Amp Up Your Shower

One challenge with being environmentally responsible is that folks think they need to sacrifice something to accomplish the goal. It needs to cost more, or taste bad, or be less comfortable. That makes it even sweeter when you can "go green" and roll with a whole list of advantages.

My wife has disliked our shower for some time. It didn't have the pressure she wanted. I was under the impression that altering water pressure was a task both expensive and potentially futile. Boy was I wrong. A Google search and 10 minutes were all I needed to learn that you can get shower heads that not only amplify your water pressure, but are low flow as well. I was intrigued.


Amazon's product descriptions teach me that the water is aerated to add zip and this can be had for 1.85 gpm, which even beats the 2.5 gpm heads installed in new construction these days.

I selected the Delta 75152 Water Amplifying Showerhead.
The reviews were good and the price was low, so it was worth a shot. Installation took about 5 minutes once I picked up some Teflon tape from the store (less than $1).

The styling is fine, the price is good, and the pressure is improved, although I still don't think it is capable of washing elephants. Best of all, my wife approves. It isn't often that you find a product that can make each morning a little better, pay for itself in short order, and help out out earth.

Doing my part - Green Beer

No, this isn't about beer on St. Patty's day. I recently started home brewing beer with a friend of mine. I never really thought about the green side of it until today, when I received the following in an email newsletter I get:

This may not have occurred to you, but as a homebrewer, you are playing a sizeable role in protecting the environment. That's right. Belive it or not, homebrewing and the environmental movement are quite compatible. For one thing, brewing your own beer cuts down significantly on the wasteful packaging associated with store-bought beer. It also saves fuel and curbs pollution yielded by long distance transport of beer. Furthermore, as your own brewmaster, you have the option to choose healthier, eco-friendly brewing ingredients.

By brewing your own beer, you are saving the transportation miles involved in shipping those store-bought beers all over the place - from warehouses and distribution centers to grocery stores - then to your home and back to the recycling center. Beer is heavy and is transported across the country and around the world on a regular basis. If you make it at home, it is transported from the fridge to your hand - not much of a carbon footprint there!

When it comes to packaging, homebrewers can collect glass beer bottles at home and from friends, or even pick up a few at the recycling center, sterilize them and reuse them over and over, getting much more than just one use from them before they are recycled.

If you really get into sustainable beer brewing, you can grow your own hops and other ingredients needed to produce your beer, making it even more environmentally friendly since the ingredients are being produced right there at home. There is also a fantastic sense of pride that comes along with knowing you crafted your beer from the ground up.

Not only is making your own beer eco-friendly, it can be very cost-effective, depending on how much and what kind of beer you regularly consume. If you plan on brewing regularly, you'll benefit by purchasing some ingredients in bulk if you're not growing them at home.

It does make sense, and I get delicious tasting beer for the price of swill beer to boot.

--JOsh

Reduce, Reuse, Regift

No, I'm not going to suggest you give folks some of your used stuff as a gift, even though I wish that were more socially acceptable. I'm going to build on an idea Ian had last week.

The idea is great. Reusable gift bags are better than 1-use wrapping paper. Even better is a bag that can be used all year long. Ian's idea is to give gifts in reusable tote bags, like those you get from Target and your local grocery store.

Tweaking that idea a bit, I figured the bags we have are already red and green. Why don't we decorate them a bit and really have a winning idea? With all the cold and snow, it gave the kids something to do. After the presents are out, the decorations come off and you have a great bag. Bonus is that Target had these bags on sale for 50 cents which is even cheaper than the typical gift bag.

Snow Blower Needed

Last winter was the first that my husband and I owned a house, so it was also the first winter that we were solely responsible for clearing snow from our driveway and sidewalks. Of course it was also one of the most active winters for snow so our one big shovel and a mini car/kid shovel got an excellent work out. We decided that never again would we only be able to clear one half of our driveway before our hands started to freeze in a gripped position, and this year we caved and bought a snow blower.

Snow blowers are as bad as lawn mowers when it comes to spewing fumes and junk into the air, so I wanted to make the best choice possible and that meant going electric. In most cases, electricity from power plants is created from cleaner burning than the gas and oil in a lawn mower or snow blower and in our case, we have a wind energy purchase agreement with our provider, so the amount of energy we use is then generated from wind farms, although the energy we receive may not be from the wind farms.

