Update: A Vision for Garden in the Woods

I love Garden in the Woods, the botanical/wildflower garden and education center in north Framingham. It's a lovely natural oasis amidst a suburban neighborhood, but I can't help thinking about how it might be an even more appealing destination to stay at longer if there was a place to sit, eat, drink and relax. A little cafe could make it a place to spend more of the day before or after strolling/hiking through the garden, or attending programs/classes.

Update: Check out the comments! It seems that the Garden is rolling out some food service, with snacks, drinks and picnic tables. Great news! Thanks to Nicola Cataldo from the New England Wildflower Society for letting us know.

The botanical garden in Geneva, Switzerland has a lovely cafe where you can buy food and drinks -- including wine and beer, since Europeans don't have that hysterical puritanical streak we do when it comes to having a glass of wine with lunch. Of course, they also have a lot more public transportation, meaning everyone doesn't have to drive everywhere. It's probably unlikely that Garden in the Woods would ever get into the beer & wine serving business, which is too bad. But even a little place to sit out and have coffee, tea or soda and some prepared sandwiches would be a fun addition to time spent at the Garden.

New York City Mayor Proposes Charging Fee for Driving Into Some Areas of Manhattan

"Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg made a series of Earth Day proposals this afternoon to improve the environment of New York City, including charging a new congestion fee to drivers who come into parts of Manhattan during peak hours during weekdays," the New York Times reports.

The $8 fee for autos and $21 for trucks would be charged for driving into most areas of Manhattan south of 86th St between 6 am and 6 pm. Bridge and tunnel tolls paid to get into the borough would be deducted.

“The question is not whether we want to pay, but how do we want to pay — with an increased asthma rate, with more greenhouse gases, with more wasted time, lost business and higher prices," Mayor Bloomberg said. "Or do we charge a modest fee to encourage more people to take mass transit.”

London instituted such a plan in 2003.

It makes sense to me. For those who believe in capitalism and "market forces," it's only fair that drivers start paying more of the true costs of dependence on automobiles, instead of forcing society as a whole to subsidize it.

The fee wouldn't be imposed for at least a year. It's expected to face opposition in the state legislature.

Framingham: The Good, The Bad, The Needs Changing

Fifty or so residents came out on a cold, rainy evening last night for the Framingham Planning Board's Master Plan "Visioning Workshop." The purpose was to get input from the community on what we'd like the town to become in the future.

The exercise involved breaking up into small groups and answering several interesting questions, such as: What's good about the town that you'd like to preserve? What changes do you see occurring, either bad or good? What things need changing?

The good: Diversity was one of the most frequently mentioned aspects. Diversity of people -- racial/ethnic, socioeconomic, family types -- but also diversity of development patterns (rural, suburban, urban), housing stock and so on.

Residents also liked the location and easy access to so many other areas; water features (lakes and rivers); historic buildings; neighborhoods; schools and more.

The bad: Growing traffic problems topped many lists. Also mentioned that I agree with: Suburban sprawl, auto-oriented development, crime downtown, dispersed government accountability, areas are dirty and not well maintained.

Needs changing: More walkability, not surprisingly, topped my list. Among the other issues brought up that I agreed with: Opportunity lost in not better integrating the college into the community, form of government, better taking advantage of water features in town, dealing with traffic, improving non-auto forms of transportation.

In my group, the MetroWest Daily News came under intense criticism for not caring about the community, having people from outside the community who don't understand the town writing about it with skewed perceptions and misunderstandings, emphasizing negatives and ignoring positives, and having outsiders lecture the town on what it should do (when this town shoulders much more of its regional burden than the lecturers' own communities).

There should be a report coming out summarizing what all the different groups came up with soon.

Paris to Offer Thousands of Rental Bicycles on Demand at Very Low Cost

Here's a cool idea: The city of Paris will begin offering "thousands of low-cost rental bikes at hundreds of high-tech bicycle stations scattered throughout the city, an ambitious program to cut traffic, reduce pollution, improve parking and enhance the city's image as a greener, quieter, more relaxed place," the Washington Post reported recently.

