Infrastructure determines how we live, says Ryan Gravel, an Atlanta planner. But he’s not just talking about the tedious methods for relieving road congestion or figuring out how to efficiently transmit water, gas and electricity to every home. No, Gravel’s got something more personal in mind. Infrastructure, to him, determines how people interact and bond, children grow up, residents spend their time and communities preserve their heritage. “Infrastructure is the foundation of social life and economy and culture,” he tells NationSwell. That may sound grandiose, but thinking big hasn’t stopped Gravel before. He’s the visionary behind the mother of all urban redevelopment projects: a 22-mile metamorphosis known as the BeltLine, linking Atlanta’s unused railroad tracks and abandoned industrial zones in a gigantic loop of public transit, green parks, walking and biking trails and neighborhood revitalization.
“If we build highways and off-ramps, then guess what? We end up with a way of life that’s dominated by cars. If we build walkable communities with transit, we get something that’s entirely different,” Gravel says. “The BeltLine is catalyzing a new way of life, a new kind of infrastructure. It’s supporting something other than what Atlanta is known for, which is car dependency, and it’s working.”
By picturing what kind of city he wanted to live in, Gravel first envisioned the BeltLine in 1999 as part of his master’s thesis. Cathy Woolard, former city council member and gay rights advocate who’s readying to replace Mayor Kasim Reed (who’s in the midst of serving his second term) in 2017, provided invaluable early assistance and got the massive 25-year project up and running by 2005. Gravel personally helped oversee its rollout with a full-time role at city hall. Yet working in government bureaucracy quickly tested his nerves. He loved meeting all the different stakeholders interested in the BeltLine — from local restaurant owners to fellow urban planning wonks — but, as he told Ozy, “The politics of it got too much.” Gravel quit after five months. (He notes he continued to be involved in the BeltLine’s development through volunteer work, advocacy and private-sector work.)
A decade later, the BeltLine has generated $2.5 billion in economic development, and Gravel wrote a book about infrastructure, out last month. Recently, Gravel announced he’s rejoining the planning process from within the mayoral administration, by serving as manager of the Atlanta City Design project, a new design studio that will sketch out long-term plans for Atlanta’s growth after at least six months of public meetings at Ponce City Market. Writing in an email, he made clear that the job isn’t a long-term position: “My role … is as a consultant. And by this time next year, I’m guessing it will be over/near over.” But on the phone, he communicates enthusiasm for the project’s ambitious goal. Essentially, Gravel wants to find out what makes Atlanta tick and preserve those elements through a projected boom in population.
In January, Mayor Reed welcomed Gravel back to city hall. ”His vision to transform old railroad corridors into a 22-mile transit greenway has spurred economic development across the city, improved the quality of life for residents and led to a total transformation for Atlanta,” Reed said. Part of that renewal has been an in-migration to Atlanta’s downtown. Regarded as the capital of the South, the urban center of Atlanta dwarfs in size compared to the city’s suburbs. Fewer than one in 10 people live downtown out of the 5.7 million that claim the metro area home. Stretching out 50 miles in every direction, the outer ring of the nine-county area was once the hotspot for new growth. Now, people are pouring back into downtown. ”There’s a limit to the sprawl,” Matt Hauer, head of the University of Georgia’s Applied Demography Program, tells the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “We’re seeing much more urban revitalization and growth in the central metro counties.”
With so much in flux, Gravel’s assessment of what defines Atlanta will be all the more important. “The purpose of City Design is to identify the things that are special about Atlanta, then embed those things in the decisions about how the city grows in the future,” Gravel says. In other words, he believes that Atlanta’s history and environment should inform every planning decision. The BeltLine, in repurposing old railroads, for instance, would get high marks for its nod to Atlanta’s beginnings and its reclaiming of industrial land. The neighborhood containing Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthplace and burial site in the Historic Fourth Ward have been connected to the BeltLine via a trail and a 17-acre park, but there’s plenty of other sites from the Civil Rights Movement to safeguard and integrate.
