The World's Fastest Train Service

Most Americans do not see any reason to construct high speed rail in the country. Why would anyone want to ride a train when they can just fly? There are of course a slew of environmental ramifications of mass airplane travel, but beyond even these, I have always argued that high speed rail makes a ton of sense. Up until now, the only high speed rail I’d ever been on was in Sweden, on my way back to Lund from the Arctic Circle. Even at high speeds, that trip still took 24 hours – an amount of time that certainly makes even the extraordinarily expensive flight much more attractive.

Thus it was with personal excitement and academic curiosity that I decided to take a ride on the world’s fastest train service. Part of the almost finished high-speed rail from Beijing to Guangzhou – essentially from the far north to the far south of the country – the Wuhan-Guangzhou line covers almost 1000km in just over 3 hours. That’s an average of around 300km/hr, and at its fastest, the train hits something like 350km/hr. For those metrically challenged (don’t feel bad, I used a converter), that’s like 210mph, and right around 190mph on average. It is right now, by far, the fastest train ride on the planet, with higher sustained speeds over longer distances than ever before. When the full line is completed, the trip from Beijing to Guangzhou – which used to take over 24 hours – will be cut in a third, to just eight hours. While still longer than the three-to-four hours it takes to fly between the two places, these are speeds and times that truly do make train travel competitive with flights.

Technical specifications aside, what is the actual trip like? Well, fast of course. It is not the max speeds that are most impressive, it is the ability of the train to sustain these speeds that is truly mind-boggling. I’ve been hurtling along this track for over two hours at an almost continuous 200mph. The outside world is just a blur. Inside, besides being a bit too warm, its quite comfortable. The seats, five per row, arranged in a 3-2 format, are larger than your average economy seat, and the legroom is better too. You can buy drinks, snacks, coffee, and of course, instant noodles. The restrooms are clean and well lit, and the cars still look mostly new and no worse for the wear. There are power outlets available, overhead luggage storage, large windows to look out of, and nifty automatic sliding doors between cars. The train rides mostly on an elevated track, which means obstructions are likely harder to find on the rail itself. Tickets are expensive, which means that ridership is economically filtered. The mix is mostly business people and more well-to-do travelers, but that doesn’t mean people don’t still bring their own food and snacks on board. They run nearly a train an hour, and with at least 8 cars per train, the sheer number of economically filtered people still able to take this train is pretty incredible, especially considering my train was almost full. I’ve also found that the high speeds of the train have made my cell signal pretty spotty. That’s a small price to pay however.

Of course, it must be said, there is a dark side, or at least a less bright side, to the high speed rail construction here in China, a characteristic of the country that would make its duplication elsewhere (like the US) very difficult. Namely, the government here gets to do what it wants, where it wants, when it wants. They built a new railway station in Wuhan expressly for the high-speed rail, a behemoth of a station something like 18 platforms. It is surrounded by… nothing. Absolutely nothing, but dirt, and now, construction. The government has placed the high speed rail at the very edge of the city and is now hard at work bringing the city to the station, building entire swaths of residential areas literally from the ground up. The Changsha station, in Hunan province, was similarly isolated, and from the looks on the map, the end station in Guangzhou will be the same. There are technical reasons for this – in order to maintain high speeds, the rail should stay away from populated areas. Traveling through the middle of urban areas means slowing down. All along the rail line, there are stories of land being seized by the government for rail use, and who can guess how much of the environmental good from high speed rail has been offset by the footprint of all of this new building?

Another consequence of this type of rail routing is that one of the biggest advantages of traditional rail – that of being able to get off the train in what is almost always the middle of the city (think of London or Paris or New York) is now gone. Instead, it took an hour by taxi for me to get to the Wuhan station, and it took me an hour and a couple transfers on the subway system in Guangzhou to get to a different train station to catch my train to Shenzhen. This is a big trade-off in my opinion, making traveling by high speed rail unfortunately more close to the hassles of traveling by plane. I love the fact that I can step off the train and be right in the middle of all of the action. I don’t like ending up in an airport like Tokyo’s Narita or Seoul’s Incheon and having to make a one hour connection to get to the city. It’s so anti-climactic. Yet, to get these high average speeds, this trade-off may indeed be necessary and further, I have no doubt that the government will somehow connect these cities to these stations, either through convenient mass transit or by simply building the city so that the new train station is indeed in the middle of it all.

