richardstowe

international travel: part 2

2011-12-27T10:54:00.000-08:00

Upon my return to the Gardens, I knock on Kadri’s door and invite her over for fruit salad. Kadri accepts. As I slice oranges, paw-paw and bananas I learn that Kadri arrived in Saint Lucia on a 75-foot boat, which made landfall in Marigot Bay. She was a member of a crew that sailed from Lanzarote, a Canarian island with a Sahara Desert climate tempered by trade winds, seventy-seven miles off the West African coastline. Kadri is from from Tallin, Estonia, where she served as an IT manager for Skype. Kadri heads back to her room and I walk to Island Breeze, where the DJ (I later learned was Sammy’s son Sherwinn) played house music to a packed house of locals.

The next morning Kadri and I walk down to the Reef. I order a blended fruit punch sans alcohol and Kadri orders breakfast and a strawberry milkshake. After awhile we relocate on a quiet stretch of beach. I let her know of my intention to take a long swim. The swim takes me from the Reef, with its exquisite view of Maria Major Island to where the sandy beach ends below a cluster of homes south of Vieux Fort. Walking onto the beach, I site a continuous stretch of travel-worn plastic bottles. One might reasonably conclude that these synthetic bottles had traveled by a strong current from islands to the south.

I ran back down the beach to where Kadri was reading a book, while soaking up the West Indies sun. We walk back to the Reef to seek some shade. Kadri walks back to the Gardens.

I walk back down the beach toward Vieux Fort. Suddenly, two locals ride horses onto the beach. I retrace the equestrian trail in reverse to stables at the edge of town. Just past the stables, I sight Sammy’s fast food restaurant. Hungry and dehydrated, I walk upstairs to the restaurant with a porch view of the soccer stadium and order a marlin dish served with provisions and a ginger beer in a refillable glass bottle produced by Pitons, the local brewery. I hear a man call out my name. Much to my luck it is Sammy. My encounter with Sammy provides me with an opportunity to retrieve my sunglasses I had dropped onto the floor of the back seat of his vehicle the night before. Sammy advises me that the political rally will take awhile to coalesce.

After devouring my meal and slurping down my ginger beer, I walk on narrow city streets toward Independence Square. On both sides of the streets are open concrete channels emitting a foul smell and littered with plastic bottles. I wonder if these channels may be a source for the synthetic bottles on the nearby beach.

As I approach the square, I meet a Haitian, who has relocated to Saint Lucia. The street is set up for the rally, but few are in the streets. My new friend and I walk around in search of a beer. We eventually settle on Sammy’s restaurant, where he gets a Pitons and I pick up another ginger beer. When we walk back to Independence Square and I am introduced to one person after another. Finally I am introduced to the new Prime Minister Kenny Anthony. I ask him about bicycling and he says one of his campaign promises was to build a velodrome. As we speak, Sammy walks up and exclaims: “You’ve already met the Prime Minister!” At night sets in, the light pollution from 1960’s style cobra street lights becomes ever apparent. The rally, hosted by the Labor Party, is long and loud, punctuated by repetitive chanting: “a rouge, a rouge!”

Upon my return to the Gardens, I knock on Kadri’s door and we catch up on our hours apart. I learn more about her work at Skype and her penchant for travel. We make plans for breakfast at the Reef the next morning.

On Monday morning, I wake up early. As I walk out my door, a female guest house resident, dressed for work at a resort, walks to her car parked on the street. As I begin my walk down to the beach, I encounter a healthy, elderly couple from Trinidad & Tobago. We walk together. At the Reef, we speak with Tommy, the kite surfing instructor. Tommy says the calm weather is giving way to strong winds ideal for kitesurfing. Tommy recommends the beach at Labourie for swimming; its calm waters would be appealing to my Trinidadian friends. The Trinidadian couple set out to complete their walk to Vieux Fort, where they will catch a bus to Sulfur Springs, hot springs just south of Soufriere. I go for a swim, the water is pleasant, though more turbulent than the day before.

After my swim, I jog back to the guest house. I say hello to Kadri, who is reading her book. Looking outside the back window of my room, I see a couple of men picking beans. The maid informs me, one of them is Sherwinn, Sammy’s son. After a shower and packing, I prepare a small fruit salad for Kadri and I. Sammy offers to give Kadri & I a ride to the Reef. I pay the balance of my bill at the Airport. At the beach, Kadri orders breakfast and I order a fruit punch smoothie and a Danish pastry filled with chocolate. After introducing Kadri to a number of people, we lay down on the beach to catch some sun. I say good bye to Kadri. I walk to the road and much to my surprise a jitney stops to pick me up to take me to the bus stop in Vieux Fort.

international travel: part 1

2011-12-27T10:45:00.000-08:00

As the jitney bus with green license plates pulls out of Vieux Fort, Saint Lucia, it passes by the Reef, a kite surfing hotspot where you can take lessons with Tommy, an Italian instructor with a surfer persona and Rastafarian dreadlocks. The bus swings by Hewonorra International Airport and the hill-climbing begins. There are a few mansions, some recently built, some under construction with lots of open space in between and sometimes distant views of the Atlantic Ocean. We pass by a few boutique banana plantations. Except for me, the 15 people on the bus are locals. The driver is aggressive; he takes corners hard and fast, but slows as we pass through the village of Micoud. Climbing the hill out of Micoud, we pass by commercially-sized banana plantations. A series of steep ascents and descents and the bus rolls to its final stop in Castries, the capital city. I make a quick transfer to another jitney bound for Rodney Bay. There are at least nine women and girls on the bus. The road is flatter and more urbanized.

I arrived at the International Airport on a bright, mild mid-December Saturday afternoon at the close of 2011. I approached a Saint Lucian, a PhD student in public policy at the University of Georgia at Athens, for directions to Hewonorra Gardens, the guest house I had booked for two nights. She thought it was past a yellow building and Skyview Inn. On her advice I asked a second person, who gave me specific directions. I walked down the Airport road. Walking to the main road was a bit disorienting as British rules of the road apply on the island. On the main road I speak with a European nurse who invites me to a grand opening party at Island Breeze, a bar located on the beach next to the Reef. I turn onto a side road. As I walk into the driveway of the 2-story lime green building, I encounter the owner, Sammy Brice speaking on his cell phone. Its 5 p.m. I introduce myself; he’s a bit surprised, but offers me a ride into town to buy some food. I suggest a ride to the beach, as sunlight for a swim is waning. I briefly meet Kadri, another house guest as Sammy checks me into my room, or suite (a bedroom, living room and kitchen). He informs me that the new Prime Minister stayed in my room while campaigning for the post that he won on November 30th.