“We have been so car-centric that you didn’t experience the city in an intimate way,” Reed explains to The New York Times. “We are changing Atlanta into a city that you can enjoy by walking and riding a bike.”
There’s not much precedent for this type of metropolitan-wide planning in North American cities. Workers within individual departments may come up with an idea for housing stock or parks and recreation, but they’re almost never joined together in one unified vision. (Gravel points to only one prior example in the United States that he can find: Chicago’s Burnham Plan in 1909.) That’s because the hardest part is getting everyone to sign off on one big plan.
By taking hundreds of thousands of people’s opinions all being taken into account, the BeltLine has run up against some major political hurdles (typical for massive government undertakings). Not surprisingly, the biggest tiffs involved money. When the stock market took a nosedive in 2008, it looked as if the BeltLine wouldn’t get built. Under then-mayor Shirley Franklin, the city set up a new process, known as tax-allocation districts in 2005, to borrow school tax revenues to fund the initial construction (to be returned upon the project’s completion), but it didn’t go into effect until a state constitutional amendment was approved in 2009. Construction resumed, but when the city missed its payments on the $162 million owed by 2030, Reed received a sharp rebuke from Atlanta’s school superintendent, including threats of a lawsuit. “Bikes or books?” one graduate student at George State University asked. “What does Atlanta support more?
This February, three years after that budget fight turned nasty, Reed brokered a deal that offered less money, but with a guarantee the schools would be paid first. He argued that funding the BeltLine would foster a more robust tax base — a $30 billion increase is hoped for by 2030 — filling both the city and the school’s coffers. The deal “will allow the Atlanta BeltLine to recover from the worst recession in 80 years. And then, when the Beltline is strong and able again, it can make payments at a higher level,” he promised. The school board unanimously agreed.
Across the rest of the city, however, individuals still questions if they will be able to cash in on the investment. Neighbors bordering the city’s new lifeline worry that gentrification will drive up rents to sky-high prices. There’s plenty of evidence in other cities to support their point. For instance, in Southern California’s Elysian Valley, proximity to the Los Angeles River redevelopment — a concrete blight that’s now a natural asset — drove up the median price per square foot 28.3 percent in one year.
Gravel hopes people see that the answer is not to leave the city as it is, without improvements, in the hopes of warding off gentrification. That’s not to say, there won’t be unintended consequences, he admits. But if anything, this is where planning is all the more important, preparing ways to keep housing affordable while sprucing up a neighborhood’s character.
Gravel looks around him for all the signs that the BeltLine’s already improving Atlanta. “It’s not just people commuting or exercising, they’re going out on dates, going to the grocery. That to me is a huge measure of success. To me, it’s changing the way that people live their lives,” he says. With more long-term planning still to come, we can expect to see a new model for urban growth born in the south in the decades ahead.
Correction: A previous version of this article referred to Atlanta City Design as a “committee.” It is a design studio. The article also said that Ryan Gravel was nervous about his new position, which was incorrect. It also stated that Mayor Reed set up the tax-allocation districts. That work was done under Mayor Shirley Franklin. NationSwell apologies for these errors.
Tag: cars
5 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Let Your Car’s Engine Idle
It might not seem like a big deal to leave your car’s engine on while waiting to pick someone up, but did you know it’s better for you and the environment if you simply turned the car off?
There’s a common misconception that it takes more gas to restart your car than to keep it running — but that’s simply not true. In fact, if you’re going to idle more than 10 seconds, it’s better to switch off the engine and restart it when you’re ready to go.
As Sustainable America points out, idling is “a crucial economic, health, and environmental issue” and changing this bad driving habit can make a big difference. EcoWatch recently pointed out 10 excellent reasons why you should turn off an idling car, and here are some of our favorites:
1. Get more miles out of your tank
The average American spends 16 minutes a day idling their vehicle, according to this infographic. While you shouldn’t turn off your car in the middle of the road or stopped at an intersection, EcoWatch writes that, for example, “if you idle for five minutes warming up your car in the morning, three minutes at the bank drive-thru and four minutes listening to the end of an NPR story in your driveway, you’ve burned enough gas to drive 24 miles.”