I know that our friends, family, and neighbors will laugh at us, but who couldn't use a little laugh every once in a while? We bought the Toro electric snow thrower and had two opportunities to try it out already.

And the verdict? It is a significant upgrade from shoveling! I cleared our drive way of 1-3 inches of snow in 10 minutes once I determined the best way to avoid running over the electric cord. That right there is the reason we got it and I am so happy. Of course it isn't perfect, and if you already own a gas powered snow blower, the Toro electric would probably feel like a significant downgrade. It's all plastic, so it's pretty light. This is good for me, but again, not if you're used to a metal blower. The two biggest downfalls for us is the need for an electric cord and the snow chute where the snow gets thrown out. Being tethered by a cord means that we have to stop and reroute the cord to reach both of our sidewalks (we live on a corner), but this still takes less time that shoveling. The chute is something we will be working on to modify. It theoretically has three positions to direct the snow, but once the blower is started and the snow comes out, the chute defaults to almost straight up. It still moves the snow, but now it's at the whim of the wind and sometimes backfires in our face.

And now for some action shots of my husband trying out the Toro for our second round of snow clean up. Look at that Toro go!

Iowa Passenger Rail

A few weeks ago I attended the Iowa Passenger Rail Advisory Committee meeting held in Ames. The meeting included updates from cities like Dubuque, Quad Cities, Iowa City, and Des Moines as well as legislative updates from Iowa DOT members and an Amtrak representative. The general consensus is that there is a lot going on with rail right now, but most are trying to figure out how the new administration will affect opportunities. The most interesting part for me was the discussion with the Amtrak rep. He shared that their ridership has increased for the past five years, but usually at only 1 million passengers per year. In 2008, their ridership increased by 3 million for a total of 29 million passengers. The best part about that statistic is the fact that no new services (new rail lines) or frequencies (additional runs on an existing rail line) were added, yet every passenger rail line saw an increase which has never happened before.

We talked a lot about how states can position themselves for matching funds and the best way to set up a successful partnership with Amtrak. The best strategy right now seems to be to partner with Illinois which is currently pro rail and has doubled passenger rail funding. This would add rail access to Chicago from the center of the state, entering at the Quad Cities, and the northern part of the state, entering at Dubuque. I don't know how much I am able to share publicly from the meeting, but I did find the existing Amtrak line across Iowa from the Iowa DOT's site.

One thing that was clear during the meeting was that now is the time to pressure our state legislators about passenger rail. It is currently one of their priority items, but it was stressed that it needs to be pushed as one of the top priorities for Iowa to get its foot in the door and start receiving some of the funding coming from the government. The next meeting will be held in February and I'm sure all involved hope to learn more about passenger rail plans from our new administration.

Bus Adventures

Six months ago I posted about my husband and I giving up one of our two cars and depending on public transportation. A lot of things have happened since then so I thought I would post an update along with some recent thoughts.

This past summer the city I live and work in experienced a historic flood that devastated too many people. My company's building was affected which means my transportation route changed to fit my new location. Our public transportation department was also affected, and although they have done a great job adapting, everyone who uses the system had to adapt. In spite of the tragedies, I was excited about testing my commitment to one car living and trying out how most of the riders use the system by transferring routes. Doing this initially doubled my commute to and from work, and since my husband dropped me off and picked me up from my bus stop, it extended his work day by an hour. Since the department lost several buses in the flood, they were on limited route rotations meaning the buses only came once an hour. Luckily the time my first bus came was reasonable, but it meant that I had to bust my butt on mornings that I was tempted to sleep in a bit and catch my normal "second option" before the flood. My extra hour on the bus didn't bother me much since I saw it as more time to read books, watch podcasts, and listen to music, and eventually I found robot mode in the morning to get me out the door. Unfortunately it put some unforeseen frustration on my husband who has to mold his day around my bus.

Recently the transit department revised the schedules in the afternoons to help heavy routes get to the transfer location on time (we have a collect and disperse model). This extended my evening commute by fifteen minutes, not too bad considering what I had already adjusted to. Then there was last week.

