% of all U.S. public transit rides occur in areas with over 5 million people. Most people in New York and many in Chicago commute to work with public transit.

Lauren Hurley loves living in Chicago. She finds the city alive with people, career opportunities, and places to be. Unlike her bedroom community friends, Lauren does not own a car. She can walk to the grocery store, to friends, and to neighborhood cafe.

Chicago’s bus service takes her to a stop that is a two minute walk to work. Being environmentally concerned, Lauren likes the fact that per person, riding a bus results in only 20% of the greenhouse gas emissions of driving solo. Lauren would not want a car in Chicago, “Parking is a major hassle. Parking lots and parking tickets are quite expensive. Public transit and taxis are more convenient.”

4. Enjoy a long life. Walk an extra mile each day to improve your health and burn extra calories. You will also help the environment. Next time you are stuck waiting for a parking place, considering parking the car, turning off that engine spewing emissions and walking.

In Washington D.C., eleven percent of the residents walk to work. An added 34% of commuters use public transit combined with some walking.

Ellen De Generes quipped, “My grandmother, she started walking five miles a day when she was 60. She’s 97 today, and we don’t know where the heck she is.”

John Addison is the author of the upcoming book Save Gas, Save the Planet and publishes the Clean Fleet Report. This article is copyright John Addison with permission to publish or excerpt with attribution. A related article about Flexible Work and Cool Commutes is at http://www.cleanfleetreport.com/vault/cool_commutes.htm