As I get into Sammy’s vehicle, I see my name printed out on a large piece of paper. Sammy’s intention was to meet me at the Airport, but my flight arrived early! I learn that Sammy and his sons lived in both Norwalk and Stamford before returning to St. Lucia for the better weather. As we drive down, Sammy warns me to use one of the lockers at the Reef. Theft is a potential problem, he explains. At the Reef, I quickly meet Jolene, the owner, a tall, slender European women with a tomboy look. Jolene, an emigre from the Netherlands, sets me up with a locker for five dollars (U.S.) Its 5:30 p.m. She explains that sunset is a quick affair, so I take an abbreviated swim. Walking back to Hewonorra Gardens under a dark sky, I warily take notice of a vehicle parked on the side of the road. The driver swings the car by me, rolls down the window and says to me “you’re safe.” Its Sammy and a woman; he offers me a ride to Super J’s, the grocery store. On the drive into town, Sammy asks me where I am from in Connecticut and informs me that he lived in Norwalk and Stamford. He lets me know about and invites me to a “thank you” rally organized by the Prime Minister’s supporters scheduled for Sunday at 5 p.m.

I peruse the produce section. The produce is divided by two labels: LP (local produce) and IP (imported produce). I opt for the much less expensive local produce: bananas, paw-paw (papaya), grapefruit and oranges and a wine bottle-sized Parisian cranberry-apple spritzer.

A City Dark at Environmental Film Festival at Yale (EFFY)

2011-03-22T17:06:00.000-07:00

This is really exciting development at EFFY. New England native, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies graduate Ian Cheney (director of King Corn) will be on hand for the East Coast premiere (http://environment.yale.edu/film/2011/the-city-dark/) of "A City Dark" (http://www.thecitydark.com) at 7 p.m. on Wed. Mar. 30th at Whitney Humanities Center. After the film screening Mr. Cheney will be joined by Bob Crelin, author & inventor, Robert Zinn, Yale Professor of Astronomy and Michael Faison, Director of Yale University’s Leitner Family Observatory and Planetarium in a post-screening discussion.

demolition delay request

2010-09-17T21:01:00.000-07:00

New Canaan Patch
http://newcanaan.patch.com/articles/letter-to-the-editor-request-for-demolition-delay

OPINION
Letter to the Editor: Request for Demolition Delay
The writer shares a letter sent to Chief Building Official Brian Platz, requesting a 90-day delay in the demolition of 64-66 Maple Street.
By Richard Stowe | August 31, 2010

I am writing this letter as a formal request to impose a delay on the demolition of the two family residence located at 64-66 Maple Street, New Canaan, CT 06840. This request is based on unavoidable and unmitigable adverse social, historic and architectural impacts the town would incur if demolition were allowed to proceed without delay.

The 90-day delay will serve as an opportunity for a public discussion between library patrons and board members; town residents and thoughtful analysis in the print media spectrum.

The at risk two family house is situated on one side by the New Canaan Libraryʼs only driveway serving motor vehicle ingress and on the other side at 56 South Avenue, a single family residence, which in architectural circles is referred to as a craftsman house. The back side of the house is abutted by a third residential property located at 48 South Avenue and a New Canaan Library parking lot.

The structural envelope of the two family house is in good shape, the wood siding and paint have held up well; the storm windows have protected the original sash windows.

The architectural design of this two family house is executed in traditional cottage style, with traditional porch overhangs, and covered entryways typical of an earlier time. The two family house is small in footprint, but has enough architectural sensitivity in the play of shapes and setbacks that it presents well, and shows strong character of design.

What is particularly unusual about this two family house is that its style does not appear to have been altered much since its construction. The two family house, constructed in 1926, appears to retain most of its original design details intact. The absence of renovations adds to its charm and rarity. If the interior of this two family cottage style house was restored, it would be as charming inside as it is on its exterior and enhance its historical value.

The wood in the 84 year old structure is likely inherently superior in quality and more locally produced than todayʼs building construction materials.

However, the owner must undertake maintenance and thoughtful improvements to optimize the renovation of this cottage style relic. The first step would be to replace the roof with a non-asphalt material such as metal, or wood shake.

Other things that need to be redone are:

1. Some door replacement

2. Some gutters to be re-hung

3. Replacement of basement windows

4. Lead and possibly asbestos abatement

5. Minor screening replacement under porch.

New things needed to be done:

1. Heavy pruning of existing landscape. Re-landscaping - replacing exotic landscaping with sustainable, indigenous landscaping. The landscape fronting Maple Street should maximize sunlight penetration on south facing portions of the two family structure and highlight the buildingʼs beauty instead of hiding it

2. Replacement of the impervious asphalted driveway and concrete pathways with pervious surfaces such as pervious concrete

3. Replacement of all, or nearly all of property perimeter fencing.

Sited across the driveway is what appears to the laymenʼs eye a notable red maple, which serves as a visual benefit to those who would be within the eastern section of the two family house.

The property is an example of the early type of architecture that surrounded the center of town and served its inhabitants who chose to be close to the center of commercial activity and benefit from easy pedestrian access to the entire downtown.

The preservation of this building will avoid further disintegration of a neighborhood, that at one time was located in between the Library, the Catholic Church and Center School. It is a small, but important piece of architecture that adds invaluable character to downtown New Canaan.

New Canaan is recognized as a treasure trove of architectural diversity, rich in architectural history that in the context of downtown helps preserve the townʼs character as a New England village.

The simplicity and efficiency of the design and the location of this two family house symbolizes the very essence of what we as New Canaan residents cherish and love about New Canaan and wish to protect for generations to come. This two family cottage style home serves to enrich the tapestry of architectural diversity of New Canaan.

Prior to enactment of the demolition delay ordinance, some of New Canaanʼs architectural diversity has been lost forever. Granting a demolition delay will allow a dialogue to take place in which the owners of this property, the New Canaan Library, may reconsider its plans in light of the importance that we, as a town, remain constant to a building process that respects our history and not erase it.

This request for demolition delay does not include a request for protection of the garages in the back of the property as they offer no added architectural value. In fact demolishing the two garages (which are connected) would enhance the value of the property.

In a statement in reference to the New Canaan Libraryʼs application for a demolition permit, Alice Knapp, library director, stated that "we also know parking is a major problem here. What weʼre hoping to do is alleviate the parking in the interim." The removal of these garages would provide the New Canaan Library with space to provide additional parking spaces for visitors and staff.

The "Downtown New Canaan Strategic Plan"* prepared by Fitzgerald & Halliday, Inc.and released in October of 2007 states that "The downtown has a unique feel that is appealing to residents and welcoming to visitors. Although the mix of buildings is eclectic, architecturally, the blend of sidewalks, street trees, and va ried buildings make for a strong sense of place."

