Justin Horner's Blog: Health and the Environment

Harvard Business Review: “The Suburbs Have Lost Their Sheen”

2010-05-04T22:01:51Z

From Pricewaterhousecoopers, to the Urban Land Institute to real estate experts throughout the country, the consensus is clear: changes in American demographics and evolving market preferences mean that the clock is ticking on sprawl. Smaller households and a growing affinity for walkability and urbanism give us the chance to turn back decades of environmentally disastrous development. People are catching on, but there’s still a lot of convincing to do.

The latest news comes from a recent article in the Harvard Business Review (“Back to the City”), which details the growing trend of businesses coming back to center cities after years of fleeing to the suburbs. The reason?

These companies are getting a jump on a major cultural and demographic shift away from suburban sprawl. The change is imminent, and businesses that don’t understand and plan for it may suffer in the long run.

To put it simply, the suburbs have lost their sheen: Both young workers and retiring Boomers are actively seeking to live in densely packed, mixed-use communities that don’t require cars—that is, cities or revitalized outskirts in which residences, shops, schools, parks, and other amenities exist close together. [Sound familiar?]

As the article outlines, 64% of college-educated 24-to-35 year olds choose a job after they have chosen a place to live. To attract new talent, major companies are moving back to where the workforce of tomorrow wants to be: walkable, compact communities that are not suburban sprawl.

LEED-Neighborhood Development: It’s Official (and California Already “LEEDs” the Way)

2010-04-29T20:53:18Z

In twin events today in Washington DC and Chicago, the three partners who created LEED-Neighborhood Development (NRDC, the Congress for the New Urbanism and the US Green Building Council) announced the system’s official launch. Nearly a decade in the making, LEED-ND is the first national standard to attempt to describe and quantify what “green” actually is on the neighborhood scale. We all know green buildings; ND gives us green neighborhoods.

As my colleague, Kaid Benfield (NRDC Smart Growth Director and one of the Founding Parents of LEED-ND) says on his blog today:

Our hope is that LEED-ND will prove to be an asset for development projects that meet the standards, separating the worthy from the pretenders and giving the worthy a stamp of approval that can help their case as they make their way through the local entitlement process. We also hope it will help local environmentalists and citizens’ groups evaluate development proposals, and that it will provide templates for governments at all levels to borrow from as they upgrade their policies to support sustainable, green neighborhoods.

Now, you can certainly read all about ND here, here and here, but what I want to add is the California angle. Although the system officially launched today, there’s been a pilot program on since 2007 that includes nearly 240 projects from all over the world. Projects must first register to be evaluated by the program and then, if they qualify, they are certified.

Of the registered projects, 18% are from California (the largest percentage of any state, province or country outside of North America) and of the certified projects, 16% are from California (again, the largest percentage of any state, province or country outside of North America). Now note, California has about 12% of America’s total population, so the number of projects would be disproportionately large for the US even before you included the rest of the planet.

Now it may come as no surprise that California is leading the way (see AB 32 for greenhouse gas emissions, SB 375 for better land use planning, vehicle fuel economy standards for cleaner cars, TV efficiency standards to save energy, the list goes on), but it’s always nice to have pleasant and inspiring truths confirmed.

In fact (just to continue with the theme) the newest LEED-ND certified project (like, certified last week) happens to be in California, in Richmond, right up the BART line from my house. The plan for the Miraflores project was certified LEED-ND Gold.

As you (probably) can see from the site plan, the Miraflores project is dense, walkable and includes plenty of open space. There’s a significant affordable housing component for seniors, a mixture of for-sale and rental units, amenities for kids, creek restoration and a significant component dedicated to urban agriculture. There are universally-accessible units for people with disabilities, new bike paths, and plenty of trees and shade

And there’s a lot that you can’t see: the construction debris will be recycled and diverted, there’s on-site renewable energy generation, innovative storm water management strategies to avoid water pollution, and energy-efficient buildings. It’s close to local schools and will use 100% native plantings for all landscaping.

Oh, and did I mention that it’s also being built on a former brownfield site previously occupied by a commercial nursery (huzzahs to the City of Richmond Redevelopment Agency for the clean up and my friend Ted Bardacke at Global Green USA for the info on their project)?

These are the types of projects LEED-ND encourages: mixed-use, walkable communities with the latest in energy efficiency and other green technologies.

California has LEED-ND certified projects all over the place: from Oakland (the Tassafaronga ND Gold project is opening May 10th) to West Sacramento, from San Diego and the City of Orange (the sold out Depot Walk) to Santa Cruz and Napa.

Now that LEED-ND is officially a go, we’re looking forward to the projects coming down the line. LEED-ND is a great tool for those developers, communities and localities that are looking to encourage investment and building that make sense for the planet.