My husband had some work related, but not work required gatherings he wanted to attend out of town. Since his company had not asked him to participate we could rent a car ourselves or I could get myself to the bus without him. Being stubborn, I chose the latter. We walked the 1.2 miles to get to my bus stop and found that it took us 40 minutes at a leisurely pace. I found that I could make it in 26 minutes when it is dark and I'm cold.

Wednesday evening rolled around and was when I would first experience getting home without a pick-up, from my usual bus stop (there is one closer, but not ideal. See below.). Everything went smoothly, but I decided to not go with that plan the rest of my days surviving alone. First of all, there is only a "sidewalk" on one side of the street, which happens to be the opposite side that I am dropped off on. There is an underpass for a golf course that spans both sides of the four lane street, however, there are no lights under there since no one is golfing at night, and who in their right mind would be walking in a world with cars? There was no way I was going to test my luck even in our relatively safe town. So I played frogger and past the first test on my trek home.

Next I noticed that there were only two or three street lights the whole 1.2 mile walk home. Again, our city is pretty safe, but come on! The sidewalk was very uneven and I would have really appreciated some light to help out. The last part of my journey before my neighborhood was the worst. Once crosses the last main intersection there is no sidewalk and no lights at all, and to top it off with a cherry, there is no shoulder, just a steep slope. I was walking toward oncoming traffic like we are taught, but I learned that this really only benefits you if the cars see you coming. You know they are getting close when you are blinded by headlights while you hope that you don't misstep, roll your ankle, and end up in the sidewalk-less ditch.

Of course I made it home the two and a half days that I was commuting completely solo, but I made adjustments to catch the inconvenient closer bus which provided residential streets with sidewalks for more of the walk home. So by the end of the week, my total commute to work was 1.5 hours and my total commute home was 2 hours. Two hours in a city with the population of 160,000! Two hours in a city that takes 30-45 minutes to drive across! I would expect this in a large city like Chicago, New York, or D.C., but Cedar Rapids, IA? Ridiculous.

There is a point when stubbornness becomes stupidity and I found that last week. I am not going to break my commitment to a one car lifestyle, because I am lucky enough to not experience this every day, but on my long trips home all I could think about was the people that do. How can you do anything besides get to and from work with a system that takes so long and stops running at 7:30? How can you pick up your kids or be there for their basketball games? The simple answer is probably that you can't and that is sad, but the worst part is that most people would suggest getting a car to solve this problem for someone. I have the option to buy a car and I have the option to move to a city that feeds my public transit obsession, but for now, I have two and a half years to help Cedar Rapids see something better than a two hour commute home. I can't recommend public transit to people who would experience what I did, but for those that would have a ride lasting 30 minutes or less, I'll start with you.

Emotionally Break-even

Kelley Blue Book has a nifty new green section of their site. I normally don't dig web based calculators, but they have a nice tool where you can enter your current car, your desired green car and it will tell you how long it will take to break even. Even better, they let you input additional dollars per month that you'd like weighed towards breaking even, emotionally.

This is going to blow my green cover (yes, I drive an SUV), but here's a calculation I did.



This again points out to me that I don't drive enough miles to make fuel economy my #1 vehicle decision point. I guess that's why I still have an SUV :)

Goodbye Yellow Phone Book

I've posted about this long ago, complaining about how wasteful it was to get multiple phone books each year that I won't use.

I see today that others are starting to get behind this cause as well. Do we really need these paper beasts any longer? Aren't online directories and smart phones making this all obsolete? I can only hope so.

If you're having trouble finding it, here is the direct link to specifically getting off of phone book mailing lists.

Slick new bike

I recently saw an article on the new Ultra Motor A2B electric bike. This looks like a pretty slick bike. It's not too traditional looking, but it has a sorta Mad-Max, utilitarian look to it in my eyes. If I didn't already have a motorcycle, this might be a nice option for commuting and around town errands. Heck, with the 20 mile range, I'm pretty sure some of our contributors would be able to get to work on one of these. Recharge at work and have a fresh charge for your ride home. Sure, it costs around $2500, but if you had a 20 mile one way commute, it could pay for itself in 2 years in saved fuel costs alone, figuring you cut out 10.4k miles/year at ~$0.12/mile(figure from AAA for Medium Size Sedan). Plus you'd be helping out the environment.