This two family house should also be considered in its larger context. Its strategic importance must not be understated.

Think of the cottage style two family house as a pawn in a chess game. On the face of it the removal of a pawn may not seem terribly important, but that loss can contribute to the further loss of key pieces and decimation of a team.

The loss of the cottage style two family home at 64-66 Maple Street can lead to the demolition, or removal of more significant structures downtown (including houses adjacent to the two family home) and into that vacuum a force can move in that executes changes alien to the sensibilities of the best New Canaan has to offer.

This request for demolition delay at 64-66 Maple Street has been written on behalf of New Canaan's future welfare and preservation of its past.

Editor's Note: Richard Stowe said he wrote this letter "as a library patron, registered voter, resident and former student at Center School."

Wolf Moore Jr
11:30am on Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Richard - all great points...
My vote is to knock EVERYTHING down on the block except the Gulf Station and Library.
This town needs to worry about forward economic and cultural activities more than an an obsolete 2 family house.
The " "Downtown New Canaan Strategic Plan" forgot to mention that the unemployment rate would be near 10%, only chains would be able to afford Elm Street leaving empty stores throughout the town, and that the library is filled to capacity. We need to rejuvenate NC not stagnate.
No one will ever walk in this town. We need parking!
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Jon
11:40pm on Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Completely disagree with the last post. I actually had to read it a few times to see if it was meant as some sort of satirical flourish, since the author agrees that Richard Stowe's ideas about preserving downtown New Canaan are "great points." But after that, who can tell? "We need parking"?! Come on, the New Canaan Library is already surrounded by parking, both its own and that at Center School and at Morse Court, and this plan to knock down a liveable house is no solution. "No one will ever walk in this town"?! Are we even talking about the same place? By its very layout (and the zoning that maintains it), New Canaan is a very walkable town; if you're looking for fields of asphalt, you'd be better served on the Post Road. The Library doesn't exist in a vacuum, it exists because of the millions of dollars New Canaan taxpayers pay to keep it afloat. That's right, the Town pays 80% of the Library's operating budget year after year after year (nearly $5 million total in the past three years); the least the Library could do is listen to viewpoints like Richard Stowe's. Why the rush to demolish? Isn't the Library's plan to move to congested town-owned property behind Town Hall and sell their current acreage to a large lot developer, one who would not even have to abide by town zoning laws? Richard Stowe is right: this house is a pawn, and the stakes are much larger than we may grasp.

Wolf Moore Jr
7:16am on Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Jon-
1. Parking lots are near capacity everywhere - Farmers Market on Saturday is nuts. We are parking out on South Avenue, the Library, Hoyts Funeral Home driveway...
2. The library is in desperate need of a redo - been to Darien or Greenwich lately? People can't find seating, we could make it greener and it is easier to keep it there than move it to ??? Moving it behind town hall is moronic.
3. Town population is aging as is the rest of America - take a look around - no one walks.
4. It's not The Glass House.
My 2 cents
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Jon
1:38pm on Thursday, September 2, 2010
I agree with your second point - the library could use a "redo." And I completely agree that moving the library behind town hall is a very bad idea. It'd be moving to a more congested, smaller piece of property in an already high-traffic area, especially when the trains are coming in and leaving. I am concerned, as are a lot of people I talk with, that if the library somehow took town-owned land behind town hall for a new library, that the existing library lot, which is NOT owned by the town, could be sold to the highest bidder who would seek to develop it to the max, using every loophole available to avoid local zoning laws. It's zoned for apartments. Imagine a huge, multi-story apartment block there instead of the library. Imagine, then, the added stress on local traffic and parking. That's why, for now, I don't trust the Library's sudden urge to tear down a house they bought for $1.5 million. It almost seems like they're trying to clear the entire block, not for parking, but for a future developer's edifice.

Wolf Moore Jr
2:53pm on Thursday, September 2, 2010
I am in favor of clearing the block to have the library rebuild - redo - expand - have more parking.
I agree with you on the future edifice complexes of developers should be curtailed.
I am in favor of ONLY the library be able to do anything on that spot. Lets see some good plans done up by them as well.
I think the library should be able to be built higher than it is now as well.
Great points Jon

Earth Day: Cross-Border Conversation

2010-09-17T20:51:00.000-07:00

New Canaan Patch
http://newcanaan.patch.com/articles/earth-day-cross-border-conversation-2
http://newcanaan.patch.com/articles/earth-day-cross-border-conversation-2#photo-353181
NEWS
Earth Day: Cross-Border Conversation
Darien and New Canaan activists share green Ideas and mutual cooperation.
By Nancy Burton | April 25, 2010

Darien and New Canaan may be blood rivals when it comes to high school sports, but the two communities are closely linked by ecology.

To mark Earth Day 2010, environmental leaders explored how the neighboring towns can cooperate and learn from each other.

Billed as "Bridging the Border Between Darien and New Canaan," the event took place at the Talmadge Hill Community Church right on the border between Darien and New Canaan.

Watershed for Alewives

Common interests such as a shared watershed and transportation network were topics for a lively conversation on Thursday evening among four green activists from each town.

Opening up their shared watershed to migrating river herring and constructing an earth-friendly winter shelter for commuters at the Talmadge Hill Train Station were some of the ideas the participants explored.

Shirley Nichols, executive director of the Darien Land Trust, spoke of her group's efforts to partner with the state to build a fish ladder under I-95. A culvert built to channel the Noroton River half a century ago blocks the native alewives' passage to their spawning grounds upstream.

The alewives, a critical food source for native and migrating waterfowl, have nearly disappeared as a result.

The Darien Land Trust is partnering with the state's Department of Environmental Protection to re-stock alewives from a location in East Lyme in anticipation of constructing a fish ladder, she said. But upstream in New Canaan, another dam prevents further passage to potential spawning grounds, Nichols said.

"Maybe those fish could go deeper into New Canaan," and thereby expand the waterfowls' fishing grounds and habitat, she ventured.

Swap Shop Credited

Linda Goodyear spoke of how she brings together Darien's several dozen environmental organizations for bimonthly brainstorming meetings. Darien's Green Team invites participants to update one another about their activities and share information.

"It's really helpful to hear what else is going on in town," Nichols said.

Green Team meetings led to creation of the Swap Shop at the Darien town dump, where residents drop off unwanted items that others take home at no charge.

"In New Canaan we have a big sign at the town dump: 'No Scavenging!'" remarked Cam Hutchins.

"We don't have such an informational network in New Canaan," said Liz Livingston. "We are more event-oriented. It takes a flashpoint to get attention."

