This was the Final Project for Urban Planning 422: Urban and Regional Geo-spatial Analysis. If that title doesn't sound intimidating enough for you, I was the only undergraduate in a room full of grad students. The requirements for the class? Ten labs (about two hours each), a midterm, a final exam, about 200 pages of reading that were never discussed in class, and a quarter-long project itself with two outside interviews and three other intermittent deadlines. No big deal, right? :) Well, here's the result of this painful SOB that made me realize at least one reason I may hold off on grad school for a while - to avoid going completely fucking nuts!
Special thanks to Daniel Rowe (UW Masters of Urban Planning Program), Colette Flanagan (King County DOT GIS Support), and Chad Lynch (City of Seattle GIS Supervisor).
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Green My Fleet: Final Report to City of Issaquah
Green My Fleet: An analysis of a collaborative effort between Evergreen Fleets and the City of Issaquah.
By David Perlmutter and Julia Wilson
Please read the final report that we submitted to the City of Issaquah in December 2009.
By David Perlmutter and Julia Wilson
Please read the final report that we submitted to the City of Issaquah in December 2009.
CEP Senior Project Presentation
Please check out the presentation I made at the Community, Environment, and Planning Senior Project Night on May 6th, 2010. Special thanks to David Fujimoto of the City of Issaquah for reviewing this final presentation!
CEP 460 Presentation
This is the presentation I gave to the City of Issaquah in December 2009 to MaryJoe deBeck (Resource Conservation Coordinator), David Fujimoto (Resource Conservation Manager), Kelly Kussman (Fleets Supervisor), Brad Liljequist (Engineering Project Manager), and Ava Freisinger (Mayor). This project evaluated the Evergreen Fleets program using both quantitative and qualitative methods using the City of Issaquah as a case study.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Pay Phones as EV Charging Stations...What???
Think back to the last time you personally used a pay phone. Was it five years ago? Ten? In modern American society where cellphones and blackberries are ubiquitous, pay phones are as anachronistic as coal-fired furnaces and "ice boxes." The only people we associate with using pay phones regularly are those on the margins of society - sex workers, drug dealers, and the homeless who have no other option.
So one question arises: what do we do with all of those phone booths (that used to be in every public space) that we suddenly no longer need?
Luckily, one telecommunications firm in Austria, Telekom Austria, has successfully developed an innovative prototype that can transform old pay phone booths into functional electric vehicle charging stations for cars, bikes, and scooters. Telekom Austria hopes to convert 29 phone booths (out of that country's 13,500 booths) into EV charging stations by the end of 2010. It takes about 6.5 hours to recharge an electric car, 80 minutes to juice a scooter and only 20 minutes to charge an electric bicycle. Though today the company says there will be no fees for using its phone booth EV charging stations, Telekom Austria eventually hopes to charge a small user fee, payable by credit card or mobile phone, as it becomes more established.
Today Austria only has 223 registered electric vehicles, along with some 3,500 hybrids on its records. However, the Austrian motor vehicle association, VOeC, says that it expects the country to contain about 405,000 electric vehicles by the year 2020, which is when Telekom Austria’s innovation will be ideally poised to take off and become an established part of our infrastructure.
Via Inhabitat and Physorg
So one question arises: what do we do with all of those phone booths (that used to be in every public space) that we suddenly no longer need?
Luckily, one telecommunications firm in Austria, Telekom Austria, has successfully developed an innovative prototype that can transform old pay phone booths into functional electric vehicle charging stations for cars, bikes, and scooters. Telekom Austria hopes to convert 29 phone booths (out of that country's 13,500 booths) into EV charging stations by the end of 2010. It takes about 6.5 hours to recharge an electric car, 80 minutes to juice a scooter and only 20 minutes to charge an electric bicycle. Though today the company says there will be no fees for using its phone booth EV charging stations, Telekom Austria eventually hopes to charge a small user fee, payable by credit card or mobile phone, as it becomes more established.
Today Austria only has 223 registered electric vehicles, along with some 3,500 hybrids on its records. However, the Austrian motor vehicle association, VOeC, says that it expects the country to contain about 405,000 electric vehicles by the year 2020, which is when Telekom Austria’s innovation will be ideally poised to take off and become an established part of our infrastructure.
