Ride Shares & Car Cooperatives
The first link below proposes a smart but somewhat involved national rideshare program to get cars off the road, not necessarily people. The second link is to an article in Out There that I wrote about car cooperatives. Both tackle an engrained mind-set—that we need to have access to our cars at all times during the day to drive to wherever we want to go. This is going to be changing whether we like or not.
Planning for the co-housing project, we have discussed a car-share program among three families where we would sign-out for the car in advance of needing it, similar to the “office car” in urban businesses. The rest of the time we would rely on public transportation, electric scooters, bicycles and walking. Radical idea.
The potential developers for the project looked at us like we were absolutely insane when we proposed this. They also questioned the unseemly task of having to walk outdoors from a garage and into a house. All of us live with this “condition” now and have not thought twice about it before, but now we are up against questioning banks, developers and City regulations that require 1.5 parking stalls per unit equaling 5 spaces. It is ridiculous to eat up precious urban green space with parking, especially when we all have children.
http://www.communitysolution.org/rideshare.html
http://www.outtheremonthly.com/index.php?art=archives/jan06/parking
posted by Juliet, Kelly, Angie @ 10:35 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
The cohousing project is very interesting and I am looking forward to see how it progresses (hopefully you can work something out and it does). I have condsidered "radical" living adjustments to remediate continual urban sprawl and growth. You are fortunate to have a group of people with similar concerns, ideas, and interests to attempt the project.
The parking space regulation - what signifies a parking space? Is it necessary to have a paved space adequate for 5 cars? What about driveway/yard bricks that allow plants to grow through them and still offer adequate support for a vehicle? Or how about a patio, something that looks like a parking space but, if you don't have cars, can be used for different purpose? Parking for 5 cars on a 60' x 100' lot takes up alot of ground.
The Jensen Byrd article was interesting in latest Out There. It also made me reconsider the need to leave my current house (3000 Sq ft built in 1960) and build a more efficiant structure. If I abondon this house and build somthing efficient, chances are the person moving in wouldn't feel the same way about conservation. I will be better off using the resources available in the house I have converting as much as possible to high effieciency appliances and insulating, etc.
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