Urban Jacksonville

Beginning in mid-May, city commuters in Washington, D.C., will have an alternative to stuffy bus rides and long traffic lines.  Clear Channel Outdoor (an outdoor advertising company), partnered with the district’s Department of Transportation, will launch the country’s first bike-share service, SmartBike DC.

Bike sharing services offer urbanites low-cost access to bicycles within the inner-city to ease traffic congestion, curb pollution and boost physical activity.  Bike sharing operates on a self-serve model (no attendants) and is geared toward short-term uses.  New technologies including GPS and RFID tags (radio-frequency identification) and automated payment kiosks make the systems more secure and user friendly.

The SmartBike DC system will offer bicycles at key locations in the central business district.  Bicycles are parked at docking points which use a proprietary locking system to ensure that each bicycle is securely stored.  The service is accessible via online subscription and subscribers will receive a SmartBike DC user card that provides access to every station of the program.  An individual annual subscription is $39.99.

Bike stations consist of a horizontal rack with docking points.  The docking points, as pictured above, are parking slots with locks, and they secure the bicycle when it is parked at a station.  An operational team manages the rotation of bicycles for each station to assure a proper ratio of available bicycles to drop-off locations.

How could most cities afford this?  As mentioned before, in the case of Washington, D.C., the district’s Department of Transportation partnered with Clear Channel Outdoor, a private advertising company.  The contract allows the private company to provide advertising on as many as 800 bus shelters.  Public-private partnerships are common among existing bike-share programs, according to Paul DeMaio, the founder of MetroBike LLC, a bike-share consultancy based in Washington, D.C.

Bike-share programs have proved successful in many other countries so far, including France, Spain and Austria.  Leading street-furniture company JC Decaux launched its Paris operation, Velib’, in 2007.  Today, more than 20,000 bikes are available at 1,400 stations.  Paris has four times more bike-rental stations than subway stations and the system is completely financed by advertising and rental charges.

The market in the U.S. is wide-open right now.  Most recently, Clear Channel secured San Francisco as the next city for which to develop street furniture plans, most likely including a bike-share component.  Chicago has expressed interest in bringing a bike-share program to its streets as well.

If Jacksonville had a bike-share system around its core neighborhoods, traffic and pollution would decrease and our city would be populated with a healthier group.  Some commuters would not be forced to wait for a bus if they did not have far to travel.  Also, commuters who bike already would not waste time locking their bike up properly and worrying that it might be stolen.

So.  Who wants to step up with the sponsorship?

Tags: bike sharing, MetroBike LLC, SmartBike DC

I received an interesting email from a woman named Marielle Brinda who will be coming to Jacksonville to film for her upcoming documentary Homestead Road Trip.

We are setting out to interview citizens from over twenty different communities across the United States to find out how much they love living where they live. For we predict that if people lack that connection and value to the place they call home, then they are less likely to take care of it.

We would like to bring forth these issues to the public so that we can all help make our communities a better place to live, environmentally and socially.

Jacksonville is one stop on a 20+ city tour. Other cities include: LA, Las Vegas, Austin, Charleston, D.C., Chicago, Minniapolis and Portland. If you feel strongly about this topic and you would like to voice your opinion on this topic, leave a comment on this post. I will send a Marielle a link to this post so she can see your interest and get in touch.

More information on Homestead Road Trip or follow along with them on the Homestead Road Trip blog.

Image courtesy of pumpkinoodle

I was going to post my Nicky G’s review today, until my friend Jennifer from RADO sent this event to me. I’ll keep my Nicky G’s review for Monday.

The Climate Change Symposium at UNF, Saturday November 10, 2007 will discuss “How Should Jacksonville Adapt to Climate Change?” In addition to the all that talking crap there will be food! Here’s where it gets interesting:

Jacksonville Carbon Neutral Initiative is catering an all-local lunch. The menu is intense. It’s not even all vegetarian, believe it or not. Vegan chef Philip is making a beef stew (alongside a tempeh stew, and pecan crusted fried eggplant and an intensely awesome sounding coleslaw…) all from within 100miles except for the cooking oil and some of the eggs (which are all from Florida). I boiled ocean water to get local salt last night.