Via Inhabitat and Physorg
New Innovations on Electric Bikes Promise to Increase their Market Share
The first promising new electric bike model comes from German industrial designer Christian Vollmer. This bike uses a "pedelec system", meaning it has no need for a chain. Instead, it has a toothed belt which transfers clean power from the engine to the rear wheel. Read all about it on the green design blog Inhabitat.
The second model has been released by Volkswagen at the Auto China Show. Dubbed the bik.e (yes, that’s how it’s spelled), the sleek portable cycle is capable of folding down to the size of a spare tire and has range of 12.5 miles and a top speed of 12.5 mph (the fastest speed allowed by electric vehicles for passengers to go without helmets in Germany). Volkswagen has announced plans to actually roll out the bike as a “mobility enhancer” option on their autos, as the bike can be replenished by a vehicle’s DC current.
The second model has been released by Volkswagen at the Auto China Show. Dubbed the bik.e (yes, that’s how it’s spelled), the sleek portable cycle is capable of folding down to the size of a spare tire and has range of 12.5 miles and a top speed of 12.5 mph (the fastest speed allowed by electric vehicles for passengers to go without helmets in Germany). Volkswagen has announced plans to actually roll out the bike as a “mobility enhancer” option on their autos, as the bike can be replenished by a vehicle’s DC current.
Volkswagen's electric bikes are most likely to be first commercialized in China, where they were released at the Auto China Show, and Germany, where there is already a sizable consumer market for electric bikes. No word yet on when this new VW model will be available in the United States.
Check out the video from the Auto China Show 2010 - just be sure not to miss the undersea dancers straight of Zoolander!
Friday, April 16, 2010
Electric Bikes Garner Media Attention in the Pacific Northwest
The online news forum Crosscut has recently published an article exploring the possibility of facilitating electric bike infrastructure in major urban areas of the Pacific Northwest.
While China has a long-established mass culture of bicycle transportation (though it has certainly waned in recent years), cities such as Seattle and Portland and elsewhere in the United States have a long way to go to make electric bicycles a part of the everyday American commute.
It is estimated that while 100 million Chinese use electric bikes as part of their daily commute, only about 58,000 Americans do. Major factors for this enormous discrepancy include the lack of electric vehicle charging infrastructure in most American cities, the lack of shoulders and bike lanes on most arterials, longer commuting distances and lower densities of urban neighborhoods that make bicycle transportation impractical.
Alan Durning of the Sightline Institute, a prominent Seattle think tank has recently published a series outlining the promises and struggles of creating an electric bike culture in the Northwest.
Three primary trends favor the rise of electric bikes as part of the low-carbon, "green" transportation infrastructure of the future, thanks in large part to the large amounts of the stimulus funding now available for such projects.
2. Electric bikes are catching on like wildfire not only in China, where 120 million users are expected by late 2010 (a massive increase from just 56,000 in 1998) but in Northern Europe, India, and New York City. Although the American market numbers less than 200,000, according to David Goodman's article in the New York Times the number is projected to rise in the coming years. Two types of electric bikes are emerging as contending popular models. The first, most popular in the US and Europe, is similar to a typical manual-powered bicycle with an auxiliary motor that can be engaged on command or when the cyclist pedals.
3. Electric bikes are more energy-efficient and easier to charge than electric cars. According to the Sightline Institute's Durning,
While China has a long-established mass culture of bicycle transportation (though it has certainly waned in recent years), cities such as Seattle and Portland and elsewhere in the United States have a long way to go to make electric bicycles a part of the everyday American commute.
It is estimated that while 100 million Chinese use electric bikes as part of their daily commute, only about 58,000 Americans do. Major factors for this enormous discrepancy include the lack of electric vehicle charging infrastructure in most American cities, the lack of shoulders and bike lanes on most arterials, longer commuting distances and lower densities of urban neighborhoods that make bicycle transportation impractical.
Alan Durning of the Sightline Institute, a prominent Seattle think tank has recently published a series outlining the promises and struggles of creating an electric bike culture in the Northwest.
Three primary trends favor the rise of electric bikes as part of the low-carbon, "green" transportation infrastructure of the future, thanks in large part to the large amounts of the stimulus funding now available for such projects.
- Technical innovation keeps improving electric bikes. To give one example, the Japanese firm Sanyo has designed the Eneloop eletric assist bike which promises to change the electric bike market in the US permanently. The bikes are sleek and cost-competitive, available for $2,300 at Best Buy. American manufacturer Trek has also introduced a competitive electric model, the Ride+.