"Maybe New Canaan should join the Darien Green Team," Stowe suggested.

Unique Green Assets

Several New Canaanites expressed envy of Darien's new library with its green energy features. Goodyear credited Darien's Dot Kelly for knowledgeably spearheading the library's green drive.

"It sounds like we all need to meet Dot Kelly," said Hutchins.

Nichols explained that Darien's Green Team lends clout to its participants' efforts in town.

The Darien Land Trust lobbied Hartford on a bill to spare land trusts from being responsible for taxes when they accept donations of land. With passage of the bill, the Land Trust got the town's finance board to take necessary steps to make the bill retroactive and spare the Land Trust of nearly $50,000 in taxes for accepting land donations that year.

"The town totally supported us and moved very, very quickly," she said, crediting the cooperative spirit engendered over time by the Green Team.

While the New Canaanites were envious of Darien's green teamwork, the Darienites were equally envious of New Canaan's large tracts of open space.

"The grass is always greener on the other side," quipped Stowe.

Chris Filmer, active as head of Friends of Selleck's Woods in Darien, described how he led neighbors on a campaign to transform a forsaken, litter- and crime-ridden tract of undeveloped land near I-95 into a nature haven especially popular with children's groups.

The New Canaanites responded with their tales of a chronic campaign to keep developers out of town-owned, 300-acre Waveny Park.

Malloy not as green as he says

2010-08-10T19:26:00.001-07:00

Stamford Advocate, Greenwich Time - Friday, August 6, 2010

To the editor:

In his second attempt to win the Democratic primary for governor, Dan Malloy promises to bring green jobs to Connecticut.

But as mayor of Stamford, Dan favored development over the environment.

In 1996, shortly after Dan became mayor, the Environmental Council of Stamford twice cleaned up a neglected city-owned property and proposed a green restoration of the property's 100-year-old-structure -- Stamford's first public high school and Burdick Junior High.

Dan had other plans. He sought proposals and bids from private developers to buy the three-acre property and public street. Despite public support to preserve open space downtown and restore the neoclassical school building, despite a Board of Representatives committee's advisory vote against sale of the public property, Dan prevailed in his desire to demolish the historic school building in favor of a 14-story apartment building. The city sold the property, once assessed at $14 million, for between $5 and $6 million.

In 1999, Dan was a chief proponent of Stamford Golf Center's plans to cut down 170 mature native trees for a golf range at Rosa Hartman Park. Greenwich sued over wetlands impacts to the adjacent Laddins Rock Sanctuary. Blumenthal intervened: Park dedication restricted use for passive purposes.

Dan's record demonstrates that he favors private interests over environmental protection.

Richard Stowe

New Canaan

The writer is a past board member of the Environmental Council of Stamford.

An open fundraising appeal for Climate Ride

2008-09-19T09:03:00.000-07:00

Photo by Richard Stowe
Taken on Sunday September 7, 2008 while riding Transportation Alternative's New York City Century.
Its time for the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge to be open to cyclists 365 days per year.

Dear cycling friends:

Thank you all of you have donated to Climate Ride to date. Donations have come in as recently as a few minutes ago. The following fundraising letter is to encourage those of you haven't donated yet to do so.

At this late date, the most ideal method to donate is via credit card online. The link to seamlessly do that is toward the end of this e-mail.

I hope to join bicyclists in the 320-mile (New York City to Washington D.C.) "Brita Climate Ride 2008” http://www.climateride.org from September 20-24. The challenge between now and then is for me to raise $2250, the minimum necessary contribution to qualify as a "climate rider." With your help I will be participating in that bicycle ride.

Climate Ride’s goal is to donate 60% of the money raised to two 501-c-3 non-profits: New Canaan-based "Clean Air-Cool Planet" and "Focus the Nation."

The purpose of “Brita Climate Ride 2008” is to encourage members of Congress to craft and pass legislation that addresses the ominous threat of climate collapse by reducing petroleum consumption and shrinking the supply of coal-fired electricity. Also needed is a sensible Federal energy policy driven by conservation, efficiency and investments in low-impact renewable energy.

‘Climate Ride’ participants will hear presentations from the following speakers: Betsy Talyon (President 1 Sky); Randy Swisher (Director, American Wind Energy Association); Michael Eckhart (president American Council on Renewable Energy); Wood Turner (Executive Director, Climate Counts.org, & PointCarbon); Janet Larsen (Director of Research, Earth Policy Institute); Mike Tidwell (Executive Director, Chesapeake Climate Action Network); Keith Laughlin, (President, Rails to Trails Conservancy.)

At the end of the "climate ride" from New York City to Washington D.C. we will have the opportunity to meet with members of Congress such as Senator Maria Cantwell (WA), Senator Amy Klobuchar (MN), Rep. Jerry McNerney (CA) & Rep. Earl Blumenauer (OR).

Please let me know if there is any message you would like me to forward to our elected officials.

While in Washington D.C., I will make every effort to speak to members of Congress about climate collapse, peak oil, the need for investments in energy conservation and efficiency, low impact renewable energy, bicycling as transportation, commuter rail, rail freight and transcontinental high speed rail.

I hope you will contribute to my goal of raising $2250 so that I may become an official ‘climate rider.’ Your contribution to ‘Brita Climate Ride 2008’ will be tax-deductible.

It's very easy to donate via credit card online. Just go to this 'Donation Page' link:
https://www.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=272731&lis=1&kntae272731=5A2A08454DDD486FB7B7985B4824B32B&supId=232014988

Please call me at (203) 594-9097 if you have questions, encounter difficulties, or would like to contribute via check.

Thank you,

Richard Stowe
http://ecoman.wordpress.com

Senator Perkins to Governor Paterson: support bikes-on-trains-at-peak hours!

2008-09-04T08:22:00.000-07:00

After meeting with four New York City cycling advocates: Ken Coughlin (Transportation Alternatives), Steve Faust (5 Borough Bicycle Club), Neile Weisman (New York Cycle Club) and myself on July 31st, Senator Perkins sent the following letter to Governor David Paterson in the first half of August:

The Honorable David A. Paterson
Governor
State of New York
State Capitol
Albany, NY 12224

RE: Bicycle Access on M-8 Rail Cars
Metro-North Railroad

Dear Governor Paterson,

Over the past few weeks my office and various bicycle advocacy groups have been working on achieving the goal of allowing bicyclists access to Metro-North Trains during peak hours, and to equip the new Kawasaki M-8 trains with adequate space for the placement of bicycles aboard the trains without sacrificing space for other riders.

Here in New York, an engaged community group, Rails Trains Ecology Cycling, has joined with similar statewide organizations to advocate for specific changes to the design of the M-8 cars, as well as retrofit modifications to existing cars. These organizations have put forward a thoughtful plan to allow for example, vertical storage of up to four (4) bicycles replacing a 4-seat section on every other car.

