How Green a Cyclist are You?

Take the test here.

Bicycle Act:

"Whereas a national transportation system conducive to bicycling produces enriched health, reduced traffic congestion and air pollution, economic vitality, and an overall improved quality of living is valuable for the Nation...

Whereas by dramatically increasing levels of bicycling in United States cities tangible and intangible benefits to the quality of life for cities and towns across the country will be realized...

Whereas bicycle commuters annually save on average $1,825 in auto-related costs, reduce their carbon emissions by 128 pounds, conserve 145 gallons of gasoline, and avoid 50 hours of gridlock traffic...

Now, therefore, be it Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That the Congress-- (1) recognizes that increased and safe bicycle use for transportation and recreation is in the national interest... "

Sound like a dream?  Read more here.

The Complete Streets Movement:

Communities around the nation are rethinking the Streets=Automobile Arteries paradigm that has dominated much of American post WWII planning.  Efforts to make streets more congenial to *all* forms of transportation.  Also known as "The Complete Streets" movement is explored here.

Bicycling and Moral Priorities:

Students Given Free Bikes to Pledge No Cars:

What a great idea.  Have freshmen pledge to not bring a car to campus and reward them with a free bike.  Read more here.

Could Wesleyan try this?  What about with Faculty and Staff?  What about Middlesex Hospital or other large employers in town?

The Environmental Cost of Suburbanization and the McMansion Phenomena:

The New York Times had an interesting piece on the environmental cost of suburban living.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/10/fashion/10suburbs.html

Together with an article in this month's Atlantic on the projected 'slummification' of all those McMansions built in the 1980s and 1990s (and still today), the future of the suburbs looks pretty bleak.  And the future of towns like Middletown looks pretty good.  (Russell Library gets the Atlantic, as does the excellent library at Middlesex Community College -- where you can sit in a room with a tremendous view of Middletown.)

But a pressing question for Middletown given these stories, particularly in light of tonight's Parking Study Group meeting, is: How to undo the 'suburbification' of so many of Middletown's neighborhoods, where residents are entirely dependent on their automobiles despite living within a mile or two (or three) of downtown?  Certainly a bike path will be a major step in the right direction, but perhaps we also need more sidewalks, more -- and more frequent -- bus routes (with smaller, greener buses), and more and better crosswalks (and pedestrian-friendly crosswalk laws) across
major traffic arteries.

Vijay Pinch

Portland Oregon, Creating a 2-Wheeled Culture:

John Elmore found this article on Portland and how a focus on cycling infrastructure has really helped create a two-wheeled commuting and neighborhood shopping culture.  Just the thing that Middletown could benefit from.

The Benefits of Biking:

Allison Burson sent us this article looking at the benefits of cycling.

How Does Wesleyan Compare?

The 2008 College Sustainability Report gives some interesting information on how Wesleyan is doing.  Note the part on Transportation:

Transportation C (grade): The university has purchased two electric cars and has ordered two electric DYMAC trucks for use as waste management vehicles on campus. The public safety department is considering the use of a hybrid vehicle for patrols on campus. A student group has designed and expects to implement a bicycle repair program to distribute abandoned bikes to students, faculty, and staff.

Read the full PDF here.

Bicycle Tracks:

Sharing/Borrowing Someone's Bicycle:

Smart Growth - by Vijay Pinch:

The Hartford Courant has had couple of articles on smart growth.

The first, by Tom Condon, examines the appropriation of the term "smart growth" by developers, comparing it to the way the term "natural" was leveraged by mega-corporations in the 1970s to market junk.  Eventually the meaninglessness of the term "natural" prompted foodies to turn to "organic" and the creation of real standards for certification.  Condon implies that we need a similar semantic and regulatory shift in approach to "smart growth."  A major problem he points to is the tendency to create housing developments, particularly "active adult communities", in areas that are not connected to public transportation.