2. Save money
The Ohio Air Quality Development Authority found that the average idle car consumes about 0.156 gallons of gas per hour. Even though that doesn’t sound like a lot, Slate crunched the numbers and found that if you were to cut 10 minutes of idling a day and restart your car four more times a day as a result, you could save around 8.9 gallons of gas a year. Based on today’s gas prices, that’s an extra $30 you get to keep in your pocket. Multiplied by every driver in the U.S., the country as a whole could save about $13 million annually, EcoWatch reports.
3. You could be breaking the law
Idle car bans already exist in about 30 states. In New York state, for example, heavy-duty vehicles (such as diesel trucks and buses) cannot be idle for more than five minutes at a time. In New York City, the anti-idling rule goes even further: cars, taxicabs and buses can not idle outside of the city’s schools for more than a minute because exhaust fumes worsen the quality of air both inside and outside the school, CNN reported.
4. Better air quality
We’ve mentioned before that half of the toxic pollutants in the air are caused by petroleum-chugging motor vehicles. And when your car is idling, it emits just as many harmful emissions as a car on the go. “Every 10 minutes of idling you cut from your life, you’ll save one pound of carbon dioxide — a harmful greenhouse gas — from being released into the atmosphere,” EcoWatch writes.
5. Improved health
Air pollution is linked to asthma attacks, lung disease, allergies, even cancer. Because a lot of idling happens around fast-food drive thrus, the EPA even warned via a tweet to avoid them entirely: “Although convenient, the idling of your car worsens air quality for you and your kids.” No idling = Better air = Happy lungs
Avoid drive-thrus. Although convenient, the idling of your car worsens air quality for you and your kids. #ChildrensHealthMonth
— U.S. EPA (@EPA) October 24, 2014
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DON’T MISS: 5 Very Simple, Practical Things You Can Do to Curb Climate Change
Instead of Letting Veterans Struggle Post Service, GM Trains Them for Dealership Employment
Many Army veterans know a thing or to about maintaining vehicles. And if they can keep a tank running smoothly, fixing a car should be a piece of cake, right?
That’s what General Motors and Raytheon think, which is why the two companies are teaming up with the U.S. Army to offer veterans jobs in car dealerships. According to David Shepardson of The Detroit News, GM has more car lots than any other auto maker in the U.S. — 4,300 of them, to be exact — and the company estimates it’ll need 2,500 technicians to staff them in the coming years. And with the Army planning to reduce its size from 574,000 to 450,000, there will be thousands of veterans looking for good jobs.
So kicking off this month at Fort Hood in Killeen, Texas, is the 12-week-long Shifting Gears: Automotive Technician Training Program. In order for Army members to obtain the skills needed to gain a civilian job before they’re discharged, the Raytheon-developed program is held on the base. GM pays for the training and connect graduates from it to jobs in their dealerships across the country.
Lynn Dugle, president of Raytheon Intelligence, Information and Services, says, “Young Army veterans face unemployment rates that are more than double the national average. Raytheon sees this partnership with GM and the Army as an opportunity to reduce those alarming statistics by helping position former service members for new opportunities.”
U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Howard Bromberg, deputy chief of staff for personnel, said at the Pentagon event, “Soldiers transitioning to civilian life bring exceptional training, values and experience to American communities and their civilian workforce. Properly supporting our veterans requires a team approach from the Army, other government agencies and the local community.”
Along with GM and Raytheon, more and more companies, including Tesla and Microsoft, are stepping up to help veterans transition into civilian jobs. Here’s to hoping that this assistance continue to trend.
MORE: This Innovative Car Company Aims to Hire More Veterans
From a Tomato to a Taurus: Ford and Heinz’s New Partnership
This summer, millions of Americans will eat ketchup on hot dogs and hamburgers, and soon enough they’ll also travel in it. Sounds impossible, right? Maybe even a little gross?
Not to the people at Heinz and Ford.