Likewise, we need to work together to change existing Metro-North policies related to bicycle access to trains. Metro-North currently has a permit process as well as peak-hour restrictions in place. Both policies put an undue burden on those wishing to bring their bicycles on trains. We have made great strides as a state, welcoming bikes on our public buses and on our streets. It is well past time to take the next important step and create a welcoming, design-appropriate rail system for the state’s cycling community.

In the midst of soaring energy prices, and mounting concern over carbon emissions, it is more important than ever that New York invest in alternatives to the automobile. Successful multi-modal transportation will play an increasingly important role in New York’s economic success in the coming decades. Bicycles provide an excellent way to reduce congestion, oil dependency, and emissions, all while promoting public health, but this potential can only be realized if bicycles are integrated seamlessly with the rest of the transportation infrastructure. Your request for the inclusion of bicycle storage on the new M-8 cars and allowing bicyclists on trains during peak hours is an important step in this direction.

Peak hour restrictions currently prevent many people from using their bicycles in conjunction with Metro North to get to work, leaving them either to cycle very long distances or to abandon cycling in favor of driving. The result of this is more cars on New York’s already overburdened highways, and increased traffic congestion and parking demand around train stations.

While providing adequate storage on the new M-8 rail cars for bicyclists, Metro-North should not pit rail car user against rail car user over adequate space, in this case, bicycle riders against disabled riders. In pursuing that end, the bicyclists' advocacy groups and I suggest two design options to allow for dedicated bicycle parking areas on trains.

• Set aside an area adjacent to the vestibule in every other car separate and distinct from disability space, in which up to three bicycles may be parked vertically. We believe this to be the most space-efficient method, which in turn minimizes loss of seats per car.

• Use a section of the M-8 bar cars for bicycle parking, while retaining the 28 seats planned for the M-8 bar cars (no loss of seating.)

¬ Bar cars will be more fully utilized with the inclusion of bicycle parking since beverage service on bar cars does not commence until noon.

I would appreciate your direct involvement in this matter. I understand time is of the essence, but Metro-North officials indicate there still is time to affect a positive outcome. Thank you for your consideration.

Very truly yours,

Bill Perkins
Senator, 30th District

Nelson Harvey receives a lead from Eco-chick

2008-09-02T21:17:00.000-07:00

Mixing Modes: Bikes on the Metro North Railroad
by Nelson Harvey

With the price of gas hovering around $4 a gallon, driving a car looks increasingly unattractive for environmentally and economically minded folks alike. But even if you already commute by rail into NYC, you may face obstacles to making your trip 100% car free.

Currently, the Metro North Railroad does not allow bikes onto trains at peak travel hours, when most people are commuting to work. And since the trains feature no bicycle storage space, cyclists who ride at other times are required to stand with their steeds near train doorways, making entry and exit awkward for other passengers.

Recently, a group of activists calling themselves “Rail*Trains*Ecology*Cycling” have been campaigning to change all of this. Metro North has contracted to purchase at least 300 new train cars by 2011, and advocates of so-called “inter-modal” transit want to see at least four bike parking spots in every other car, according to Richard Stowe, the group’s leader and a longtime bike activist and transportation wonk.

If Stowe is the face of support for expanding bike-on-train access, then the most public opponent of the idea has been Jim Cameron. He chairs the Connecticut Rail Commuter Council, a Metro North advisory body that voted against a resolution favoring increased access and storage. Cameron laments the potential crowding and remodeling costs that more bikes could bring. “Right now, it's standing room only at rush hour,” said Cameron, a retired news anchor. “We don't have enough seats the trains for passengers now, and allowing bikes on could mean even less room for passengers.”

Stowe counters that installing the storage his group desires would only require removing two seats from the 100 currently contained in every car, and he said that complaints about the cost of new storage “ignore the avoided cost of building a new parking space for the car that you’ve taken off the road.”

There is also contention over the level of demand for increased access. Cameron claims he has “never had a commuter come to me and say they wanted to take their bike on the train." Stowe, who cut his activist teeth campaigning to get bikes on trains in California, says that the current ban on bikes at peak hour artificially suppresses demand. “Lack of demand was the same argument used with [California rail agency] Cal Train,” he says. But after Cal Train installed bike storage cars and allowed cyclists to ride at all times, “the number of riders with bikes grew to 8 percent of its total ridership.”

According to Stowe, getting bikes allowed on at peak times is “the backbone” of his effort, in part because when commuters see people riding with bikes, they will be encouraged to try it themselves, or at least to ride their bikes to the train station.

Cameron, by contrast, favors simply increasing bike storage at stations. As he wrote recently on his blog “Talking Transportation,” "If bikers really wanted to build support for their cause, I have a suggestion. Rather than rant against those who reasonably argue against bikes on trains, the bikers should instead lobby for bike racks and lockers at rail stations."

Stowe and his allies are due to meet with Metro North officials this month for a second time, and he says Metro North has expressed a desire to resolve the issue by July or August. The first of the agency’s new train cars should arrive by August 2009, with delivery continuing monthly through 2011. Stowe’s goal now is to commission a letter to Metro North from Connecticut Governor M. Jodi Rell, who has voiced her support for increased bike access.

“For me it is all about taking a bike a using it as a car, said Stowe. “Bikes get the equivalent of 3000 miles per gallon.”

Connecticut residents can email Governor M. Jodi Rell at

Shailagh Murray reporting on Lieberman

2008-08-10T21:53:00.000-07:00

Lieberman's Eroding Base
Many Democratic Faithful Support a Political Newcomer Rather Than the Senator Who Has Not Toed Party Line
By Shailagh Murray

Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 30, 2006; Page A04

Irving Stolberg is not just another Connecticut Democrat who wants Joe Lieberman out of office.

The former speaker of the Connecticut House is one of Lieberman's oldest allies in state politics. The two met as antiwar activists in the late 1960s and won seats to the legislature together in 1970, and Stolberg remained an admirer when Lieberman drifted to the political center, while Stolberg stuck to his liberal roots.

Lieberman supporters rally in Rocky Hill, Conn., for the candidate, whose potpourri politics alienate many Democrats. (By Bob Child -- Associated Press)

But this year, as Lieberman battles for a fourth term in the Senate, Stolberg has reluctantly endorsed his ally's Democratic primary opponent, multimillionaire businessman and political neophyte Ned Lamont. "It's been a wrenching decision. I've supported him every step," Stolberg said of Lieberman. "But the issues and the principles trump 40 years of friendship."