Everything else aside, high speed rail is still in its infancy here in China. It is very clear though that the central government has made a huge commitment to high speed rail (despite some anecdotal rumblings I heard from local friends about the lack of necessity, the high costs, and the age-old, why not just fly? Argument). There are numerous lines opening up everywhere in the country, and the government is on track to creating the largest and fastest high-speed rail network in the world. It is a stunningly ambitious and exciting. While there are still lots of kinks to iron out, my experience is that high speed rail truly may be the future of travel. Routes like the one I took – 1000 or so kilometers in three hours – are highly competitive with flights when you factor in all of the extra time it takes to fly these days. I’ve always said a two hour high-speed train from LA to San Francisco would be both completely feasible as well as highly competitive with flying. Unfortunately, it will be many years before we finally see this happening in the US. For now, if you for some reason find yourself in China with a few hours to kill, hop on a train and get a taste of the future.

First ten minutes of the journey, shot in achingly boring fashion.

More Mind-boggling Transportation Decisions!

The MTA in New York City is again increasing fares for its passengers in the midst of a huge budget crisis spurred by lower revenues and decreased state subsidies. The New York Times reports on the situation. Budget issues - I get it. People have to pay for their use of public transportation - okay. I'm a liberal socialist because I think that we should have better public transit - fine. Whatever. It's stuff like THIS:


A toll increase on the authority’s nine tunnels and bridges was also proposed, but the board will not vote on that plan until Oct. 27. Drivers who pay cash potentially face an increase of 30 percent or higher, while E-ZPass drivers may not pay any increase at all, under a proposal gaining momentum on the board.

that get me the most though. A 17% increase on 30-day passcard holders - people who use public transit the most and pollute via car emissions the least in the city - but NO increase for people who cross the bridge so frequently that they can't be bothered to pull out some cash and wait in line and who arguably pollute the most via car emissions.

Yes, this makes a lot of sense. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it doesn't make sense. It does, given a certain set of circumstances and beliefs (which I do not hold.) Essentially, this set of policies promotes car usage at the expense of public transit usage, promotes emissions pollution instead of a better environment, and reinforces the current car-centric, unsustainable nature of our cities.

On a related note, NJ governor Chris Christie today also killed off an expansion to the Hudson Tunnel that would have increased train capacity into Manhattan from NJ. I'd say it was a great day for public transportation in the New York Metro Area.

A new form of public transportation

Now THIS is pretty incredible. I always say that technology alone is not going to solve our environmental issues (wholesale behavior change is really what's going to do it!) but when things like this are invented, it sure does make me reconsider!

Shenzhen Huashi Future Parking Equipment

Check out this humdinger of a public transportation system. It "hovers" over traffic, allowing municipalities to essentially, have their cake and eat it too. You replace buses, you get roads, and you save space. I haven't thought enough about it to really poke holes in the logic - for now, I'm just pretty excited to see this outside of the box thinking actually being produced. That's right, they're going into production already. Read more about it here in the New York Times.

New York City

Sorry for being absent for so long. I've actually had the pleasure of being in New York City for the past two weeks or so. It's been fun, and I've enjoyed exploring the city for the first time really, despite having been here two times before. Those trips were mostly for work or interviews, and I didn't do much beyond the standard tourist things. This time, I've done both tourist things (MOMA, Met, High Line) as well as checking out four of the five boroughs.

One of the best things about NYC is the fact that I can get a 7-day metro pass and go anywhere I want. The liberty of being able to go places without a car is something I miss so much living in LA. It's amazing how much less stress I feel with taking a train for an hour to get from Brooklyn to the Bronx than I would if I had to drive there. I think New York is really the only place in the US where I have felt absolutely no need for a car, and I can imagine it being very much this way even if I lived here - unlike say, living in Washington DC or even San Francisco, where I think long-term, having a car would probably be a bit more convenient.

That said, I'm also surprised at how much less "green" New York is than even a place like LA. I guess I never really realized how progressive we are in the big cities in California when it comes to environmentalism... plastic bags for example - a very weak indicator, admittedly - but I'm proud to say that I feel like the use of reusable bags has reached a tipping point in much of LA and San Francisco, whereas it is still basically plastic all the way here in NYC. Likewise, I feel like organic and local is still very much a yuppie, middle/upper class bastion here in New York, while the community has penetrated deeper into more social and economic classes in California.