Heinz uses over two million tons of tomatoes annually, according to CNET, leaving behind stems, seeds, and skin. To find a way to use this byproduct, the food company and the automaker have partnered to find ways to turn it into material used for wiring brackets, interior compartments, and other car parts.
Part of a larger effort to make an entirely plant-based plastic, the tomato car parts are just part of a much larger research project between Ford and Coca-Cola, Nike, and Proctor and Gamble, according to Fox Business. Through it, Ford hopes to be able to cut down on petrochemical use, instead using more renewable sources for vehicle components. The automaker already uses recycled cotton for seat cushioning, as well as rice hulls to make internal pieces, says PSFK. Cup holders constructed of tomato parts would just continue the America auto company’s strong sustainability efforts.
Now don’t go thinking that cars made with tomatoes are going to smell like marinara sauce. Because Heinz’s leftovers will be transformed into a plastic-like material, you luckily won’t have to see, smell, or feel that you’re riding in a car constructed of tomato parts.
The two companies have even come up with a new, clever catchphrase for this innovation: “You Say Tomato; We Say Tom-Auto.”
Meet A Disabled Veteran Jump Starting Soldiers’ Cars — and Their Lives
A little help can go a long way for those in need — especially if they’re veterans struggling to find jobs and readjust to civilian life.
Which is exactly why North Dakota Air Force veteran Larry Mendivil is offering free car repairs to any soldier who needs them. Mendivil knows his way around a socket wrench — he served as a senior airman with the 319th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron at Grand Forks Air Force Base in North Dakota, and now he’s applying the fix-it skills he developed there to four-wheeled vehicles.
Last year, he started the Miracles for Vets out of his home’s garage. The nonprofit raises money to fund car repairs and collects donated parts and tools, while several professional car mechanics offer their time and skills to make repairs.
What inspired Mendivil to help other vets? He suffered a disability related to a refueling accident, so after he returned from Iraq in 2007 unable to reenlist, he set out to help other service members — following the Air Force motto of “Service Before Self.” “Even as a disabled veteran everyone has a chance to make a difference,” Mendivil told Xavier Navarro of 319th Air Base Wing Public Affairs.
Over the next two weeks, Mendivil and his crew of volunteer gearheads are rotating to different garages in Harrisburg, North Dakota that have agreed to let him use their space and tools.
Mike Lewis, the owner of Ducks Auto Repair — where the Miracles crew was based last week — was glad to help the cause. “The veterans deserve to have some kind of positive reinforcement when they get back. They’re struggling to readjust from being overseas, they need somebody to help them out,” he told Eames Yates of Fox 43.
Mendivil told Austin Ashlock of the Grand Forks Herald that after he left the service, “I struggled a long time until Veterans Affairs was able to help me out. I was actually homeless for a little while.”
Making it even more special that the first thing that Mendivil did after getting back on his feet was help others.
MORE: Savvy Mechanics Help Disabled Veterans Hit the Open Road
Bigger is Selling Better
In this post-recession world we’re now living in, one might assume that when it comes to purchasing a vehicle, most Americans would go for the smaller choice. After all, an economy-size car gets better gas mileage — meaning less money spent on costly fill-ups.
But recent statistics show that American families are trading in their cars for trucks. Even more interesting? This surprising move is helping the economy.
According to The Atlantic, the U.S. economy is moving forward at a snail’s pace, but if it wasn’t for the sale of new and used trucks, the economy would hardly be growing at all.
While the average household spent $51,400 last year, that was about $800 more than the previous year. Of that increase, 60 percent went towards transportation costs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Fueling this jump in spending? Large vehicles.
Domestic and imported truck sales increased by eight percent in the past year, while domestic car sales decreased by six percent. According to Motor Intelligence, in the past year, cross-overs, small SUVs, minivans, pickup trucks and large cars sold better than their inferior smaller competitors.
So what does this mean for the U.S. economy?
It is a step back for environmentalists who argue for a green and carless lifestyle. But if it weren’t for the increase in spending on new and used trucks, transportation sales would have decreased, leaving many other businesses (gas, insurance and repair) with less revenue.