The other piece, by James Repass of the National Corridors Initiative, describes the success of the Boston to Portland Amtrak line (the DownEaster) in stimulating the regional economy and bringing old, struggling communities that had been bypassed by I-95 back to life.  Repass then turns our attention to the proposed New Haven-Hartford-Springfield line, which is the southern segment of
what is being referred to in regional transportation planning circles as the "Knowledge Corridor" (Amherst-Hartford-Meriden-New Haven).  This has the potential to be equally transformative for the southern New England economy.

Together, these pieces raise an important question for Middletown.  How "smart" is our own "smart growth" in the downtown given our extremely limited transportation options?  Many of the people who live in Middletown don't work in Middletown.  And why shouldn't they?  Middletown is a great place to live, especially  (as Ed McKeon has been pointing out recently in his fine blog) downtown Middletown.  People who live in Middletown but work in, say, Hartford or New Haven or Meriden have to drive their cars to get to work -- though some intrepid souls ride their bikes (more power to them).  The city and the Richman Group is now putting the finishing touches on a major (96-unit) downtown housing development, "Wharfside Commons", on Ferry Street.  Unless there is some kind of workplace-residency requirement that I am unaware of, many if not most of the future renters of those apartments will work somewhere other than Middletown.  They will have to drive (or ride bikes) to get there and back.

More downtown housing is a great idea.  We can disagree about the scale and density, and about whether it should be affordable housing, or market rate.  (My own view is that Middletown has plenty of affordable housing, especially in the downtown neighborhoods.)  But we desperately need public transportation links to our nearby urban centers.  We need to be connected to the "Knowledge Corridor".

We have, instead, a brand-new four-lane highway to Meriden.  Let's do something smart with it.

Midstate Regional Transportation Report - a summary by Vijay Pinch:

The Midstate Regional Transportation Report.  A principal member of the regional planning agency that authored the report is, incidentally, our own Lee Osborne, downtown resident.

It does make for great reading.  For example, of the 30,000 plus jobs located in Middletown, close to 8000 are filled by people living in Middletown (these are all based on 2000 census statistics).  (One
wonders how many of these folks walk or bike to work.)  Just over 1000 come from Cromwell, 600+ from Durham, 600+ from East Haddam, nearly 1600 from East Hampton, 1100+ from Haddam, 500+ from Middlefield, almost 1000 from Portland.  This produces the over 14,000 people from within the region who work in Middletown.  An additional 16,000+ come from "non-regional" origins -- in other
words, outside the Mid-State authority area which is defined by the towns mentioned (e.g., Guilford, West Hartford, Madison, New Haven, East Hartford, etc.).

The study authors point out that the vast majority of the people drive to work in single occupancy vehicles.  Middlefield had the highest percentage of such drivers at 98.1%.  Middletown had the
highest percentage of people using public transportation at a (paltry) 1.7%.  Haddamites had the highest number of carpoolers, at 10%.  Of course, the Haddam people are also carpooling to jobs elsewhere, like New Haven or other points along the shoreline.  But just imagine what could be achieved in terms of reducing traffic congestion simply by creating a serious bus system in and around Middletown, linking (for starters) the immediately adjacent towns of Portland, Middlefield, Durham, and Cromwell.

Also interesting are the work-travel data for people who live in Middletown.  Of the 22,000+ workers who list Middletown as their residence, less than 8000 work in Middletown.  Over 11,500 work out
of the Mid-State area (mostly Hartford and New Haven, I would guess).  That leaves about 2500 who work in the regional towns but not in Middletown.  What most Middletowners who do not work in town need, then, is public transportation links to towns that are outside the regional planning area.

Regardless of how we slice it up, the single most important lesson to be taken away from all this is that we need a much better network of public transportation serving Middletown and the surrounding area, both within and without the mid-state region and better facilities for alternative mobility like bikes and walking (so that people who live, say, on Highland, don't have to get in their cars to get anywhere safely).