Ginny-inspired Links to Love

More evidence that owning a car outright is begging to be screwed.

Ginny wanted to know a little more about bicycle-riding safety.

She also wanted to know more about making cities more bicycle-friendly (<----there's a lot of cool info here!).

Also, I have below, draft letter that I plan to send out to several dozen city government departments all over the bedtime communities of Portland, Oregon (I live in Gresham).  I think that such a letter could apply to several dozen cities around the nation and would love your input as to what I can do to make this letter more effective.

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Good Morning,

I am a concerned citizen who is interested in creating some economic incentive for alternative transportation in Gresham without incurring excessive government or social cost.  I would like to see some social and economic change and was wondering if you could point me in the right direction.

I am looking for some transportation planners to discuss the potential benefits of government incentives for employers who employ people that have alternative means of transportation.  For the following reasons:

• I believe this is something that is not only good for local communities, but it will go a long way towards turning each city into an economic hub, as opposed to a "bedtime community".

• Further-- it is my belief creating car-free incentives would slowly shift the demand of the population to work closer to home, creating gaps in the workforces of all involved cities.  These gaps will have to be filled, which means more people getting hired and more opportunities for careers locally. 

• I believe that a locally based workforce (within car-free limits) will strengthen the fabric of the local communities and necessitate change.

• As with any system as dynamic as our economy, there is not a single solution for everybody.  This means that our public transportation infrastructure (and the new jobs that will be created from the increased demand) will become a great source of revenue for the local cities.

I would like to be a part of a sustainable, economical, and smart method of transportation and believe that by working together, we can create a tighter community (which should lower crime and increase public service), increased job growth, and raise the bar for general health in the cities.  I believe the people that I would need to talk to are the city transportation planners, but need some help pointing in the right direction.

I hope to talk to you soon.

Zach Folwick

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What do you guys think?  Should I go with it?  It's general enough that I could use it in almost every city and town, which is the hope.  Any thoughts?  I hope that you get your friends to view this as well.  I want as many opinions as possible.  If you run a blog yourself, you might even ask your readers to evaluate it-- if appropriate.

Comments

[alex]

Hey! Thanks for all the great info. I was browsing through a bunch of green websites and blogs and I came across yours and found it very interesting. There are a bunch of others I like too, like the daily green, ecorazzi and earthlab.com. I especially like EarthLab.com’s carbon calculator (http://www.earthlab.com/signupprofile/). I find it really easy to use (it doesn’t make me feel guilty after I take it). Are there any others you would recommend? Can you drop me a link to your favorites (let me know if they are the same as mine).