--JOsh

EDIT: This article is the one that originally got me thinking about this entry.

Carpooling on the Rise

After catching an article on carpooling, I decided to give a couple of the links in the article a try to see if there was anything local showing on them. Imagine my surprise when both CarPoolWorld.com and eRideShare.com had some local entries. I've long since relegated myself to the fact that, living in Iowa, we generally don't get much participation in these sorts of sites. Glad to see that even locally people are trying to get into the ride sharing.

--JOsh

Trip Home: Looking Back

Some final thoughts from our recent trip from the Midwest to the east coast and back.

Not all train stations actually have a train. I'm still confounded by this one.
Buses are not for me.
Power is everywhere!
Regional trains are a level or more above long distance trains.
Comfort is in!

A few things you may want to bring on a train:

Blanket – You can buy one on the train for $15, but I would just bring something if you know you'll be cold.
Food – You can buy it, but it's expensive and could run out.
Entertainment – Books, iPod, laptop, DVD player, and chargers. I don't mean you should bring all of these, and it should be tailored to your trip, but the options are wide open. We read through all of the books we brought and I was able to write posts as we went along without being cutoff by my battery. I really appreciated that.

Improvements:

Provided entertainment – It could be a nice perk to have “in route” entertainment like planes provide. There is plenty of space in the back of the seats to provides a nice size screen. The Acela train did have headphone jacks in the chair arms, but I didn't check them out to see what was playing.
Speed it up – No question, we need high speed trains for long distance train travel. We may take a train from the Midwest again if we find an option that doesn't include a bus, but it won't be our only mode since it does take so long.


U.S. train travel isn't for everyone right now. Our bus mishap could have been a lot worse if we were traveling with anxious kids. I don't want to deter anyone from this mode of transportation, but I also don't want to paint the picture too pretty. Give Amtrak a chance or at least compare it to other options when you plan your next trip!

Trip Part 5: Sold Out!

Well, we have visited all three of our locations for this trip and are settled in on the train taking us (closer to) home. We boarded at Union Station in D.C. and the train is sold out! We had to wait a bit to find seats because every one of them was going to be filled. This brought to light a great benefit of train travel. If the train is full or, I imagine, over booked, you can still get on and will eventually find a spot from conductors reshuffling people, or people getting off at the next stop. With planes, you don't have the option. You don't get to go if there isn't a seat and the plane doesn't move if it is taking longer to seat people. So far the train is on time so there is hope that our trip back will be better than the Indi-Philly trip out. This will be my last “during trip” write-up, but I will pull together some final thoughts about our trip once we are home.

Trip Part 4: Acela, King of the Rails

Our trip from New Haven to D.C. was on the Acela Express business train. It is a "high speed" train that runs from Boston to D.C. and it was definitely the nicest train we rode on during this trip. The train cars were more modern and had almost a futuristic feeling, and the dinning car was more organized than the first train we were on. The trip took about five hours, but it didn't feel like it. Other than watching some of the sites as we pulled into New York, Philly, and D.C., I took a nap and arrived rather refreshed.

After dropping off our things at my friend's house in Arlington, we ventured toward the city and watched how our capitol does the 4th of July from the Iwo Jima park (thanks to marzipan9 for uploading that video from almost exactly where we were). It was a good show and other than the firework smoke blocking some of the view, we had great seats. The Metro trip back to the house was quite the experience, but didn't take at all as long as I had planned. The D.C. Metro is more of what I expect public transportation to be like in a big city. We used it most of Saturday to visit the few attractions we left time for, one of which was the botanical gardens. We didn't make it in time to go inside, but the outdoor gardens feature two areas highlighting solar and Seattle's eco ratings for new building structures. It's free to see and great to read about some of the specifics being added to city building plans. D.C. was a great way to end our east coast trip.

Trip Part 3: Regional Bliss

Our second train brought us to Connecticut, New Haven to be exact. We are actually visiting a friend closer to Hartford, but there were more connection times available in New Haven. We did rent a car since the part of Connecticut we are visiting is more a collection of villages than a city. The train ride had no surprises other than we had to search a bit for seats. We found two fairly quickly and got to watch the mass exodus in New York City.