Of course, I don't live in New York, so there may be a lot more going on than I'm aware of while just walking around town, but these are my first impressions. If anyone has anything to add, please do!

How do you be green when traveling with kids?

We recently took a short family trip to San Diego, and we were wondering what are ways we could be more eco-friendly when traveling?

Below are a few things we did and did not do - do you have any suggestions?

1. Lodging: where else can we look?

We didn't specifically look for a eco-friendly hotel, but we were pleasantly surprised that The Sofia Hotel had a couple eco-friendly touches like good, proactive recycling and energy efficiency in addition to the standard water conservation practices.

Where else can we look for eco-friendly lodging?

2. Transportation there: is this the hardest to change?

We drove from LA to San Diego. Since our hotel was in downtown and not that far from the train station, we briefly looked into Amtrak. But we quickly realized that toting around all of our stuff (luggage, stroller, camera bag, Kaiya's goodies) would be a nightmare and that we would want to be able to drive around in San Diego since places like La Jolla and Pacific Beach are not served well. I don't know that there is much we can do differently here until we don't need as much gear for Kaiya.

3. Getting around: how do we make this fun and easy?

Working in a mix of walking and public transit is totally doable. It all starts with where you stay (preferably in a walkable neighborhood with access to public transit), as well as planning ahead (looking up where public transit goes, schedules and not over-planning activities so there is enough time).

In San Diego, we stayed in downtown which was convenient for walking to the Gaslamp and East Village neighborhoods and jumping on different types of public transit (train, buses, trolley and ferry). We did take the trolley from downtown to East Village for brunch one day - and it was nice because Kaiya loves buses and trains so it was fun for her too. And taking the Ferry to Coronado was on the docket but we just didn't have enough time.

The challenging part is working in public transit to other destinations. We looked into taking the bus to the zoo, but it didn't match up with brunch plans right before and we were worried about making the ride home at the end of a long day longer than it needed to be.

4. Food: easiest to do

This is probably the easiest thing to do if you really want - looking for restaurants that serve local and organic foods, and buying snacks from local and/or "green" grocery stores. Since this is what we like anyway, it's nice too much of a stretch. At the same time, when going to a place as tourists, we always want to try interesting places with good food regardless of their eco-friendly slant - so it can be challenging to balance this and make all the meals this way.

5. Activities: not that hard to do either

This can be relatively easy to do as well, especially with little kids since they are amused by simple things. Visiting parks, beaches, farms and zoos are easy activities with little environmental impact and get kiddies out into nature.

6. Stuff: ???

What do we do with all the disposable stuff? Water bottles? Tissue and napkins? Plastic utensils when we're on the go? Plastic bags when we buy stuff? It's convenient enough for us to use cloth napkins, bring tupperware and reusable canvas bags when when we're at home, but we just haven't gotten into the habit of bringing and washing this stuff when we're on the road. Do we just need to get in the habit and plan ahead?

Encouraging kids to exercise

Just read an interesting article on a non-profit organization called "Freiker" that encourages kids to walk or bike to school in return for the chance to win small prizes at the end of the year. While the material incentive system may or may not be the right one to underpin a program like this, there is no questioning the rationale behind getting kids to exercise more.

As stated in the article, 88 percent of students who lived within a mile of their grade schools got there by walking or biking in 1969. Today, the number has fallen to less than 16 percent. The rest now get dropped off, adding to carbon emissions, childhood obesity, and the plain-old bad habit of equating travel with a car.

Freiker aims to change this by instituting an accounting system for kids to record the number of trips they have biked or walked to school and competing with other kids at their schools for prizes based on the most trips during a school year. As of today, their website listed 130,000+ trips already since the non-profit started up 3 years ago. Let's hope the message gets out, and we can get more and more kids to use their own power to get to school. Carbon and physical fitness are definite upsides, but for me personally? Raising a generation of children who see that there are more options than just a car and who appreciate exercise.. this is the real payoff to me.

Nobody walks in LA....

but what about taking the bus? I have a couple friends in LA who have tried hard to utilize public transportation as much as possible. It's certainly not easy, but it is do-able. Especially if you are doing most of your traveling in certain corridors, like downtown LA to mid-wilshire or downtown LA to Hollywood.

