The Distance Project

Riding the Bus - DC to NYC

Posted on July 16th, 2008 by Zach.
Categories: General, Sustainability, Urban Planning.

For anyone not living in the northeast corridor of the US, you may not have been watching the incredible rise in bus travel options. In the past 6-8 months - new low-cost bus services have been springing up between Washington DC, New York, and Boston.

When I was in college (and spent too much time on buses) you had essentially two options - you got your Peter Pan and your Greyhound. Peter Pan was always the better option because they were newer buses, and typically had a terrible movie playing to distract you. (Note: Clearly this dates my college experience - no portable DVD player or iPod…what!?!). Then there was the rise of the Chinatown buses, which early on, you were just as likely to sit next to a box of Chicken cutlets as anything else. These buses were cheap, dropped you off on the sidewalk in funky areas of the city, and were fun for the risk of when the last safety check was, and the amazing Kung-Fu movies onboard.

Clearly the Fung Wah/Lucky Star services ate into the old guard bus routes, and as a result you have seen a mainstreaming attempt of this biz model. Enter new services like BoltBus and Mega Bus - who are still picking you up on the random corner, but have new buses with claims of Wifi and other services.

As it happens, I find myself currently sitting on a BoltBus headed to NYC from Washington. I have to say, not a bad experience at the moment, as I blog this over their WiFi system, with a 30 Rock episode playing in the background. Not bad at all.

Getting on was easy - it is right at Metro Center in DC, so the Metro access from anywhere in the city is cake. They leave every hour on the hour and it costs about $20 when you reserve on the internet. If you register early enough, there are even some $1 tickets on each bus. Twenty bucks is cheap for this ride, the train would cost me a minimum to $100. Planes would be a little bit more, plus you have to pay for the taxi on both ends. Even driving, between tolls and gas I would bet I can’t make this trip for under $30.

As I have posted before, I am huge proponent of trains. There is no mode of land based travel that I would rather be on than the train. Not only that but the serious downside to the bus has always been that you are still beholden to bad traffic as you are in the car. Trains don’t have that problem, and I am always appreciative of that.

Yet as I sit here posting this, checking my email, and watching David Schwimmer play Greenzo, I have to say that this ain’t that bad - especially when I can take 5 trips for the price of one train ticket.

Oh yeah, and it reduces your carbon load, as well as reduces the amount of oil consumption per person in this country too –gotta get the enviro and national security hits in there!

Check out BoltBus if you are trying to get back and forth from New York to DC.

0 comments.

Tags: boltbus, megabus, bus travel, wifi, carbon reduction

T Boone Pickens, Wind Power, And National Security.

Posted on July 14th, 2008 by Zach.
Categories: General, Renewable Energy, Systems of the World, Industry.

Does this look like the traditional face of an environmentalist? Take a look at this interview with T. Boone Pickens about why he is investing in Wind Power in West Texas:

Pickens Article on Investing in Wind

The concept of viewing our dependence on foreign oil as a historically massive transfer of wealth is excellent. It allows people on every side of the energy debate to frame it in a way that shows what is critically important about our dependence on oil.

I am a fan of locally produced energy. Even when we mine and burn coal, at least as a country we see the impact on our soil. Divorcing ourselves from our consumption (and consumption of anything, not just oil) is one of the first mistakes we need to rectify, and in a hurry.
I am a firm believer that once you frame consumption, reduction becomes a set of quantifiable goals. If you don’t have that frame, you have no place to start.

Now I am not naive enough to think that a lifelong oil guy like T. Boone Pickens is doing this out of the goodness of his heart. Like all of us he has larger motives - in his case mainly profit motives. In fact I would put money on the fact that this story is way more complicated than it seems.

Pickens has been taking advantage the odd regulations regarding drilling in Texas and is buying up land above a set of aquifers. So along with lobbying himself into a Water Authority and distributing water into the Dallas metropolitan area, I have no doubt that wind generated electricity can be easily transmitted down those same pipe lanes.

Eminent Domain is a wonderful concept.

If it turns out that there is Natural Gas on his land, then you can see the whole plan come together - one $2 billion pipeline, three critical services.
There is big money in this thing for Pickens, and all in all it is pretty brilliant if totally shady.

But in the end, I sit here and ask myself; “Do I Care?” And the answer is no. From the outset of embarking on this journey, I told myself that I didn’t care why people came to the table as long as they came. Well Pickens, came to the table because he saw huge money in wind power. I may not personally love all of his reasons, but his reasons frame the problems in ways many other people can identify with. And for that I am excited to welcome an old Oil Wildcatter to the party.

Let’s talk more about the transfer of wealth, it is a great point and one that I never would have conceived of if not for Pickens’ approach. It is simple and straight forward, and it matters.
Here is the You Tube explanation of the plan.