I’m not sure if there is a cost associated with the symposium/lunch. Yummm!

credit: pieter007

Wednesday September 26th Nikki Benoit of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy will be hosting a free volunteer training session at Inertia in Springfield. This session aims to recruit people from all over the state to attend any and all candidate events to ask questions about global warming and our need for clean energy initiatives.

Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that promotes responsible energy choices that solve global warming problems and ensure clean, safe and healthy communities throughout the Southeast. If you can’t come tonight but are still interested in volunteering, here are some details on getting involved.

This event is free and starts at 6:30. Here is a map to the new Inertia location in Springfield.

All photos compliments of Jimmy Orth.

Yesterday Jimmy Orth, AKA Executive Director at the St. Johns Riverkeeper, sent me pictures and a question: “Do you know why they removed the trees at the B of A bldg. downtown?”

I do so I thought I’d share. I was out running Sunday morning and I came across a pretty horrific scene. Dozens of trees cut to the stump in each of the Bank of America planters lining Laura and Bay Street. I asked the person in charge what was going on and he told me they were updating the electrical and water in the planters.

He also added that all the trees will be replaced. Please don’t let it be palm trees. Please.

The Jacksonville Business Journal reports:

The developer of The St. John, a proposed residential high rise Downtown, has registered for certification in the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program developed by the U.S. Green Building Council. Source: Hines goes for green designation for The St. John

Basically LEED is a is the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction, and operation of high performance green buildings. It promotes sustainable building by recognizing performance in five key areas of human and environmental health: sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection, and indoor environmental quality. Here is a link to the LEED page for new construction.

This won’t be the first time Hines, the developer, has received LEED certification so this bodes well for The St. John. The JBJ reports: “Hines has received LEED certification on several projects, including the Gold status for the 1180 Peachtree building in midtown Atlanta, and the One South Dearborn 40-story office tower in downtown Chicago was the first office tower in the state to receive certification.”

Storm water collection and filtration is a hot topic for LEED developers. The St. John should pay close attention to managing storm runoff and all the oil, fertilizer and chemicals it gathers along the way. If they can collect, filter and reuse the storm water some how it, it will never pollute the St. Johns River. For more on LEED certification check out the US Green Building Council.

Just another bit of eco friendly news to report in what seems to be a recurring trend in Jacksonville and around the country. Peyton signs the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement and Gov. Crist signs off on sustainability. Jacksonville also has two sustainability blogs now: Sustainabuild and Sustainable Jax. Thanks to Tony for the tip on Sustainabuild!

Special thanks to Folio for inspiring two eco related posts on the same day.

Folio reported this week that:

Jim Dalton of the Dalton Agency heralded his company’s arrival downtown with a plan to remove part of the urban canopy.

He successfully lobbied the JEDC to allow him to remove three oaks in front the building at Laura and Monroe (the old Boomtown location). Nice. Nothing says welcome to the neighborhood like cutting down trees. Just ask the City just who spent countless thousands on restoring the Springfield canopy. No doubt someone thought it was a good idea to cut all those trees down too.

According to Jacksonville’s own tree protection ordinance amendment*, passed in 2000, all large hardwood trees with a 3-foot circumference or greater will be protected. A 3-foot circumference also equals a “dbh” (diameter at breast height) of 11.5 inches.

Eenie meenie miney moe

However this ordinance simply encourages and promotes the protection and conservation of existing trees. It does not prevent these types of trees from being removed. So lets look at some options for not cutting the trees down:

• Trim them so they don’t look so messy
• Contribute to the city’s Tree Protection and Related Expenses Trust Fund which provides for the planting or replanting of trees
• Plant some less messy trees of equal stature
• Pay a landscape architect to design something to accent and play off the trees
• Stop hating the earth

JEA’s brochure on trees says:

Surprisingly, trees can also help improve water quality in rivers, streams and lakes. A tree’s extensive root system holds soil in place, reducing erosion caused by rainfall. This process reduces the amount of soil that washes into our precious waterways.

Isn’t our “most valuable resource”, the St. Johns River, just 5 blocks away? Wouldn’t the river stand to benefit from the trees remaining in place? JEA seems to think so.

I could not find a link to the ordinance on the COJ site so I don’t know if it’s still active.