However, getting from suburb to suburb can be ridiculously difficult. One friend tried to come to Torrance from Westwood (about 20 miles) and had to transit through LAX and take three different buses. It was about 2 and a half hours and six dollars or so. I myself tried once long ago to go from Torrance to the Long Beach airport. The story was largely the same, three buses, one crazy drugged out woman, two and a half hours, and about 3 dollars.

So it was with a little trepidation that I happened upon the idea of taking a bus to downtown LA to meet with a friend for lunch. The thing that made me hopeful was that the City of Torrance operates a direct bus to Union Station that only costs 2 dollars and is supposed to get there in less than 90 minutes. It seemed do-able, pretty cheap ($2 one way), and relatively painless, so I decided to try it.

I am happy to report that although the trip is somewhat long, it is definitely a viable choice. It routes around Torrance and Gardena a bit too much, but there are no transfers, the bus is pretty comfortable, and surprisingly, it's actually ridden by a larger number of people than I expected. The route goes from Del Amo Mall to the South Bay Galleria to the Artesia Transit Center, and then finally drops you off at Union Station.

Which, by the way, is actually a lot prettier than I expected... and as ridiculous as it sounds, this is the first time in my nearly 3 decades in LA that I have actually been to Union Station. I inquired about Amtrak fares, and I am seriously considering taking the Amtrak up to the Bay or even Portland.

Anyway, the icing on the cake is that the bus actually got there a bit early, despite all of its stops and the circuitous route. Still much longer than the 30 minutes it would take me to drive (without traffic), but like I said, a completely viable choice for living a more environmentally friendly lifestyle. We still have to do a lot more about routing to places other than downtown LA, but it's a start. It may also be the first of many trips for me on the bus to downtown LA!

Car-Free Challenge Days 1-5: Cut my car mileage in half!

In the first 5 days of the car-free challenge, I'm happy with the results: cut my car mileage in half, from 14-16 miles in a 'normal' week to 8 miles total (4 miles solo, 4 miles carpooling).

As I started thinking after the first day, it's not necessary all or nothing, it's about being more thoughtful about walking, biking or taking transit when I can - carpooling more and bunching driving trips together when I can't. There will be some days when work seems a bit crazy and Kaiya wakes up late where I will make the choice to not stroll her the 1 mile to daycare so I can make it to work when I want/need to. And there will be plenty of days when the whole family is up early enough to take the leisurely 20 min stroll each way to/from daycare.

Alas, today is the big challenge that I have not figured out how to tackle. We're having brunch at the SF Ferry Plaza: CUESA is putting on a Spring Breakfast with delicious souding food and a chance to talk to farmers who grow sustainable food. This is about 70 miles round trip. In theory getting to the Ferry Plaza is public transit friendly (walk 5 blocks to Caltrain, Caltrain to SF, MUNI to Embarcadero). The challenges are the combination of time (the trip each way would take ~ 1 hr 45 min taking public tranist vs. 45 min driving), timing (the trains to/from SF on the weekends only run every hour) and making the trip work for my daughter (the ride there would probably be fine but the ride back could be a nightmare if she is melting down). If it was just me and my daughter, I'd probably risk taking public transit on principle (and risk a rough trip), but I don't feel super comfortable subjecting my wife to the potential ordeal.

We're going with 2 other friends so we can all carpool together (and they would drive anyway so overall we're not adding mileage that would be driven anyways). But I still wish I could figure out a better way to balance all of this and cut this car trip out. We'll see...

http://transformca.org/blog/days-1-5-cut-my-car-mileage-half

Car-Free Challenge Day 1: 0 miles!

I generally don't drive that much as it is.  I live in a very walkable neighborhood (downtown Mountain View) and take the train to work.  I try to take the train on the weekends when public transit access is decent (for example, to the Sunnyvale farmer's market).  And before my bike was stolen a couple weeks ago, I would try to (but admittedly not always) bike around town for errands such as grocery shopping, going to my community garden, etc.  