Here is the full website: www.pickensplan.com

Judge for yourself.

2 comments.

Tags: oil, wind, water, Natural Gas, T. Boone Pickens, Pickens Plan, Eminent Domain

Watching the Change and Getting the Message - Why Wall-E Matters.

Posted on July 7th, 2008 by hg.
Categories: General, Renewable Energy, Sustainability, Pop-Culture.

For those of you who don’t have a youngster in the house, aren’t a fan of cutting-edge animation, or just don’t get out much, you may be interested to learn that the movie WALL-E is perhaps the greatest environmental film of all time. I write this not as a steadfast environmentalist (which I am) or a shill for the Disney Company (which I am not), but as a student of mass communication , in general, and message framing and mass opinion, in particular.

Released to near universal critical acclaim for its animation, story and general creativity, the film was produced by Pixar/Disney for $180 million with a global marketing budget estimated at 20-30% of that number. The movie’s made $130 million since its release June 27^th (10 days ago). Industry estimates are that the film will gross a minimum of ½ a billion dollars globally, and may well bring in close to twice that much by the end of its theatrical run.

Whether it will or not I can’t say, but what’s fascinating is that we are now at a time, globally, where we can see the world as a whole engaging in the act of mass opinion change; in this case, with regard to moving from how we have historically powered our lives to a new, cleaner, more earth-centric system.

The movie does more in its 97 minute running time for the concepts of renewable energy, conservation, recycling, and consumer awareness than any 97 minutes of anything I can think of. I would challenge anyone to come up with an article, speech, ad or lobbying effort of the last 30 years that does as much for spreading…globally and to a wide swath of the human demographic…the awesomeness of solar power than does the 10 second bit that takes place in the first 30 minutes of this film.

There aren’t many times in life where you can look behind you to see what was, and forward to see what will be, but that’s exactly what’s happening at this time in history, as is evidenced by the production, release and embrace of a movie—ostensibly made for children and about two little robots in love—that tells its story using the backdrop of a dark, dystopian future of an earth rendered nearly uninhabitable by lack of environmental care, and that calls out to you to consider where you stand in the midst of the change occurring around you. Are you a part of the problem, or a part of the solution? Are you an apologist for the oil and gas industry? Are you a lobbyist at Bracewell and Giuliani, paid to discredit climate scientists? Are you a political appointee, dragging your feet on global warming, air quality, progressive energy policies and true energy security?

While our matinee showing was heavily populated by kids of all ages, my wife and I were surrounded by 5 and 8 year olds; people who will, perhaps—if everything goes well– never drive a vehicle that runs predominantly on polluting fossil fuels, and may actually drive to Prom in a “plug-in electric biofuel hydrogen fuel cell solar charged” number made by a company that actually “gets it”. (A discussion as to whether that company will be either of the current Detroit-based crew is best saved for another day).

I won’t give away the plot or ending, but I will tell you that the film is both aggressively “green” and elegantly not. It’s for the viewer to decide. It’s sometimes uncomfortable to watch, with its themes of consumerism gone amok, the melding of corporations and government, and idea that humans lack appreciation for the difficult and natural in favor of that which is easy and packaged. But don’t get me wrong, it’s also a joy to watch and experience this little gem of an American film, so don’t think you have it figured out before you even go see it.

That said, it’s possible that those people existing at the edges of the political spectrum will find things to dislike and diminish about the film. I’m relatively certain that the defenders of our historically “brown” system will find much to pooh pooh about a silly cartoon with the temerity to suggest the current system isn’t working just fine, thank you very much. But If that’s the case, then I don’t think they really understand the meaning of a movie like WALL E.

WALL E means that the world has changed. That if you’re still fighting on Capitol Hill to keep CAFE standards low, you just don’t get it. If you’re trying to get a coal plant sited, you’re on the backside of the curve, dude. If you’ve been running a car company where people call your main product “The Extinction”, or “The Bummer”, then you’re about to be extinct yourself, my friend. And, if you think it’s OK to spew filth into the air, make money without regard for the only planet we have, and work to blur any intelligent dialogue about the need for us to move to a new system as fast as we possibly can, then you are, quite frankly, old, and WALL E just ain’t for you. But that doesn’t matter anyway.

WALL E is for those kids born after 2000, who someday will ask what you were doing when the world changed. They’ll ask what it was like burning black rocks and liquids to heat your house and get to the supermarket. They’ll ask what a gas station was, and wasn’t it a drag to have to go to one all the time. They’ll ask why so many people had asthma and what acid rain was and to explain the Exxon Valdez; and why the people you chose to be in charge didn’t do more to clean things up and change things more quickly.

And they’ll ask, to gauge whether or not you’re really “with it”, whether you’ve ever seen the best environmental film of all time.

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Tags: movies, wall-e, environmentalism