The DC Metro Crash and Transit Safety

2009-06-24T23:28:59Z

Like many of you, when I learned of the tragic Metro crash in Washington earlier this week, I was deeply disturbed. When you think about it, there’s something uniquely unsettling about being a passenger on something so big and powerful. When we walk, bike or drive, we’re accustomed to being in control. On trains and planes, the pleasure of being chauffeured means putting your safety in someone else’s hands. It can be upsetting when your trust is tested by unexpected events, particularly those that cause grave injury or death.

According to the latest reports, the cause of the crash, the deadliest in Metro’s history, killing 9 people and injuring 80, is still unknown. The train that collided into the other was overdue for brake work. One of the dead was the train’s operator, and an emergency brake was engaged before the collision. In California, we can’t help but be reminded of last September’s commuter rail crash in Los Angeles, where 25 people were killed.

Train travel has historically been very safe. As has been reported, the Federal Railroad Administration says that train accidents per mile dropped 30% from 1990 to 2008. But this gives little comfort in light of yesterday’s Metro crash, the collision in LA, and a trolley collision in Boston that injured 50 people. These three events have all happened in just the past 9 months.

Clearly, safety must be the highest priority. People cannot be expected to ride transit if they cannot do so safely, and they shouldn’t. Drivers and train operators must be well-trained, well-prepared, high-performing and attentive. Buses and trains must be well-maintained, up-to-date and reliable.

Just like our aging bridge and road infrastructure, our transit infrastructure must be supported and brought into the 21st Century. This not only means buying new trains and buses, but also securing the operating funds for the mechanics necessary to keep the vehicles we do have in tip-top shape.

But while we push for safer transit, we must also be aware of the larger picture. Transit still remains the safest, cleanest, and often cheapest, mode of travel. Private automobile travel remains by far the most deadly. As Todd Littman of the Victoria Transport Policy Institute details, US transit passengers have about a tenth of the fatality rate of auto passengers:

Source: Bureau of Transportation Statistics, American Public Transportation Association, via Todd Littman

We should expect continued coverage of the Metro crash; it’s a serious incident and has directly touched the lives of hundreds, if not thousands, of people. But we must also make sure that we focus on the particular circumstances of this accident, and what we can do to prevent similar incidents in the future.

Senators Rockefeller and Boxer are already pushing for $50 million in funding for train technology improvements. That’s a good start, but the Federal Transit Administration, in their Rail Modernization Study from April, tagged $50 billion as the amount needed to modernize the rail systems of Boston, Chicago, Washington DC, New York, New Jersey and the San Francisco Bay Area (America’s seven largest systems, which carry more than 80% of all rail transit passengers), not to mention the billions needed each year to keep them operating. The Stimulus Package contained only $8.6 billion for all transit investments in the entire country.

The upcoming Transportation Bill reauthorization is the forum in which NRDC will be pushing for this essential investment. An initial draft of the bill calls for a nearly $100 billion investment in public transportation, which will certainly get us moving down the road. The Metro crash has shown that there are perhaps more immediate reasons to act than just the environment.

Take Transit: It’s Good for Your Health!

2009-04-23T19:07:03Z

The more you learn about public transit, the happier about it you get. As I’ve written earlier, transit is essential to create more livable communities and to cut down on global warming pollution. Now, apparently, it’s also good for your health!

I don’t know about you, but I need all the exercise I can get. So it may have been with a little bit of self-serving optimism that I read Transit and Health: Mode of Transportation, Employer-Sponsored Public Transit Pass Programs, and Physical Activity, by Ugo Lachapelle and Lawrence Frank of the University of British Columbia. As a daily transit rider, the news, for me, was good.

By analyzing the travel habits of 4,156 Atlanta area residents, the study endeavored to “assess whether transit and car trips were associated with meeting the recommended levels of physical activity by using walking as a means of transportation.” The idea was that transit riders are more likely to walk to and from transit, and to walk in the middle of the day for errands, while drivers would tend to walk less. Walk distances for each group were then compared to the US Surgeon General’s recommended 30 minutes daily of moderate physical activity, which has been shown to reduce obesity levels, heart disease and hypertension.

Here are some of the report’s conclusions:

Across income groups, transit users walk longer distances, with higher income transit users(!) reporting the most walking;
The more transit trips you took, the greater your chance of meeting the Surgeon General’s recommended activity standard. For car trips (as a driver) the relationship was the opposite. Transit users had four times the chance of meeting the standard than those who didn’t take transit;
Having an employer-provided transit pass had a positive relationship with meeting the standard, as did even just having access to one(!);
Living in a low-density neighborhood was negatively associated with meeting the minimum standard.

Now, it’s important to note that simply meeting the Surgeon General’s minimum recommendation does not mean you are physically fit or free from the need to exercise more, but you certainly can’t get there without at least meeting the minimum standard. The good news is that taking transit is a convenient way to integrate regular physical activity into your everyday life. And, of course, expanding the availability of transit may give more Californians the opportunity to lead healthier lives.