The one car trip that I have taken every day for the last year is dropping off my daughter at daycare every morning.  Daycare is only 1 mile from my house.  Close enough to walk, but far enough to consider other options.  I have looked at the bus schedule but it doesn't quite work out with the train schedule I need to take to work.  And I thought about biking her to daycare, but I never got off my butt and invested in a baby seat or a trailer (and now there's even more inertia since my bike was stolen).  So I had been resigned to driving because a) I wanted to be time-efficient and I already try to cram a lot into my work day to maximize the time I can spend at home, and b) it's unpredictable enough to get my daughter to wake up in time for me to drive her to daycare and catch the train without adding more time needed to walk. 

But with the car-free challenge, my perspective is changing.  I had been leaving the house at 8am to drive my daughter to daycare - this gave me plenty of time for drop-off, including a little slack if I was running late and time to check email or do stuff around the house after dropping her off and before going to work.  The car-free challenge has prompted me to think about alternatives, and I realized I have a couple options...

1. Walking my daughter to daycare is actually not that slow.  I was worried that I would have to leave 30 min earlier at 7:30am to make this work.  To the contrary, I found out today that I can leave at 7:45am and have enough time to walk her to school and back and still make the train (I just forego the 10 min I had at home for other stuff).  15 minutes earlier than I had been leaving the house before is not that bad at all - especially when I consider that the walk is nice and another opportunity for me to get outdoors, and it reduces my regular daily driving miles to 0!

2. It doesn't have to be all or nothing. I don't have to drive her everyday or walk her everyday.  There will be days when my daughter wakes up late, and I will need to drive her to catch my regular train (and there may be days my schedule is a bit more flexible where her getting up late is okay and I can catch the train that is 15 minutes later).  And there may be days when it's too rainy or I'm too tired to walk or it's too cold for Kaiya, and that's okay if I drive her to daycare.  If I am conscious of this choice that I have every day, I'm guessing that I will choose to walk at least half the time, and that can cut down on many hundreds of miles that I drive every year. 

If I don't get anything else out of this car-free challenge, this shift in my perspective on Day 1 has been well worth it.

http://transformca.org/blog/day-1-0-miles-0

Take the Car Free Challenge!

From the Car Free Challenge Website:

During the month of June the average Bay Area resident will drive 540 miles and the average American driver more than 1,000 miles. Think you can do better?

Join a huge community of people in setting and reaching a personal low mileage goal in the month of June - plus win great prizes and share your stories of taking transit, walking, and bicycling. Whether driving less is stretch for you or already a way of life, we want you to take the Challenge!

Together we will send a powerful message to our leaders that a critical mass of people want to drive less and live more.

http://transformca.org/live/car-free-challenge

Kids. Walking. Duh.

"They set up a piedibus (literally foot-bus in Italian) — a bus route with a driver but no vehicle. Each morning a mix of paid staff members and parental volunteers in fluorescent yellow vests lead lines of walking students along Lecco's twisting streets to the schools' gates, Pied Piper-style, stopping here and there as their flock expands." (full story here.)

I have to admit that I smiled when I first read this article, as I pictured a long line of kids walking to school with a few adults herding them, no doubt skipping and laughing the whole way there. To me, this seems like a no-brainer. Let's not even get into the potential environmental benefit - let's just talk about getting children into the habit of walking and exercising, something that happens far too little in the lives of today's children.

We begin, through our own choices, to teach children very early on that time is money, and often more important than things like exercise or quality. I remember when I was kindergarten young, my mother used to walk me to and from school, and after I started going to school normal hours, I'd walk with my sister. While I've never really considered it before, I think this habit of walking to school was rather formative. Living outside of the US (and away from LA) has allowed me to rediscover my appreciation of walking. Living in Hong Kong or Budapest or Lund, walking one or two miles to get somewhere again become something commonplace and expected in my life. I rather like it this way.

Now, let's get to the short and long term benefits of walking. Short-term - as the article points out, less carbon emissions, better health, more quality social time with other kids, interacting with the real world, and a better sense of community. The long-term benefits (which also include the positives from building a sense of community) are things like comfort with walking, greater appreciation of nature, a different notion of the value of time, and other intangibles that stem from reconnecting to our bipedal-selves. Moreover, if we can get kids to be comfortable with walking from an early age, it could translate into adults who are comfortable with walking - perhaps the start of an anti-car revolution for those trips that last less than a couple of blocks. It also doesn't hurt to have parents interact more and help create stronger bonds within a community.

I think we should all push for more "piedibus" in our own communities. Don't you?

