Breakfast links: It's not easy pretending to be green

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Breakfast links: It's not easy pretending to be green

by David Alpert • March 27, 2009 8:27 am

Photo by Angie Torres.

"Green" SOLEA pushing car use: The new SOLEA condo building at 14th and Florida advertises its LEED status, "environmentally-conscious finishes," heat insulation and walking distance to Metro. But a flyer for the building advertises that every unit comes with parking. Efficiencies start at $250,000 and one bedrooms start at $375,000, but wouldn't they have been even more affordable and more environmentally conscious without mandatory parking? (Patrick)

Air quality, pshaw!: Big surprise: building a big highway is really bad for air quality. Too bad Maryland is doing just that (and using up 93% of their allowable debt). The good news is, Montgomery County Councilmembers seem to agree that there shouldn't be any more in the future. How about telling your colleagues in Prince George's and Fairfax? (WTOP)

Get your bike commuter benefit, as long as you never ride transit: Even though you can take up to $230 a month of transit tax deduction and $230 a month in parking deduction, if you get the new $20 a month bicycle deduction you aren't eligible for either. Earl Blumenauer wants to change that, but it's not the only silly restriction on the new benefit. (TheWashCycle)

More trains for Virginia: Virginia reached an agreement to run commuter trains to Lynchburg and Richmond (not to Bristol). BeyondDC has a nice map. (Post, Jess H.)

Can you CNU?: Congress for the New Urbanism announced their "Charter Award" recipients. Local winners included the Crystal City Vision Plan 2050, House Office Buildings Facilities Plan and Preliminary South Capitol Area Plan, and Columbia Heights. (Jaime)

Union bus-ting in Fairfax?: A new ATU Local 689 ad (PDF) is fighting Fairfax's proposed bus cuts. At the same time they're eliminating service, Fairfax is taking over some Metrobus routes, which will cost the County a lot of money in one-time costs and replace union drivers with non-union.

States can do anything as long as it's not for bicycles: House Republican Whip Eric Cantor is criticizing DC for using stimulus funds for SmartBike. Apparently he has no problem giving billions to wealthy bankers, but if SmartBike has even one station in Georgetown, it's "not stimulative" and worthy of mockery. Bicycle Examiner wonders if Cantor even bothered to look at the program he's attacking.

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David Alpert is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Greater Greater Washington and Greater Greater Education. He worked as a Product Manager for Google for six years and has lived in the Boston, San Francisco, and New York metro areas in addition to Washington, DC. He loves the area which is, in many ways, greater than those others, and wants to see it become even greater.

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LEED is more gimmick than benefit. Solea is just a good example of that. I mean really. LEED gives points if your roof doesn't leak. Shouldn't all roofs not leak?

by crin on Mar 27, 2009 12:49 pm • link • report

ah: We've already seen buildings in Columbia Heights with 1:1 parking end up with many empty spaces.
by David Alpert on Mar 27, 2009 9:38 am

Are you talking about the unused parking at DCUSA? Comparing residential and commercial demand in this case does not seem workable. Residents never seem to have enough parking. I'm not really pro or anti (yet) parking given to residents, but I am just not sure that the comparison really works.

by Keyboarding Cate on Mar 27, 2009 12:52 pm • link • report

1- We can build more highways as tunnels and make the users pay with tolls. Also in DC the planning deliberately gets botched (aka the 1963-64 North Central Freeway study) with the correct right of way being pushed for unnecessarily real estate development.

2- Those new parking spaces really ought to include the wiring for electric car charging. Google Fisker Karma to see just one example of why autos will be sustained.

by Douglas Willinger on Mar 27, 2009 1:19 pm • link • report

The NAHB did a study of residential densities and the associated CO2 emissions. The study looked at the effect of congestion and the amount of vehicle miles driven by households living at various densities. The lower the density, the less congestion and the more vehicle miles driven.

The study found the congestion effect was far outweighed by the effect of vehicle miles traveled. For example, comparing low density (0.39-1.56 du/acre) with medium density or above (7.81+ du/acre), the difference in vehicle speed was 5.5 mph, while the difference in annual gas consumption was 21,800 gallons.

And another factor to consider - at slower speeds, hybrid cars like the Prius rely more on electric propulsion, reducing gas consumption and emissions. The new generation of plug-in hybrids coming from GM, Nissan, etc., will have this characteristic to an even greater extent. In general, the slower and more congested the traffic is, the cleaner they run.

by Laurence Aurbach on Mar 27, 2009 4:27 pm • link • report

" In general, the slower and more congested the traffic is, the cleaner they run. "

What about brake dust emissions?

by Douglas Willinger on Mar 28, 2009 3:10 am • link • report

Douglas - on cars which have enough EV capability to use regenerative braking (or even to use it and just dump the heat into a resistor because the tiny battery can't charge fast enough), there is no brake dust. The current Prius does the former but not the latter, engaging the brakes when there is >15KW of power entering the battery. If my back-of-the-napkin calculations are correct, this corresponds to a little more than 7.3mph/second deceleration. If a next-gen battery or a wasteful resistor were plopped in there, it could do 50KW with the wheel motors currently equipped, or 60KW on next year's model.

In a decade, friction brakes will likely be legacy items.

by Squalish on Mar 28, 2009 4:22 am • link • report

Airborne brake dust emissions are a function of the rate of deceleration. In other works, the faster the car is moving and the harder the driver brakes, the more brake dust will be emitted. The current EPA model indicates that overall, speed is an insignificant factor for particulate emissions including brake dust. Future EPA models will incorporate the effect of braking intensity.

by Laurence Aurbach on Mar 28, 2009 11:06 am • link • report