Lieberman, the Democrats' 2000 vice presidential nominee and a major player on Capitol Hill for years, seemed invincible until a few months ago. But an insurgency fueled by liberal anger over the senator's support for the Iraq war, coupled with an agile, well-financed campaign by Lamont that capitalizes on that discontent, is threatening to topple Lieberman in the Aug. 8 Connecticut Democratic primary. If he loses, Lieberman is likely to run as an independent in November, drawing on his popularity with Republicans and unaffiliated voters. Yet the stunning turnabout is a cautionary tale of how quickly a political career can unravel.

The strain shows. At campaign events, Lieberman at times appears subdued and weary. He projects little of the cheerful enthusiasm that marked his long-shot presidential bid two years ago. "It's difficult personally," Lieberman said last week of the defections by party veterans such as Stolberg. "I am competing in the most difficult part of the Connecticut electorate for me."

In an editorial published today, the New York Times endorsed Lamont over Lieberman, arguing that the senator had offered the nation a "warped version of bipartisanship" by supporting Bush on national security.

Lieberman is accustomed to the rough and tumble of politics, and can be combative in his own defense, as he showed during a recent debate. But he said he has been jarred by the intensity of Democratic anger toward Bush -- and, by extension, toward him. Liberal bloggers have called Lieberman a "liar" and a "weasel."

"It's not just opposition to Bush," he said. "The hatred is so deep."

That Democratic ire "raises larger questions about our politics," Lieberman added. He thinks it ultimately undermines the effectiveness of government. But he makes no apology for his position on the war, having resolved long ago that he would not "be part of a partisan response."

Other Democrats, including Stolberg, considered challenging Lieberman this year, but Lamont had a crucial advantage. The great-grandson of a JP Morgan chairman, who founded a successful cable-television business, he has already spent $1.5 million of his own money and had raised an additional $1.3 million through June 30.

"I felt all along I would have a challenge," Lieberman quipped. "But I was hoping God would send me a poor one." The senator, however, has raised $7 .2 million for his campaign.

In Washington, Lieberman carved a niche in foreign policy and gained a national reputation as a collegial, moderate Democrat with a strong moral streak. Back home, though, his Democratic base narrowed. Traditional left-leaning voters were turned off by Lieberman's support for school vouchers, his criticism of affirmative action and his hawkish foreign policy views. They also resented his conciliatory style in the highly partisan, elbows-out environment of Capitol Hill in recent years.

As the Iraq war unfolded and controversies flared over intelligence failures and the commitment of U.S. forces, Democrats such as Stolberg longed for their senator to take a more combative approach with the White House. Bush's embrace of Lieberman the night of the president's 2005 State of the Union address -- a moment that has come to be called "the Kiss" -- is one of the most vivid images of the Connecticut campaign. In a speech last December, Lieberman warned Democrats that "in matters of war, we undermine presidential credibility at our nation's peril."

"You can want to be liked by some people, but there are a few you have to write off," Stolberg said. "Joe wants to be loved by the devil, too."

Voters express a similar anguish. While Lieberman was working the crowd at a Norwalk Italian festival, he was greeted by Mike Vano Jr., an 80-year-old Navy World War II veteran. After shaking the senator's hand, Vano conceded that he could not decide which Democrat will get his vote. "I like the man. I like what he's done," Vano said of Lieberman. "But I don't like that war."

At a campaign stop last Monday at Sweet Rexie's, a candy store in South Norwalk, Conn., Sen. Barbara Boxer, a liberal California Democrat, vouched for Lieberman's Democratic bona fides before a group of local businesswomen. Boxer's visit was part of an effort by the Lieberman camp to convince Connecticut Democrats that he is still one of them.

"This is what I know," Boxer said. "You've got a good Democrat here." At a rally later that day in Waterbury, former president Bill Clinton assured 2,000 Lieberman supporters: "He is a good Democrat, he is a good man, and he'll do you proud."

A July 20 Quinnipiac University survey showed likely Democratic primary voters favoring Lamont 51 percent to 47 percent over Lieberman, a lead that is statistically insignificant because it falls within the margin of error. Lieberman trails among voters making over $30,000 per year, those with college degrees, and all age groups except senior citizens. Lieberman had held substantial leads in previous polls.

Some political observers think the seeds of Lieberman's problems with Connecticut voters were planted in 2000, when Al Gore picked him as his vice presidential running mate and as a precaution Lieberman refused to give up his bid for a third Senate term. "It's called covering your bases, rather than being a loyal party guy," said John M. Orman, a Fairfield University politics professor who briefly challenged Lieberman before Lamont entered the picture.

While laying the foundation for his own presidential bid in 2004, Lieberman criticized Gore for mishandling their 2000 campaign by sounding a populist tone instead of appealing more to centrists. He showed interest in the Republicans' plan for overhauling Social Security, he voted for a Republican energy bill that Democrats decried, he supported federal intervention in the Terri Schiavo right-to-die case, and he helped clear the path for a vote on Samuel A. Alito Jr.'s Supreme Court confirmation -- although he voted against Alito.

But Lieberman has helped his party on many issues. He is a strong supporter of abortion rights, opposed the Bush tax cuts, and is considered a friend to environmental, gay and lesbian, and labor causes. Much to his frustration, critics have pushed all that into the background.

"The partisanship and the war have created a different situation, one [Lieberman] hasn't seen before," said Scott L. McLean, political science chairman at Quinnipiac. "Prior to the Iraq war, you couldn't pin him down."

Lieberman, the son of a Stamford liquor-store owner, began his career as an ambitious progressive. But he shed his liberal image after losing a 1980 House race, emerging as a law-and-order moderate during a stint as Connecticut attorney general. Lieberman took on phony charities, blocked an off-track betting parlor, and criticized "ladies' night" bar specials for discriminating against men. When he took on Sen. Lowell P. Weicker Jr. in 1988, he ran so far to the right of the moderate Republican that conservative icon William F. Buckley Jr. pitched in as a Lieberman fundraiser.

In the final days before the Aug. 8 primary, Lieberman is summing up his message to voters this way: "Mr. and Mrs. Connecticut, I hope you'll respect me, even if you don't agree with me."

His supporters cite the senator's breadth of experience and character as the main reasons they are sticking with him. Patricia Mulhall, who attended the Clinton rally, said she forgives Lieberman's perceived transgressions for the sake of his decency and gravitas. "I was disappointed with some of his votes, but I understand," said Mulhall, Waterbury's Democratic registrar.

The silver lining for Lieberman is that he remains popular with unaffiliated moderates and GOP voters, a large slice of the Connecticut electorate. The July Quinnipiac poll indicated he would easily win a three-way race in November, against Lamont and the Republican nominee, Alan Schlesinger.