I love the style of the New Haven station. It is the smallest for us this trip, but has a ton of character! I have also decided that all sizable U.S. train stations have only four options for a name or can combine those names: Union, Penn/Pennsylvania, Grand, or Central. Smaller towns along the way just use their name. No major travel excitement other than getting two power sources in our aisle!

As for Connecticut, it's awesome and beautiful! The area we were in and drove through was so lush and so full of history. The town we stayed in was established in 1702! We went blueberry picking with a friend of our friend and were able to eat them right from the bush. No spray, yay!

Final stop, D.C. for the 4th!

Trip Part 2.5: Philly's Spoke Problem

We were only in Philadelphia for a full day and some change by the time our late train (three hours late) got in and we had to catch our next one to Connecticut. We had a pleasant trip visiting Keith's cousins and staying with his aunt and uncle.

While in The City of Brotherly Love, we used the local rail system to get to and from the Amtrak station and downtown. It was pretty much like any other public rail system, but we found out from the cousins that they have a similar "wheel spokes" problem as the Cedar Rapids bus routes. They do have buses that help offset the problem and they allow full size bikes on the trains during off-peak hours. Folding bikes are always allowed!

The big negative was the cost. Off-peak, one-way rides from our "hotel" to the center of the city were $4.25 per person and peak, one-way rides were $5. Obviously people making this commute frequently would buy a month pass, but as a tourist it was more expensive than I had anticipated.

One of the great "green" things about our Philly trip was wandering around the downtown area and finding a great local ice cream shop, called Franklin Ice Cream or Franklin Fountain, that used bio-compostable spoons and garbage bags. They had really good ice cream and an untouristy, but historic appeal. I believe it is located on Market St. near the river. As we walked back from the river on Market St., we found The Big Green Earth Store and stopped in. They seemed relatively new and their website isn't quite up yet, but it would be great to see them grow and expand. The guy behind the counter was very friendly and informative. I loved that he wasn't overbearing with other customers that had stopped in to check out being green. The store had decorative and functional items including recycled glass bowls, recycled cardboard wall designs, bicycle chain frames and bowls, recycled dinnerware, cleaning supplies, home fragrances, solar backpacks, reusable bags, I could go on. They even had a laundry detergent refilling station which Keith dubbed The Vat. The idea is that you can bring in any container and fill it up with detergent, then pay for how much you take. You reuse containers and prevent more containers from entering the landfills.

Our Pennsylvania portion of the trip was short, but extremely fun and well worth the stop. Good luck to The Big Green Earth Store, and cheers for public transit that runs on time!

Trip Part 2: The Whistle Goes Woo

We finally made it on the train! After waiting for almost five hours in the Indianapolis train station, we were finally able to climb aboard and crash in our spacious seats. The train was two hours late getting into Indianapolis, so the dark, quiet train car was a welcome change from the harsh buzzing lights of the station.

Boarding the train was different than I expected. All passengers getting on were lined up and we were allowed to board by size of group (large parties first) and then by the order that we were standing in line. They assigned us seats on the fly. Keith and I were the first couple in line so we were given seats at the front of the first train car. We have a large set of windows, seats that recline and have leg rests and foot rests. We were given the seat numbers to sit in when we boarded, but several people have switched seats as people have gotten off. The only complaint about our seats so far is that there is an Amish family sitting behind us and they woke up way earlier than my 3am bedtime would have preferred. Not only did they wake up early, but they were talking in normal voices across the aisle, not helping us get a full morning's rest. This could happen in any travel situation, so no marks against Amtrak for this. I do think it would be worthwhile to try traveling in a private room during a long distance trek. I haven't tried exploring beyond the dining car to see if this train has any.

We have a single power socket on our section of the wall, which we have used to recharge our laptops from their use in the train station (picture also posted later). So far access to gadget food has been a pleasant surprise. The people food, however, met my expectations exactly. Expensive, mediocre, and runs out fast. With the train being near full capacity the whole trip, several of the food choices have diminished before we ventured back to eat. Both hot and cold options were listed including pizza, hot wings, hot dogs, sub sandwiches, chips, candy, and a variety of drinks. I bet we will stock up on food supplies for the trip back.