2. Electric bikes are catching on like wildfire not only in China, where 120 million users are expected by late 2010 (a massive increase from just 56,000 in 1998) but in Northern Europe, India, and New York City. Although the American market numbers less than 200,000, according to David Goodman's article in the New York Times the number is projected to rise in the coming years. Two types of electric bikes are emerging as contending popular models. The first, most popular in the US and Europe, is similar to a typical manual-powered bicycle with an auxiliary motor that can be engaged on command or when the cyclist pedals.
By contrast, in China, electric bicycles have evolved into bigger machines that resemble Vespa scooters. They have small, wide-set pedals that most cyclists do not use as they travel entirely on battery power. The bikes move at up to 30 miles an hour, with a range of 50 miles on a fully charged battery.Best Buy has recently released electric bike models for sale at many of its outlets in the Seattle and Portland metro areas, some for as little as $899.
3. Electric bikes are more energy-efficient and easier to charge than electric cars. According to the Sightline Institute's Durning,
Simple physics favor e-bikes over e-cars. Bicycles, even ones loaded with batteries, weigh less than their riders. Electric cars, in contrast, weigh many multiples as much as their drivers. Consequently, most of e-bikes’ battery charge can be spent moving the mass of the rider, but most of electric cars’ charge must be spent moving the bulk of the car itself. What’s more, part of e-bikes’ energy comes from leg muscles, again reducing the required battery power. In auto parlance, e-bikes have human-electric hybrid drives.Despite these trends that favor an explosion of electric bike production in the urban US (some estimates predict sales of 1 million e-bikes annually by 2016), there are four obstacles that stand in the way of a truly viable electric bike culture.
- Immature Technology - relative to electric cars, e-bikes still have a long way to go before the technology of installing, charging, and cleaning the bicycles' batteries is seamlessly integrated and convenient for consumers, as DL Byron pointed out on the e-bike blog Bike Hugger.
- Bike Culture - In Asian and Northern European cities, bikes are ubiquitous forms of transportation, nearly as commonplace as automobiles in many. However, in North America, bicycles are seldom used for purposes other than recreation. Especially in the urban Northwest, the local bike culture has defined itself in opposition to the automobile, and its point of pride is that bicycles are "trendy" because they are hard work to commute with using only muscle energy. The individualism and identity that come with car ownership in American culture also work heavily against electric bikes.
- Inefficient Distribution - There is a very segregated bicycle sales market in the US - the high end that sells racing and commuter bikes, comprising 25% of all sales, and the low end selling primarily childrens and recreational or mountain bikes, comprising the other 75%. Neither sector has adapted to the rise of e-bike technology, and as such very few American bike shops today have the technology or expertise to help customers with their electric bikes.
- Safety - Few American cities have provided the bicycle infrastructure needed to make e-bikes a viable option for most commuters. According to Jonathan Maus of the Portland bike blog BikePortland, “Our current lack of a connected, separated, and comfortable bike network makes many people afraid to even try biking — and simply giving them motors won’t change their minds.”
According to the Sightline Institute's Durning, the market contexts of electric bikes are very different in China and the US, and therefore expanding the American market and its associated infrastructure has very different policy implications.
The economic context of e-bikes is radically different in China than in the Northwest. In China, most buyers of electric bikes are stepping up in vehicular speed and comfort from heavy, low-performance bicycles. They are opting for electric bikes not in place of cars but in place of bicycles, motorcycles, or scooters. In the North America, e-bike buyers are stepping down in vehicular speed and comfort from the automobile. (Actually, they’re mostly buying an additional vehicle, to use in place of their car some off the time.)
Electric bikes, as the forerunners of electric cars and trucks, have tremendous potential, but they’re unlikely to win more than a toe-hold in a marketplace long dominated by petroleum-powered vehicles. Unless public policy makes petroleum-powered vehicles far less attractive, as China did for motorcycles. Petroleum is just too phenomenally effective and (still) cheap. Electric bikes will inch upward in market share in the Northwest, becoming less like novelties and more like regular bikes in their prevalence. But they will not sweep through the population as they have in China, unless we act through public policy to make their fossil-fueled competitors less competitive and cycling in general much more attractive. Specifically, we can:
- Enact climate policies that put a price on carbon through a carbon tax or a fair cap and trade system.
- Make dramatic progress in threading a complete network of continuous, separate, named, signed, and lighted bikeways through our communities, so that cyclists (pedal and electric) are shielded from auto traffic.
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