Then again, the primary also looked like a cakewalk for Lieberman until recently. As Lieberman was leaving Sweet Rexie's with Boxer, he bumped into Richard Stowe, who was walking by the store. "Time to go from Iraq," Stowe told the senator politely. Stowe is a Republican, but he is supporting Lamont.

communique between respective 2006 Democratic and Republican gubernatorial candidates

2008-07-11T20:15:00.000-07:00

Office of the Mayor
165 Church Street
New Haven, Connecticut 06510

John DeStefano, Jr.
May 27, 2008

The Honorable M. Jodi Rell
Governor
State of Connecticut
210 Capitol Avenue
Hartford, CT 06106

RE: Bicycle Access – M8 Rail Cars
Metro-North Railroad, New Haven Line

Dear Governor Rell,

City staff and many interested citizens inspected the sample M* rail on display at Union Station last week. Many thanks to you and Acting Commissioner James Boice for that opportunity. This level of citizen input is rarely seen with rail projects and this new effort did not go unnoticed.

I did want to share with you one prevailing concern: the lack of attention to bicycle storage related not only to the design of the car but also to the policies which govern bicycle access on the rail system.

Here in New Haven, an engaged community group, Elm City Cycling, has joined with similar statewide organizations to advocate for specific changes to the design of the M-8 cars, as well as retrofit modifications to existing cars. These organizations have put forward a thoughtful plan to allow for example, vertical storage of up to four (4) bicycles replacing a 4-seat section on every other car.

Likewise, we need to work together to change existing Metro-North policies related to bicycle access to trains. Metro-North currently has a permit process as well as peak-hour restrictions in place. Both policies simply are not acceptable. We have made great strides as a state, welcoming bikes on our public buses and on our streets. It is well past time to take the next important step and create a welcoming, design-appropriate rail system for the state’s cycling community.

I would appreciate your direct involvement in this matter. I understand time is of the essence, but CDOT and Metro-North officials indicate there still is time to affect a positive outcome. Thank you for your consideration.

Very truly yours,
John DeStefano, Jr.
Mayor

cc. James Boice, Acting Commissioner, CDOT
Thomas Cheesman, Chair, Connecticut Public Transportation Commission

State of Connecticut
Executive Chambers

M. Jodi Rell, Governor

June 6, 2008

Mayor Johm DeStefano, Jr.
Office of the Mayor
165 Church Street
New Haven, CT 06510

Dear Mayor DeStefano:

Thank you for your letter of May 27, 2008 regarding bicycle access to the Metro-North M-8 rail cars. I share your concern that the new rail cars provide adequate bicycle storage.

To that end, the Department of Transportation, at my direction, is in the process of reviewing the design of the M-8 cars and will propose modifications of the design to increase bicycle storage. Since these cars are not scheduled to be delivered until 2009, there is sufficient time to modify the design without delaying the scheduled delivery.

I would also note that the Department of Transportation has installed new bike racks at stations along the line and they will review their policies concerning bicycle access.

Thank you once again for your input. Please be assured that we all share the goal of making the Metro North rail cars more bike-friendly.

Sincerely,

M. Jodi Rell
Governor

bicycling = conservation: lead paragraph in page 1 June 19, 2008 New Canaan Advertiser story

2008-06-21T20:00:00.000-07:00

New Canaan Advertiser Thursday, June 19, 2008 Page 1, 27

Conservation in ‘The Next Station to Heaven’
By Kimberly Nevas, Reporter

Coasting behind a 12-mile-per-gallon GMC Sierra Denali on Main Street Monday morning, resident environmental activist and recent candidate for first selectman Richard Stowe was first recognizable by the bicycle on which he has become known to rely.

Like the wheels Mr. Stowe chooses to run errands by, environmentalism in New Canaan is quiet, but it’s there.

Spanning 40 acres of Town property, the New Canaan Nature Center aims to give people the tools and knowledge to make conservation and sustainability a part of everyday life.

“We see ourselves as providing the kinds of learning opportunities that prepare people to engage in environmental issues,” Executive Director Ben Hren said. “Our programs begin at a very early age. We work with pre-school kids, we want to expose them and make them aware of the natural world around them through experiences. That very early exposure is very important in developing the disposition and interest so they can involve themselves in environmental issues.”

Last winter, the board developed a sustainability policy that will challenge staff to quantify the impact of recycling, energy and water conservation efforts, he said.

At Irwin Park, a newly installed Flexi-Pave trail is a mile-long demonstration of one use for recycled tires. Billed as water-permeable and maintenance-free, the material is said not to leach the same pollutants as asphalt.

In honor of Earth Day, New Canaan Country School was awarded “Silver” certification by the U.S. Green Building Council Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, program, making it the “greenest” school in the state for its efficient design of recent renovation and addition.

Town Hall is following suit, as well. An architect hired to develop designs for the eventual overhaul of the municipal building will return to the planning committee next month with ideas for integrating LEED principles.

Already, the Planning & Zoning Commission has made an effort. During the permitting process for the new rest room facility at Waveny Park, it slipped in a condition that the pre-fabricated building would adhere as much as is practical to LEED standards.

But one effort that has yet to launch is the newly resurrected Town Conservation Commission.

The advisory body was brought back in March by an ordinance that called for members to be named within 30 days — something that has yet to happen.

John Black Lee, who in 2003 resigned from the Environmental Commission to protest the Town’s inattention to conservation issues, said the commission’s first task should be digitally indexing about 1,000 maps that show natural and man-made structures, wetlands and watercourses, so that areas that need protection can be identified.

“It’s not a job for somebody that doesn’t have the professional training to do that kind of work,” he said.

Mr. Lee said that he thought the commission needs a full-time professional conservationist, but one wasn’t provided in the ordinance.

“The Town is just dragging its feet because that involves budgets and salaries, as would be appropriate for that job. It is something that very easily slides away from the commission as a possibility because it’s too expensive,” he said, “Or, it measures its expense compared with other expenses that have some priority. For those functions, it happened for years that the commission just didn’t have the staff to do it.”

This is the latest in a series of articles reflecting on the character of New Canaan, counting down to the Advertiser’s centennial July 25.

summer-perfect weather greets cyclists riding (including Mayor John DeStefano) to Elm City Cycling bike-to-work breakfast

2008-06-16T20:40:00.000-07:00

Photo by Melinda Tuhus

Bike Commuting Arrives In New Haven

BY MELINDA TUHUS | JUNE 15, 2008 8:21 AM

Was it the perfect cycling weather on Friday, or the general explosion of activism in the cycling community, or the $4 a gallon price of gas? Whatever the reaction, the usual turnout quadrupled for Elm City Cycling’s monthly Bike to Work Day breakfast in front of City Hall.