The scenery as of late has been very pleasant. We are somewhere in West Virginia and there are creeks and rivers winding along our path, and we are surrounded by green foothills. At least I'm guessing they are foothills.

As the second section of our journey, things have gotten better. I would rate this long distance train better than the smaller, slow trains in Europe, but nowhere near the high speed, first class trains like the TGV, not surprising. Our first real stop will be Philadelphia where we will be attempting to use the public transit system to get around!

Update: Picture of power on the train

Trip Part 1: No Trains in Peoria!

My husband and I have finished the first section of our East Coast vacation and the adventures have already begun.

We have been planning on going east to visit friends and relatives for a couple of years and this one was set to be that year. I convinced my husband that we should take Amtrak out since we could travel between our three destinations via rail and I would love to see how good or bad US rail travel is. I had high hopes and was very excited.

The hardest part was planning our routes. I can't say that Amtrak's website is terrible, but it definitely leaves several things to be desired. I am only partially blaming this for our first "adventure" of the trip. Having never ridden Amtrak before, I probably should have called to get help in finding the best way from the midwest to the east. I saw that Peoria had an Amtrak station and we happen to have friends who live there. We decided this would make an easy starting point to our journey plus provide a place to stay overnight. Well surprise surprise when we find out that Amtrak doesn't actually have a station in Peoria. You get bussed to an Amtrak station. We found this out after our friends asked some co-workers and informed us when we arrived. They speculated that we would ride the bus about 30 minutes to the Bloomington-Normal station. Wrong! We got to ride the bus from Peoria to Indianapolis, about 5 hours including the various stops along the way. I felt my excitement hit the bottom of my stomach and I immediately felt terrible for pulling Keith into my crazy plans. So far he hasn't killed me or complained, but I'm still sorry!

Now why am I sorry? Nothing bad happened, we aren't later because of it, the other passengers were enlightening, but didn't interfere with anyone's trip. I think comes from two places: the fact that we didn't know ahead of time, and the fact that I realized my euphoria during our trip declined with this news. I believe I have just found a personal boarder between willing to do the "right thing" and finding little benefit while adding perceived unnecessary annoyance. Keith and I discussed the difference between driving a personal vehicle and riding a bus, and while I will proudly support people who always choose busing long distances, to me, this will always be the last option I look at and will most likely pass on. I imagine that I won't be on any more long distance buses unless it is involved in a group tour. Sorry, here is my limit.

I am currently writing this in the Indianapolis station so we still have quite a way to go on our journey. While sitting here I have been comparing my surroundings to my other travels. There are large wooden benches reminiscent of old train stations. Not the most comfortable if you have to sit for three hours, but they do add some charm if you pretend you're in an old movie. The lack of wireless is unfortunate considering our long "layover", but that isn't a given at all airports either. Maybe we will have better luck further along our trip. The buzzing lights also detract from an otherwise sparsely occupied, quiet environment. The object of awesomeness here is that there is a charging station available to charge electronics (I will post separately when i can pull the picture off our camera). Now why can't more airports have these? I am impressed.

This is just the first post for this trip, so check back for an update and my first impression of actually being on an Amtrak train (still hopeful).

Updated: Picture of the charging station

No Bikes Allowed?

Brief bit of background... I have been pretty busy lately because my company's building was one of the many that were affected by the flooding in Iowa. We now have a temporary location which means that I needed to try out a somewhat new transportation route to get there.

The way our bus routes are set up means that any cross town destinations include a transfer at the central hub. I can still ride my normal route to the hub, but now I need to take an additional route to the new location. I decided to do a test run since I was on my way down to help clear out the building and I used my Strida to get to my first bus. Other than it taking almost twice as long to get to work, the trip down went smoothly. (Note: I was impressed especially since the normal bus hub was destroyed by the flood and they are using a new location with tents as a building right now.)