Fortunately, for the economy, a decline in driving seems unlikely. In this country, most Americans would rather get behind the wheel than take public transportation, walk, or bike to work. Making it likely that the demand for new and used trucks is going to continue to speed up.
MORE: The Cars of the Future Might Be Powered by…Algae
Will Providing Drivers’ Licenses to Undocumented Immigrants Improve Safety?
According to the New York Times, there are around 11.7 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States, many of them driving — regardless of whether or not they are licensed. Which is a somewhat scary situation facing the rest of us out on the roads.
In response, a growing number of states (including California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, and Washington) have begun to issue driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants. According to the Seattle Times, as of last year all but two states — Arizona and Nebraska — had altered their laws to at least allow immigrants brought here as children to obtain driver’s licenses.
Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, D.C., told Andrea Billups of NewsMax, “It doesn’t given them any legal status, but by giving them a government-issued ID, it helps them imbed in society.”
As for the rest of the states who haven’t given driver’s license privileges to undocumented people yet, it might make financial sense to do so. According to Hispanically Speaking News, when the Massachusetts legislature was debating this idea in March, the head of the state’s Registry of Motor Vehicles, Celia Blue, said licensing undocumented drivers “would generate nearly $15 million in state revenue through license fees and other charges, plus $7.5 million in renewal fees every five years.” Massachusetts state senator Joseph Vital said, “This isn’t to excuse the fact that they’re undocumented. But they’re on the roads. They’re driving. Many uninsured.”
When Colorado passed a law allowing for the licensing of undocumented immigrants last June, the bill’s sponsor, state Senator Jessie Ulibarri, said that law enforcement supported the legislation, according to Reuters. “Our roads will be safer when we can properly identify everyone who drives on them. We estimate that thousands more Colorado drivers will get insured because of this law.”
Sarah E. Hendricks of Drake University wrote in her April report “Living in Car Culture Without a License: The Ripple Effects of Withholding Driver’s Licenses from Unauthorized Immigrants,” published by the Immigration Policy Center, “States that do not offer driver’s licenses to unauthorized immigrants will limit the contributions that immigrant communities as a whole can potentially make, are likely to face negative economic and public safety consequences, and tend to fail in attempts to use such restrictive state-level policies to reduce the presence of unauthorized immigrants.”
MORE: It Wasn’t Easy to Welcome 25,000 Refugees, But Boy is This Town Glad it Did
Their Daughter Died When She Didn’t Buckle Up. Now They’re Working to Save Other Children From the Same Danger
According to the U.S. Department of Transportation National Highway Traffic Safety Commission, more than 33,000 people were killed in car crashes in 2009. Of those fatalities, more than half were not wearing their seatbelt. Last year, Alexa Johnson, a 19-year-old Colorado resident, was one such victim.
Johnson died when she lost control of her pickup truck in rural Weld County, Colorado and was ejected through the driver’s side window. She wasn’t wearing a seatbelt.
Colorado highway officials note that many drivers on rural roads fail to wear safety restraints. In fact, 59 percent of the unbuckled fatalities in Colorado last year occurred on rural roadways. Alexa’s father, Tad Johnson, told Monte Whaley of the Denver Post, “The first thing I felt was anger and then I wanted to blame someone. And then I had an ‘aha’ moment and I said, ‘Alexa, what are we going to do about this?'”
Tad and his wife Jona launched a social media campaign to raise awareness about the problem of young adults in rural areas driving without seatbelts. He looked at the photos on Alexa’s Facebook page and said, “We saw that in all those photos, hardly ever was Alexa and her friends using seat belts. It’s something that we just had to deal with.”
The Johnsons took to Facebook with their message about buckling up for safety, and then began to sew inch-wide Velcro ribbons that wrap around seat belts to remind drivers to use them. The ribbons are called Alexa’s Hugs, and since last year, the Johnsons have produced thousands of them, which now come in a variety of designs.
