Livable Communities

@livablecommunities-blog

Robert Hastings, FAIA If its how transit supports 'Livable Communities', I'm on board! I help lead TriMet's efforts in excellent urban design, Great Streets, renewable energy, and sustainable infrastructure, and livable communities. I also chair the Oregon Design Conference; a bi-annual gathering of design, planning, government, development, and construction leaders. I believe that the transit systems and attendant infrastructure are the direct manifestation of our community's values, culture, and democratic efforts.

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Parking strategies need to be updated for the next generation of 'development oriented transit' systems. The days of plopping a huge surface park & ride over over. They use huge swaths of land, and actually foster use of fossil fuel autos. By combining a number of other initiatives, parking facilities adjacent to transit can serve many other, 'livable community' needs. Check out this article by James Zullo(AICP, LEED AP, CAPP is vice president of Timothy Haahs & Associates Inc).

#livable communities

Sustainability for transit also includes the facilities that are created to support the transit system. These include maintenance facilities, offices, and even the site and landscaping elements. Check out this overview from Kim Kaiser for Mass Transit Newsletter.

#designexcellence

Detroit is really attempting some innovative thinking as it re-envisions its present and future.

#liv #livable communities

When I visited Detroit this past April I was told about numerous efforts to bring young, creative energy to this forelorn city. In the Sunday NY Times is an interesting article by Jennifer Conlin describing some of these efforts.

Is this just another wave of 'new immigrants' looking to supplant the existing 'native' cultures? Or is it more than that? How will a revitalized Detroit happen? And how will it not repeat the mistakes of other cities who reinvented themselves by pushing out the existing peoples, or exploiting their difficiencies?

#detroit

Solar Canopy EV Charging Station Opens on NE Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd.

On June 8, the Portland Development Commission (PDC) unveiled a new electric vehicle charging station and solar canopy on a PDC-owned parking lot at 3620 N.E. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. The grid-tied solar canopy, one of only two of its kind in Portland, was constructed by EV4 Oregon, which markets it as an Energy Transfer Merchant (ETM™); it is owned by Lease It Inc. The canopy was built locally, using photovoltaic panels manufactured by Hillsboro-based SolarWorld, and is available from North Coast Electric in Portland.

The canopy has two Ecotality Blink Level-2 publicly accessible electric vehicle charging stations available for community use, with the capacity to fully charge six electric vehicles per day. The Blink commercial locations form a critical component of the charging public infrastructure to be developed by Ecotality as project manager of the EV Project.

For press release on this project: http://www.pdc.us/new/releases/2011/news-release-2011-06-07.asp

#Livable Communities #Electric Transportation

Tom Friedman is one of the most thoughtful, and provocative columnists working today. I appreciate his ongoing reminders that we can make a difference in shaping more livable, and sustainable communities. This article also references Paul Gilding, the veteran Australian environmentalist-entrepreneur's new book called “The Great Disruption: Why the Climate Crisis Will Bring On the End of Shopping and the Birth of a New World.

#Livable Communities