A view of the city

Location, location, location

This insert in a Progress Energy electric bill highlights Bingham Ridge, a new subdivision in Chatham County – the first “green neighborhood” in Progress Energy Carolinas’ system.   The insert says that “all of the homes are energy Star Certified … each home is equipped with solar panels and other innovative technology.”

 

What’s the problem with this neighborhood and energy efficiency?  Here’s a hint from the insert: 

From Chapel Hill, take 15-501 South. Turn Right on Mann's Chapel Rd. Go 2 miles. Turn right on Poythress Rd. Bear left at the Chapel, onto Lamont Norwood Rd. Go 2 miles to Bingham Ridge Drive.

Nice as this place may be, it’s located eight miles from the nearest town.  You remember town -- that's where you get groceries, and go to your job.*

 

Every house in this subdivision will generate at least 9 vehicle trips per day (ITE Manual, 6th edition).  Most of those trips will be at least 8 miles long because this place is that far out in the sticks.         

Transportation accounts for a third of greenhouse gas emissions in the US.  Residents of Bingham Ridge will be buying into a compulsory driving lifestyle that will far outpace the energy savings from all those high-end fridges and dishwashers.

 

Better approach – build the houses in a walkable neighborhood in a town or city where folks can walk**, bike, or take shorter car trips to their destinations.

 

* Towns also have restaurants, sporting events, banks, FedEx/Kinkos, and stuff like that.

** You remember "walk" ...  

Secretary of Transportation says bikes are not transportation

The Secretary of the US Department of Transportation says that bicycles are not transportation.

The comments in response are the best part.

Bike Louisville

Check all the bikety stuff on the “Bike Louisville” homepage.

And here is what the City of Raleigh webpage has to say about bicycling in our town.

Cycle

Can you think of a place in Raleigh that exemplifies this cycle?

Typically, the gentrification process is linear and unfolds over time. First the artists seek out a neighborhood (usually an abandoned industrial zone or vibrant ethnic enclave) that’s cheap and relatively accessible. Then come the scenesters, who have more money but who still want an authentic urban lifestyle because, seriously, no one moves to the suburbs anymore. All they want is an affordable place on a non-eyesore-ish block within walking distance of a few cute restaurants, and a couple of good bars, and a halfway decent bookstore, and a yoga studio, and a wine store that isn’t just full of cheap swill for rummies, and maybe a children’s boutique with adorable $80 hand-sewn frocks hanging off a wooden tricycle in the window, and a Starbucks, and a Whole Foods. And they’re willing to bet that, if just a few of those things are in place already, the others will come along soon enough—so that eventually their new neighborhood will look pretty much identical to the ones they couldn’t previously afford. At which point the developers arrive to throw up new condo buildings named after the neighborhood, and the hipper chains start to sniff out a new lucrative demographic pocket—and the artists have long since moved on, along with a good chunk of the neighborhood’s previous residents. 

(from If You Lived Here, You’d Be Cool By Now, New York magazine, Dec. 11, 2006)

 

Best tomato sandwich

• 1 Brandywine* tomato
• Good white sandwich bread (such as English Toasting Bread or Sandwich White, from The Fresh Market's bakery department), sliced
• Duke's mayonnaise (full-fat only)

Slice the tomato about 1/3 inch thick, draining any seeds and excess gel.  Take the sliced bread and spread one side of each slice with the mayonnaise, using about a tablespoon for every two slices of bread.  Arrange tomato slices to cover the bread and assemble into sandwiches.  Slice into halves or quarters and eat immediately.

Three or four of these will serve as an excellent lunch and leave you in a good mood for the rest of the day.

*Brandywines are available from one dealer in the far southeast corner of the State Farmers Market.  They are in the back of his stand, behind the German Johnson tomatoes.

A mess at Perry Creek

WRAL.com reports a 2.25-million-gallon sewage spill into Perry Creek in north Raleigh.

The piece states that "erosion of a stream bank" undermined an underground sewer pipe along Triangle Town Boulevard, between Triangle Town Center and Interstate 540.

What the story did not reveal:  streambank erosion is primarily caused by huge bursts of stormwater runoff.  And those massive surges, in turn, are caused by high impervious surface coverage on developed land (mostly, parking lots). 

Check again on the location of the spill:  between Triangle Town Center and Interstate 540.  No surprises there -- this area must have one of the highest percentages of pavement for parking anywhere in Raleigh. 

So not only is the stream channel getting blasted out by stormwater -- the stormwater also caused the pipe breakage and thus the sewage spill.