Hybrids everywhere

IHT recently had an article about Honda's big push into the hybrid market with their Prius-beating new Insight model. As the article mentions, the Insight is quite a bit cheaper than the Prius and hopes to steal market share from the Prius through this advantage. Lower cost does come at a price though, as the environmental performance isn't as good as Prius (which in turn, isn't as good as say, all electric vehicles.) Honda however is counting on the idea that people now WANT to be identified with a Hybrid car, and are proud to drive them around.

"Instead of the more complicated hybrid system used in the Prius, the Insight’s main source of power is a lightweight gasoline engine that is assisted by smaller batteries. That greatly reduces manufacturing costs but gives the Insight a highway fuel efficiency of 5.5 liters per 100 kilometers, or 43 miles per gallon — about 4 percent worse than that of the Prius. The Insight also shares parts with other Honda models, which helps the carmaker keep costs to a minimum." (full article here)

Inherent in this business strategy is the idea that people actually don't care as much about the real environmental benefits of their hybrid cars, but instead care more about showing that they care. As paradoxical as that statement is. Indeed, this is probably what's behind some of the more ridiculous "green machines" that I've seen recently, including the Hybrid Cadillac Escalade, an uber-luxury SUV that gets something like a whopping 21mpg. I mean, who are we kidding here?

I'm just as happy as the next tree-hugger to see more cars being produced that will finally drive our fuel economy figures up - but aren't we running a really dangerous line between going in the right direction and intentionally misleading ourselves? Sure, you can feel good that you're driving a HYBRID SUV, but you're still polluting the environment 2-3x as much with every mile you drive as some guy driving a Smart or a Prius.

Green Propaganda

No, this isn't a post about the name or origins of this site, this is a post to call out what really IS green propaganda. I recently found a post on USA Today about one of James Hansen's blog entries (famous NASA climatologist and outspoken climate change advocate). In it he advises: "Do not fall for the moguls' dirtiest trick – 'green' messages spewed to the public. That is propaganda, intended to leave the impression they are moving in the right direction." (blog entry here.)

I could not agree more. Staying in the US again for the first time in a long time, I am surprised at how "green" advertising has gotten. Not only are there tons of "green" ads in magazines, but "green" ads are making their way onto network television. This may not be a good thing however, as companies try to capitalize on growing green consciousness with products aimed at this market - products that may or may truly reflect more environmentally friendly practices or footprints.

My own personal "enemy number one" is ExxonMobil. They have embarked on a highly visible campaign with the tagline "Taking on the World's Toughest Energy Challenges." One of their commercials talks about how they are investing in technology that will let discover and tap into energy in ever-more-remote places. The commercial says nothing about conservation or the environmental impacts of continued high fossil fuel usage. Another more "green" commercial, touts how cars have become more efficient today and how Exxon is investing in making cars more efficient. This commercial (Europe) is particularly galling, especially given the fact that Exxon is PROUD to be investing virtually nothing in alternative energy or renewable energy while making record profits and lining their own pockets.

Send a message to Exxon that we won't stand for their green-washing ways, and boycott Exxon and Mobil gas stations (heck, boycott driving every once in a while also.) Take action and send Exxon emails asking them to prove their commercials to be true, to show us what percentage of their R&D is actually being invested in truly environmentally friendly technologies. This company has proven, time and time again, that they could care less about reducing the world's energy footprint and are more than happy to continue to turn fossil fuels into pure profit for themselves and their shareholders. 20 years on from the terrible Exxon Valdez spill, and Exxon is STILL one of the worst corporate environmental offenders. Shame.

Re-thinking getting around

Living in the sprawling 'burbs of Silicon Valley, it can be easy to not think about how to get around. If you don't think about it, most people will default to getting in their car and driving to wherever they need to go - whether it be 20 miles or 2 miles away.  

I've decided to do an easy thing and just start thinking more.  For the last few years, I have already tried to limit my car use - with a fair amount of success (I take the train to work every day and live in an area where I can walk to most everyday amenities like the bank, restaurants, coffee shops, pharmacy/convenience store, library, etc.).  However, I have to admit, I have become complacent about it.  I think about the bigger choices I make (commuting by train) and often get lazy about the little choices (sometimes driving the 0.75 miles to my community garden plot instead of walking or biking).  

But I've been inspired.  If I spend just a little bit more time thinking about how I get around, I think it can make a huge difference. 