"By the end of the year, organizers and city officials say, there should be 20,600 bikes at 1,450 stations -- or about one station every 250 yards across the entire city. Based on experience elsewhere -- particularly in Lyon, France's third-largest city, which launched a similar system two years ago -- regular users of the bikes will ride them almost for free.

" 'It has completely transformed the landscape of Lyon -- everywhere you see people on the bikes,' said Jean-Louis Touraine, the city's deputy mayor. The program was meant 'not just to modify the equilibrium between the modes of transportation and reduce air pollution, but also to modify the image of the city and to have a city where humans occupy a larger space.' "

An aide to Paris's mayor told the Post that a recent study of trips in the city via auto, bicycle, taxi and walking showed cycling was always fastest.

A private company, Cyclocity, operates Lyon's program and will be running Paris's. It will cost about $38/year or $1.30/day to be allowed to rent cycles. After that, rentals will be free for the first 30 minutes, $1.30 for the next half hour and $9.10 for 2 hours, the Post reported.

The Costs of Commuting

There's a great article in this week's New Yorker magazine (sorry, it's not online update: Thanks to Charlie for posting the link to the article) about commuting, "There and Back Again" by Nick Paumgarten. I know it's been written about before, but he takes an intriguing, in-depth look at the lengthening commute of the average American, what the costs and trade-offs are, and whether people are even aware of the price they're paying.

In Atlanta, "perhaps the purest specimen of a vexed commuter town," Paumgarten notes, 94% of residents commute by car.

"According to the last census, the travel time in Atlanta grew faster in the nineties than in any other American city, and it's getting worse.Travelling ten miles can take 45 minutes.

"Road-building doesn't much help. Atlanta is a showcase for a phenomenon called 'induced traffic': the more highway lanes you build, the more traffic you get [see my post, Building More Roads is One of the Worst Solutions for Congestion, Not an Answer]. People find it agreeable to move farther away, and, as others join them, they find it less agreeable (or affordable), and so they move farther still. The lanes fill up."

Paumgarten took a commute with one Atlantan with a 55-mile drive each way, with a drive home that can take up to an hour just to get out of his office parking lot thanks to rush hour combined with heavy traffic from a nearby mall.

The commute isn't outrageous by current standards, Paumgarten notes, yet the trip is wearing, "with its toxic blend of predictability and unpredictability -- tedium broken by episodes of aggravation and despair. Barring the invention of the jet pack, the trip can only get longer."

People "tend to overvalue the material fruits of their commute -- money, house, prestige -- and to undervalue what they're giving up: sleep, exercise, fun," Paumgarten writes, summarizing a study done by two University of Zurich economists. One, Alois Stutzer, told him: "[People] have to trade off social goods for material goods. This is very difficult for people. They make systemic mistakes. We are very good at predicting whether we'll like something but not at knowing for how long."

However, Puumgarten notes, this presupposes that people actually have a choice as to whether or not to engage in long commutes. In many areas of the country, living, working and shopping in a small area is all but impossible. "Postwar zoning laws aggressively separated living space from commercial space, requiring more roads and parking lots. . . .

"[Robert Putnam, author of "Bowling Alone] likes to imagine that there is a triangle, its points comprising where you sleep, where you work, and where you shop. In a canonical English village, or in a university town, the sides of that triangle are very short: a five-minute walk from one point to the next. In many American cities, you can spend an hour or two travelling each side. 'You live in Pasadena, work in North Hollywood, shop in the Valley,' Putnam said. 'Where is your community?' The smaller the triangle, the happier the human, as long as there is social interaction to be had. In that kind of life, you have a small refrigerator, because you can get to the store quickly and often. By this logic, the bigger the refrigerator, the lonelier the soul."

If you're interested in how lengthy commutes affect not only individuals but society when more and more people take "extreme commutes" of 3 hours a day or more, I definitely recommend reading the full article (April 16 of The New Yorker).