Public Transit and Why a Zebra?

I’ve won­dered for a few years now while con­tem­plat­ing being car-less, and now being car-less if it would be pos­si­ble to travel to and from mul­ti­ple cities via pub­lic tran­sit. It turns out it is! Evan Siroky has assem­bled var­i­ous routes to prove the point. You got to love the efforts peo­ple make to share points on just how real­is­tic trans­porta­tion is with­out a car.

This oil spill is incred­i­bly awful, but in terms of its effect on the planet vs. our total con­sump­tion and demand for oil have. It does’t even come close. You may argue the point that man made cli­mate change is a hoax, and this is just the nat­ural cycle. Fine, I’m not going to argue that with any­one because I am not an expert. There are sci­en­tist and peo­ple see­ing it first hand that are bet­ter suited to do so. But for what it is worth the dif­fer­ence I see between man made devel­op­ment vs. a bal­anced ecosys­tem is visu­ally dis­turb­ing to me. If it weren’t for my stu­dent loans I would surly kiss this cap­i­tal­is­tic resource hog­ging world behind, and live with less out on the road.

Ok, back on topic. I really like this idea of pub­lic tran­sit being used to travel great dis­tances. Think about it, I could get on Trimet then con­nect with other regional tran­sit sys­tems and in a mat­ter of hours I am in Seat­tle. It may not be as con­ve­nient, but there is noth­ing con­ve­nient about sit­ting in your car all alone unable to share the expe­ri­ence with other peo­ple. We are social ani­mals, and while some of the peo­ple you may encounter on the bus aren’t the type of peo­ple you want to buddy up to. If more peo­ple ditched their cars the chances are bet­ter that you could meet some­one new on your com­mute to — for exam­ple, Seattle.

This is just another idea that a bet­ter planned urban area, that focuses resources on tran­sit of the foot, pedal, and mass-transit sys­tems could go a long way towards devel­op­ing stronger com­mu­ni­ties. So what am I miss­ing? I’m not sure human beings; despite our social nature are ready for that close of a com­mu­nity. Some peo­ple just don’t want to change, don’t want to lis­ten, and don’t want to give up on what they have come to believe is the Amer­i­can Dream. I wish it were dif­fer­ent. My inner hippy mel­low is being harshend, haha.

Cal­i­for­nia just banned plas­tic bags. Ore­gon, are you lis­ten­ing? Safe­way, you are the worst offender. My Safe­way store doesn’t even offer paper. So if I for­get my reusable bag, I have to take plas­tic. Boo!

Oh, check out this great audio visual bliss of five New York neigh­bor­hoods cap­tured in their full glory. No inserted out­side music, just a great ambi­ent sound­track and neigh­bor­hood blips. Sources: Archi­tects News­pa­per Blog and Urban Omnibus

Daniel, stop being such a gloat­ing flower power dude and show us a cool house. Ok, here you go.

This is the JD House. It is located in the for­est of Mar Azul, in the Argen­tin­ian province of Buenos Aires. Minus the Zebra skin on the ground, I really love this. The Archi­tec­ture is so inspir­ing. I also like the min­i­mal­ism of the inte­rior. Sure it could use some art and a bit of color, but that is really those per­sonal touches that are made by the inhab­i­tant. Here, have a look.

Sources: Con­tem­po­rist and BAK Archi­tects