The county’s recent pledge to reduce greenhouse emissions is nice, but Seth Rosen writes in the Progress that the city will be taking some pretty impressive concrete steps along the same lines. Council will require the city to reduce carbon emissions, buy electricity produced sustainably, and even create a power co-op with other buyers to demand renewable energy from Dominion. The paucity of renewable energy prevents council from setting benchmarks, unfortunately. The commitment to buying power from local producers is especially awesome, though I wonder how it will work. If I stick a 3KW solar panel array on my roof, how will the city get the energy that I produce? Would they buy credits from me, while I just net meter that power back into Dominion’s grid? (I wrote a bunch about this very topic earlier this year.)
Council will vote on this Monday night, where it will almost certainly pass.
How about buying smaller buses that can go more places and might be filled?
Agreed! This has been a topic on this board a few months ago. The transit system in this town is awful. It loses millions and above that they built a “Transit Center” which is basically empty most of the time. You see these huge buses nearly running people over in crosswalks, spewing out fumes and most of them have about 2 people in them at any given time. You could scale down to a few mini vans and people would still get to where they need to. JC
The smaller buses can not transport wheel chairs and baby strollers.
I kind of wonder if more people would ride buses if they actually thought they could get someplace faster… I think it’d be interesting to explore the idea of creating lanes/roads for just mass transit, and giving buses the same power to flip the lights that the Rescue Squad does.
As far as UVa goes, I know I don’t use the buses simply because they provide no benefit. By the time I drive all the way to Scott Stadium, I’m already only minutes from work. It makes no sense to wait 30 minutes for a bus. If they put the parking and the lots on the edge of the city then it’d make more sense for commuters. In fact, I’d love to see buses going from high density areas like Crozet and Forest lakes to the university area. (maybe they already exist and I don’t know about them?)
Regarding greening the city, I’d also like to see more incentives for green design features.
The transit center is probably the most worthless project the city has ever approved. Its not even open during the early morning rush hour(before 8am) when many people who ride CTS are out.
The Pavilion may be hideous, but at least it serves a purpose(concert venue). But all the transit center does is sit there and give City Council a reason to pat themselves on the back about yet another “wonderful project” they have done.
The transit center is far more beautiful than the Himalayan fir tree that it replaces. HollowBoy, you must remember that any money spent in the name of transit (and tourism) is a positive thing. You must trust in the wisdom and experience of our city fathers.
And the building is greener than the fir.
Yes the downtown mall….a great tourist attraction where people can go to trip for free on the 5O year old bricks with holes and cracked mortar. Wait, I take that back. They can go look at the abandoned rat infested buldings across from the Cville building or better yet the Jefferson Theater which resembles an abandoned mine shaft. Welcome to our glorious town, come one..come all! JC
Which says we must spend millions more to make it truly a grand area for the tourists to see.