Alexa’s Hugs have already saved at least one life. Alexa’s friend, Kole Kilcrease told Whaley he was driving near the same stretch of highway where Alexa died when he hit ice and lost control, rolling his pickup two-and-a-half times. Both Kilcrease and his passenger survived because they were buckled in. Kilcrease said, “I never really buckled up because it just seemed like an inconvenience. You have a busy day, and you have other things on your mind. I don’t think that anymore.”
MORE: A 16-Year-Old Died in A Car Accident. What Happened Next Changed Hundreds of Teenagers’ Lives.
This Innovative Transit App Wants Commuters to Think Outside the Car
There’s nothing more frustrating than sitting in traffic, car idling lazily while wasting gas and emitting carbon monoxide into the air. In many big cities, you might have just as easily hopped on the bus, taken the subway, rode a bike or simply walked. But figuring out which method is fastest would take just as much time as navigating rush hour. Not anymore. RideScout, a mobile application that provides real-time information on how to get around your city, is disrupting the transit industry, one download at a time. RideScout allows you to compare all transportation options — including city buses and trains, taxis, car-shares, biking, walking and driving — to determine the quickest and cheapest ways to get from Point A to Point B without completely losing your cool. “Our vision statement is seamless door-to-door transportation,” RideScout cofounder and Army veteran Joseph Kopser told The Atlantic Cities. “What I mean by that is every safe, legal, and reliable way that’s out there, we want to bring to you in the palm of your hand or onto your desktop so you can have all your options.”
MORE: Forget Bridgegate. Here Are Six Innovators Trying to Fix the Daily Commute
The Washington, DC-based startup, which first launched in the area in November with big support from city officials, recently got a facelift, adding more features, like the ability to inform users how many empty slots are at the nearest Bikeshare station, or ping them when it’s time to leave the house to catch the bus or train. The app is available on the iPhone and Android phones (in beta), but is currently only fully optimized — meaning that it offers the most variety of transportation options — in DC and Austin. More transit options will become available in other U.S. cities soon. Eventually, Kopser and his partner, Army friend Craig Cummings, hope to expand into international markets.
At its core, RideScout is more than just a tool to help people combat traffic. By being able to quickly partner with more transportation services, Kopser and Cummings hope to persuade users to reconsider their dependence on cars, while increasing transportation efficiency and reducing drunk driving. “Our communities, our cities and suburbs, we can’t sustain a car-centric life going forward in this country,” Kopser said. For these reasons, RideScout was named the winner in the Smart Cities category at the Challenge Cup DC Regional Competition, a startup competition. The company will compete against other big “Smart Cities” ideas in the Challenge Cup Global Finals and Festival in May. No matter how they fare at the event, RideScout could become a model for building smarter, more connected communities with efficient transportation systems.
MORE: 9 Surprising Infrastructure Innovations Happening Right Here in America
The Cars of the Future Might Be Powered By… Algae
Oil is going green — literally. Scientists at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) have discovered a way to simplify the process of turning algae and water into crude oil. The process, called hydrothermal liquefaction, has long been touted as a viable way to produce more energy. In fact, most of the oil that’s drilled from the ground was formed by algae, compacted and heated over the course of millions of years until it transformed into petroleum. But now scientists have figured out how to quickly reproduce the process in the lab, converting algae into oil in less than an hour.
“It’s a way of mimicking what happens naturally over an unfathomable length of time,” says lead investigator Douglas C. Elliott. “We’re just doing it much, much faster.”
So how does it work? PNNL researchers mix 20% algae with 80% water, and send the mixture down a tube at 660 degrees Fahrenheit and 3,000 psi for 30 minutes. The pressure cooker breaks down the algae and converts it into oil. An added bonus is that the process yields byproducts, such as carbon dioxide, hydrogen and oxygen, which can be reused to generate more heat or fertilize the algae.
The same hydrothermal liquefaction process can also be used on other organic wastes, such as manure, sewage or compost, which could have big implications for recycling waste into energy all across the country. Researchers’ next challenge is figuring out how to make the process cheap. Algae-powered cars aren’t here yet, but they’re a bit closer thanks to this new innovation.
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