What prompted me to write this post happened on the way home. I rode the first route back to the transfer point and caught the second leg of my journey. There was one other guy already on the bus. I sat down and held the Strida right in front of me as usual and then the bus driver said something about it. I didn't quite hear him and figured it was a typical "what is that?" or "that's interesting/cool/weird." comment, but I asked him to repeat. He asked if it was something that I still didn't catch and I responded with "It's a folding bike." Then came the comment... "Well you can't have bikes on the bus." Ok, I understand that, but this is a folding bike, and I'm moving to the front of the bus because you just prompted an in depth discussion.

A polite verbal discussion ensued, and below I have a few of his points and my responses:

Driver	Me
The rules say no bicycles on the bus.	Hmm, first driver to tell my I can't bring this on. I'm surprised it hasn't come up before. As I understand it, the rule is meant for full size bikes because they take up so much space. Mine is folded and compact, and in the same space as my feet. No one could be where it is unless they wanted to sit on my lap.
If everyone can't do it, no one can. If everyone brought their folding bike on the bus, there wouldn't be enough room and they would have to wait for the next bus.	If everyone one brought their child in a stroller, there wouldn't be enough room. Cedar Rapids would be so lucky to have that problem. If enough people have to wait for the next bus because they are full, maybe buses should run more frequently, again we would be so lucky...
If everyone brought their stroller, the transit directors would make a rule that strollers couldn't come on either. I have a unicycle, should I be able to bring that on the bus?	Yes you should be able to bring your unicycle on the bus as long as you can keep it out of the way.

Other tidbits:
We talked about the buses getting bike racks and he shared that he has worked in large metropolitan transit organizations (no specifics) where people have taken another passenger's bike off the rack if it was nicer than theirs. I don't imagine this to be a huge problem in CR, but I could be surprised. He also said several times that he personally didn't care if I had the folding bike on the bus, but "the rules say...". Apparently he is a runner and bikes himself, so he is very excited that he can ride his bike to work, put it on the bus he's driving, and then take it off to go home. I don't agree with him taking up a space that actual transit riders would use, but I didn't mention it because we had reached my stop.

So for anyone who might read this, what do you think about folding bikes, or compact transportation in general, being allowed or not on public transit? I know large cities handle it, but I don't have personal experience there. Am I at fault because bicycles are not allowed, or should rules be bent or updated to handle alternative transportation that is reasonable?

Fewer Cars Than People

How many families do you know that have a car for each family member? How many have more cars than people? Well my husband and I have been testing the one car per family lifestyle and after two successful months, have decided it works perfectly fine for us! We started by not driving my 1996 Honda Civic. It was there if we needed it, but during most of the two months it has been blocked by mulch and we have never had a reason to free it.

Our system relies most heavily on public transportation. My husband drops me off at the bus stop or I ride my Strida to the stop and take the bus from there. Now that the weather is nicer, I have the option of riding my full size bike all the way into work. The one time that I drove to work, my husband was working from home. When making this decision we thought of scenarios where we would both need a car. We decided that if we run into one of those situations, it is just as easy to rent a car the few times that we will need an extra. We also discussed when we would need to own two cars again. For us, this would be when we decide to have kids, but this would hinge on if we really needed another vehicle. I don't subscribe to the belief that having one child requires that you get another car. This includes adding cars and getting a bigger vehicle. I completely understand the reasons where it is required, but there is still the opportunity to maintain a one car household with one kid. This will be one of those play it as we go situations to ensure that we make the right choice.

As of right now, my Honda is getting tuned up to be passed along to my brother and replace his less efficient S10. Hopefully we will make the hand off this weekend and gain a large area in our garage! The other nicety is that our car insurance will go down a little bit. It won't be a life changing amount since my car is old and we don't have full coverage on it, but it will still be more money that we can put to other, more exciting things.

So try out a new transportation style. Not everyone can give up a vehicle, but driving one less day a week or one less week a month will not only save you gas money, but open your eyes to changes you can make, or changes in transportation that your community could make to help out its citizens.

Couple of quick links

Green Construction Comes to Eastern Iowa:
KCRG.com Article

A link from my mom:
360 Electrical - These are neat outlets you can retrofit anywhere that can turn 360 degrees to allow you to plug in those awkward power blocks, though you should probably have them on a power strip so you can kill the vampire power suckers.

--JOsh