Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the greenest of them all? San Francisco claims it is, but so do Seattle, Portland, and even Detroit, home of the Big Three automakers. Since he came into office, Mayor Chuck Reed has been pitching San Jose is as the nation’s green capital, and he will prove it to anyone who doubts him.
Pitching the city as the “world center of clean-tech innovation,” he told VCs and business leaders considering a move to the city to give him a call and he’ll give them the full pitch. “My phone number is 408-535-4800,” he told them.
At the meeting he touted PG&E’s smart grid initiative, his personal push for increased solar energy usage, and even plans to replace all the street lights with zero-emission lighting. Then there are the trees: he plans to plant 100,000 of them, to make the city as green as his tie.
Then there are the jobs. He is hoping to create 25,000 much needed new green jobs in the private sector. It’s not a moment too late. With the local defense industry rapidly losing jobs (see below), the city must find some way to keep its workers.
Read More at NBC Bay Area.
How about connecting up the bike trails? We are a long way behind Portland when it comes to bicycle access.
Where can a bicyclist cross the Caltrain tracks north of The Alameda? Over the last 5 years all of the grade crossings have been fenced off. Santa Clara has bicycle underpasses and overpasses at the tracks.
How about relaxing the ban on awnings in front of businesses to make the sidewalk pedestrian-friendly during summer sun and winter rain?
Not to mention charging for plastic bags. See the article in Metro on our sorry state on the plastic bag issue.
There are plenty of simple relatively low-cost things that could make a big difference, but why do I suspect Chuck will instead opt for some splashy complicated project that will spend a lot of money on consultants and finally fizzle out with no discernable result?
Yes, and then we lost Tesla to Palo Alto. Next, we probably won’t ban plastic bags. After that, we can keep delaying bringing BART to San Jose. C’mon, San Jose, we can do better than that!
My dream of San Jose is of a place with a huge network of trails so people can get all over the city on foot or bike, filled with companies on the forefront of green technology, with manufacturing as well. It will require changes in the way we think and behave, changes that will be protested by a variety of self-interested and reactionary groups. It is also something achievable, especially with strong, inspired leadership. Let’s do it!
My own green progress has been in fits and starts, and the more progress I make, the more I want to make. There is a lot San Jose can do. My number one favorite change so far is having one bin for all recycling, it is so easy now. Make it convenient and people will do it.
I have little to add except a rowsing HERE HERE to 10 MHz and Green Enthusiast’s comments on bike trails.
I have a bike, and I’ve honestly tried using it. To get to work, to get to events, etc. But I just can’t do it without being the kind of jerkoff you need to be in order to survive as a bicyclist on our roads.
Connect the trails!
Thank you all for very good observations, especially the ones on connecting the bike trails and walkability factor of the city itself. I’m originally from Eastern Europe and noticed that the way to attract foreign investment and “green” innovation was to make the city into a cultural happening place. This includes pedestrian friendly streets (some with no car traffic at all), outside cafe’s with the awnings you guys mentioned and other things so that people can hang out and socialize on the streets. That’s why Santana Row is so popular because it provides all that. If SJ downtown was able to offer more of same experience Mr’ Reed would find his phone ringing off the hook with calls from VC’s wanting to invest in Green tech. But we have to attract people first.
If you want to read about the e-waste recycling problem we have I posted a recent blog here, feel free to comment if you know more.
http://sanjosegreenhome.com/2009/09/14/how-“green”-is-san-jose’s-e-waste-and-computer-recycling-programs/
The city is finally innovating! they will plant 100,000 trees using only 25,000 new city employees! Outstanding.
Marketing vs. Message
When environmentalism became cool, it became hot for everyone from lawyers to fortune 500 companies to find a way to cash in on the latest hot fad. So people are driving around eco-friendly blocks of 4000+ pounds of steel and such to buy over priced coffee and dry cleaning rather than walk to a neighborhood store or bike. I’ve been in classes where all these environmental and planner types describe their commutes and its laughable how many think transit/walking/biking is great but they can rationalize not using it themselves because of the high cost of the extra time on their busy work, family and personal lives. Like rushing around in a car listing to an iPod and then twittering from the gym about how hard it is to lose weight is rational.
Anyway, with that rant out of the way, let me admit that I’m a lazy choice commuter who prefers the bike only on clear weather days, and while the rail service is cool, its way overpriced on CalTrain, and Light Rail was designed by a committee of SUV driving idiots who never planned for more than a way to go to a Sharks game or downtown outing once a month and not as a fast or efficient way of moving people across town. The only LR segment that seems to work well is Almaden to Downtown, but once it hits all those stops it slows to a crawl and takes like 30 minutes just to get to Hedding, Let alone MV.
Green is about planning for things that people want to do, in a way that addressing what they like, and not forcing your values on someone else when you don’t even plan on using the services you create.
So I second the Portland-SJ bike trail comparison. People will ride more if its grade seperated (where our lives don’t depend on that special driver in the right lane being considerate enough of our lives to not crowd us into the parked cars because their busy talking on the cell phone and looking for their dry cleaning receipt and starbucks card.) My research on HOV lanes showed that they only work when its a complete system, which we don’t have. I’m going to venture that the bike trail works the same way. If you can get gracefully and safely anywhere in the county, you’re going to see a huge increase in ridership, but when you have to exit the trails and cross through hectic traffic (like the horrible 87 bike trail I used to try to ride from Almaden to Downtown) your paying lip service without delivering a real service.
Why would Tesla want to do blue collar construction in Palo Alto instead of San Jose? Maybe because they could also have a prestige address for their corporate headquarters in the process and the lack of business taxes made the location cost competitive for a company that wanted to move fast and not wait for the politicians to massage the proposal. Business that wants to make money go where they can do so best.
I’ve got a green proposal. Let’s do recycled water, e-waste recycling and composting so well that cities across California (and beyond) will actually contract for us to handle this niche for them. Let’s turn out clean water, raw materials recovered from e-waste, and clean fertilizer that can be exported for a profit. If we can do that better than anyone else, there’s real money in it.
As far as solar panels on homes, I’m not sure if we’ve achieved the efficiencies and economies of scale that make the investment worth it. I think it might be the water softener fad of this decade, something everything thinks they need for a few years but end up scrapping in the next remodel. How about permeable pavement, localized grey water treatment and reuse (gardening and such) and things like that. Think globally, act locally. And if its not good enough for you, don’t try to build it for someone else.
If Mayor Chuck Reed wants to have a Greener City he needs to change the cities Fire department working schedule to a 48/96 model. At this time the Fire line personal drive into the city to work 3 times in one week and work 24 hours each time. If we follow Sacramento City or Sacramento Metro Fire departments by changing to 48/96 .We would save thousands of gallons of fuel and thousands of metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) cumulatively from vehicle emissions. It would be a no cost to the city to change and would save huge impact on making the city GREENER!!