Force Change

Santa Monica replaces parking lot with a park (where you can park)

An interesting new take on beach parking opened in Santa Monica last month.  The city, recognizing that parking lots on the beach are a major facilitator of pollution entering the ocean, and realizing that much of the city’s beach parking was at capacity on only a handful of days per year, decided to replace almost an acre of beachfront parking with a grass playing field.  The grass is a hardy breed, designed to survive the six or so days per year when the lawn will be needed for beach parking.  The grass, and adjacent asphalt area (immediately to the east of the lawn) will be closed to cars on all other days of the year. 

According to the city, “as runoff passes through the soil, pollutants are treated through natural chemical and biological processes. By preventing, at the source, runoff pollutants from reaching the ocean water quality in the bay will be improved and marine beneficial uses protected.”  

While we think this project is very forward thinking and should be a guide for other projects on how to efficiently and intelligently make use of our public services and resources, it is surprising that something like this is still such a unique idea.  Taking a rarely used, pollution causing feature, like this beach parking lot and turning it into a nice ball field, while at the same time allowing for parking on high use days, is so incredibly rational that it is surprising that in this day and age, that more projects like this one don’t exist.  Hopefully it will be the catalyst for others like it in the future. 

Posted in Green Design, Los Angeles, Transportation, Water Pollution | 2 Comments »

Honda launches zero emissions car on a limited basis

Honda announced that its first production run of a zero-emission hydrogen fuel cell car rolled off the assembly line yesterday.  The FCX Clarity will run on only hydrogen and electricity, does not emit any greenhouse gases and is two times more energy efficient than traditional gas-electric hybrids. 

While the climate effects of the FCX Clarity are extremely limited, so is the availability of the car.  Honda is currently only leasing a “few dozen” cars in California and plans to increase that number to only around 200 within the year.  (Although a fall launch in Japan is also planned.)

One of the major problems is, of course, the availability of hydrogen filling stations.  A quick review of this government resource shows that there are only 13 hydrogen filling stations within 25 miles of the (super progressive) City of Santa Monica and only 24 stations within 100 miles.  Whether widespread hydrogen distribution will be built is obviously a major issue that needs to be addressed before hydrogen cars can provide a practical alternative to the current options.

[Thanks to reader Marsoner for this story tip.]

Posted in General, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Los Angeles, Of Interest, Transportation | 1 Comment »

Santa Monica ferris wheel gets (green) upgrade

The world famous ferris wheel at the Santa Monica Pier got an upgrade last week.  The new wheel, which cost $1.5 million, contains 160,000 energy efficient LED lights and will draw energy from solar panels installed on the pier from the previous wheel.  The new ferris wheel joins the Santa Monica Civic Center parking garage as the latest local iconic structure to have an environmentally friendly design.  

Posted in Energy, Green Design, Of Interest | No Comments »

Santa Monica contemplates commercial development ban

The Bottleneck blog has a couple recent posts regarding a proposal in Santa Monica to suspend commercial development in the city, in order to deal with the growing traffic mess. If passed by voters, the measure would limit commercial development to 75,000 square feet of floor area per calendar year.

Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce President Tom Larmore, who opposes the ban, states, “This goes far beyond office development. The commercial development definition includes a whole raft of things.”  Some of the unintended consequences may include preventing new hotel developments (which do not substantially increase traffic) and medical facility expansions. 

While Santa Monica traffic is a major quality of life issue, an outright ban on new development may not be the best solution.  Yes, unchecked commercial growth without parallel mass transit investment has been a major cause of the congestion problems.  However, an outright ban is not going to solve the problem.  The solution is, and always has been, to have smart growth—development coupled with intelligent transit and planning solutions, including things like public rails, efficient traffic signal management, mixed use buildings, and congestion pricing.  If this ban is just a temporary solution which focuses the city’s attention on the real needs (mass transit), then it might not be such a bad thing.  But if it is just an excuse to avoid dealing with the real issue of alternative transit and smart planning, then it will likely be counterproductive.

Photo credit.

Posted in Los Angeles, Transportation | No Comments »

Plastic or paper?

Given our recent posts on the regulation of plastic bags in Ireland, Santa Monica and China, we thought we’d take a quick look at some of the factual differences between plastic and paper bags. Like many green alternatives, the benefits of switching from plastic to paper are not so black-and-white. (Granted Santa Monica proposes to ban plastic and also tax paper.)

Apparently, paper bags that are not made out of recycled material result in 70% more air pollution and 50% more water pollution than the production of plastic bags. Additionally, one pound of plastic can be recycled with 91% less energy than it takes to recycle the equivalent amount of paper. The one clear disadvantage of plastic is that, unlike paper, it is not biodegradable.

[Update: One of our readers noted that the picture above says "I am biodegradable" on the plastic bag, but that we claim that plastic is not biodegradable in this post. According to this link, plastic bags do not biodegrade in any reasonable timeframe, but can photodegrade when exposed to sunlight (which of course is unlikely in a landfill). Therefore, the only way the manufacturer of the bag in the photo above could reasonably claim to be biodegradable would be if the bag was not actually made of polyethylene (the standard process), in which case it would probably not be called a "plastic" bag.]

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