For example, this afternoon, I went to a gardening class in a neighboring city (Sunnyvale), a short 3 1/2 miles from my house.  I could have very easily got in my car and driven 5-10 minutes there and back and not thought a thing about it.  But a couple days ago, I decided to spend 5-10 minutes looking into if I could get there by public transit.  I found out that I could indeed take the train there.   The 25 minute trip if I walked to/from the train station (5 minutes from my house to the station, 5 minutes on the train, and 15 minutes from the Sunnyvale train station to the gardening class).  And then I realized if I rode my bike, I could cut the trip to 15 minutes!  5-10 minutes of planning ahead of time and I could feel good about not having to get in my car for an out of the ordinary outing - not bad. 

And then when it came time to actually make the trip today... I was running late from lunch, so I was scrambling to get out the door on time to catch the train.  And then when I got downstairs, I realized that my tires were a bit low on air so I spent a couple minutes I didn't have pumping up my tires. And then I scrambled onto my bike, booked it to the train station, and... got there 2 minutes too late!  For a second, I was peeved by the fallacies of taking public transit.  And then I realized that the class was only 3.5 miles away and that I could probably make it there in 15-20 minutes and still be there on time.  So I jumped back on my bike and dragged my out of shape ass down there in time for the class.  After the class was over, I was tired and it had started to rain, so I biked the 1/2 mile to the Sunnyvale train station and took the train home. 

When I got home, it felt so good to have biked and taken public transit to my class.  And I realized that all I needed to do was to think just a little bit more.  All the info to make these decisions is at my fingertips (Google Maps, Google Transit and/or 511.org).  And then I was inspired when I thought of the huge impact we could have on the world just by thinking a little bit more. 

Cook your gas...?

An interesting story recently ran in the Herald Tribune talking about a budding cooking-oil recycling industry. As you can read about in the story, the movement to convert used cooking oil into gas for cars is gaining a little traction and greater acceptance by motorists.

"Two years ago, in the affluent London suburb of Leatherhead, Chris Leveritt starting filtering oil from his restaurant, Trattoria Vecchia, to run the family car. He is now creating a small commercial factory to produce 132 gallons a day in his backyard. Leveritt's partner, a wine distributor, picks up jugs of used oil when he delivers wine to dozens of restaurants in and around London." (Full article here.)

Though, admittedly limited still only to those who are a bit crazy-tree-hugger-esque, the news bodes well for the environment as it points to people trying to think and act a little differently as well as the fact that awareness about the human impact on earth systems is slowly getting more and more mainstreamed. It does not however say much about reducing consumption or curtailing the habits and luxuries that have led to this crisis. One step at a time though right?

High-speed rail?

Having spent a lot of time in the past decade living outside of the country and traveling by many means other than car, it's always been interesting attempting to have conversations with backpackers and travelers from other countries about how best to get around the US. Invariably, someone asks, "well can't you just take a train?" My response is usually a hearty laugh and then a sad shake of the head accompanied by a wry grin.

The truth is, you could (I wouldn't even know where to start), but the experience would be far from what these travelers are expecting. Indeed, I had to go to China to take my first ever, honest-to-goodness, real-life train ride. At 21. Since then, I've discovered the beauty of trains and find it sad that we don't have more here in the US. The LA-SF corridor would be ideal for a high-speed train, something that averages 180mph would take just over 2 hours to go point to point, making it highly competitive with air travel. Averaging 150mph, it would be just under three hours, still worthy of consideration when you factor in all the wait times connected with flying. For those of you thinking (flying is so fast though..) let me just quickly remind you of how much "cleaner" rail travel is than air travel. :)

So, it's really good to hear that the new stimulus package has set-aside $8 billion for the development of high-speed rail in the US. Now, as you can see from reading this particular article in the IHT (Slice of U.S. stimulus package will go to faster trains) don't expect to be riding the rails at 180 or even 150mph anytime soon. $8 billion is, unfortunately, close to nothing when it comes to making a dent in a system that has been neglected for probably 60 years. But, it is VERY heartening to know that this debate is once again a debate, and that we are finally beginning to consider alternatives to automobile and airplane travel again.

I am looking forward to the day when I can look up from my plugged in laptop with wireless internet to see the California coast zipping by outside my window at 200+mph.