The wide sidewalk was packed for much of the morning,; the best guess of organizers (of whom this reporter was one) is that about 125 cyclists showed up between 7 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. for some homemade goodies, fruit and coffee. Hopefully no one got too grumpy when we ran out of coffee (courtesy of Koffee? on Orange) and food three times, replenishing both as quickly as possible.

Channel 8 no doubt helped with publicity, broadcasting live from the spot starting at 5:30 a.m.

Photo by Melinda Tuhus

Richard Stowe (pictured on the right) showed up after taking Metro North to town Thursday night from his home in New Canaan, since he can’t bring his bike on the train during peak hours, and peak hour restrictions apply in both directions at morning and evening rush hours. At the event, he collected dozens more signatures on his petition to require the new train cars coming next year to have bike tie-downs and allow bikes on all trains.

He explained that, although it was a big step forward when Connecticut Gov. M. Jodi Rell came out last week in support of bike tie-downs (but not for allowing bikes on peak trains, yet), the blessing of her counterpart in New York, Gov. David Patterson, is also needed. A tie-down enables a bike to be secured on a train.

Photo by Melinda Tuhus

Harvey Hoskie (pictured above, a fit 61 years old, said he rides his bike four days a week from New Haven to West Haven. “I don’t have a car - that’s one of the good reasons to have a bike - I can’t afford a car. The experience is good, and the exercise is good, and at my age, I need all the exercise I can get.”

Photo by Melinda Tuhus

These cyclists were part of a group who rode in together from Hamden.

Tracy Blanford lives in Fair Haven Heights. She heard about the event and saw what a beautiful day it was, so, she said, “When I asked my daughter if she wanted to ride to school at Cross, she said, ‘Yeah, sure.’ So we jumped on our bikes and rode to Cross, which is a little bit of a treacherous ride over Willow Street, but we made it safely, and then I rode down to the Green just to see what’s going on.” She stayed ‘til the end and helped clean up.

Many Yale grad students and staff contributed to the big turnout.

Several are from European countries and two young women, from Germany and Hungary, contrasted the pro-bike policies in place in their countries compared to the situation in New Haven, in Connecticut, and in most of the U.S. One explained how easy it was to travel multi-modally by bike and train — almost as if transportation planners and train personnel welcomed cyclists on board!

Photo by Melinda Tuhus

Alienne Morrione (pictured above) said she lives in Bridgeport and sometimes tries to bring her bike on board Metro-North, but is often prevented from doing so (even though there are many empty seats traveling west to east in the morning) because of the peak hour restrictions. On those days, she said, “I ride to New Haven. What choice do I have?”

Photo by Melinda Tuhus

Mayor John DeStefano rode his bike in from his home near the Woodbridge line, then rode to mass at St. Mary’s on Hillhouse Avenue before cycling back and schmoozing briefly with fellow cyclists before disappearing into City Hall.

Photo by Melinda Tuhus

Tim Nottoli, this reporter, and David Streever showing off last year’s BTW shirts.

POSTED BY: DINGDONG | JUNE 16, 2008 4:10 PM
"peak hour restrictions apply in both directions at morning and evening rush hours."

peak hour restrictions actually only apply in both directions during the morning. The evening peak hours period is only New Haven-bound.

POSTED BY: MATTUVA | JUNE 16, 2008 5:27 PM
Thanks for the correction, Ding, but I believe the point is that bikes are prohibited exactly at the times most commuters would use them.

governor rell directs department of transportation to provide space for bikes-on-trains on pending order of M-8 cars

2008-06-12T17:56:00.000-07:00

New Haven Register Thursday, June 12, 2008 A3

Rail cars to get more bike space

By Mary E. O’Leary

NEW HAVEN — Ask and you shall receive.

Gov. M. Jodi Rell, at the request of New Haven Mayor John DeStefano Jr., has ordered that the 380 M-8 rail cars on order for use on Metro North be modified to allow for increased bicycle storage.

After viewing a mock-up of the rail cars in late May, the mayor asked for the revision to the cars, as well as a change in Metro-North policy which currently does not allow bikes on rush-hour trains.

Rell, in a letter to the mayor, said she had similar concerns about limiting bicycles on trains, which commuters now use to ride to a train station and use again to make the last leg of their commuting journeys.

Rell told the mayor that since the first of the new cars are not scheduled for delivery until 2009, “there is sufficient time to modify the design without delaying the scheduled delivery.” The proposed changes will be made by the state Department of Transportation.

Rell said new bike racks also have been installed at stations and the state DOT will review its policies on bicycle access.
But the Connecticut Rail Commuter Council feels that until there are enough train cars to allow all paying passengers to sit, bicycles should not be allowed to take up space.

“Everyone is tired of standing. How can you accommodate a bike without blocking the aisle?” asked James Cameron, council chairman.

He said the council does support more bike racks at train stations as a low-cost solution to help commuters, who now have a four-year wait for parking permits.

On the other side of the issue, cycling advocates point to successful programs in other states, particularly California.
Richard Stowe, of the New Canaan Environmental Group, has taken on Cameron in his blog, pointing particularly to price of oil as a reason to act.

“With the price of oil cresting 120 dollars per barrel never has there been a better time for Metro-North to accommodate bicycles during peak hours,” Stowe wrote. He also criticized Cameron’s defense of keeping bar cars, but not accommodating bikes.

this week's summary

2008-06-06T21:09:00.000-07:00

After a page 1 story in the Hartford Courant (http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-bikes0528.artmay28,0,2107545.story), a lead editorial in the Connecticut Post "Accommodate bicycles on trains" (http://www.connpost.com/editorials/ci_9430315) on Sunday June 1 - reprinted Friday June 6 in the Stamford Advocate and Greenwich Time (http://www.greenwichtime.comci_9497019) as "Bikes should be part of transit efforts", a radio news story on WCBS 880 AM, the bikes-on-trains issue soared to new heights at week's end reaching into the political blogosphere, at least on (Stamford Mayor) Dan Malloy's blog.
The June 5 post "My Gift to You: A Parking Space" (http://danmalloy.wordpress.com/2008/06/05/my-gift-to-you-a-parking-space/) is written by Michael K. Norris. Mr. Norris "was a volunteer and guest blogger for Dan Malloy's 2006 gubernatorial campaign. Before moving to Stamford in 2004, Norris was a freelance writer and researcher in New Hampshire, where he volunteered for several local and national political campaigns. Currently he works as a book industry consultant based in Stamford and is a member of Southern Fairfield County Young Democrats."

Connecticut Post to Metro-North: Accommodate bicycles on trains!

2008-06-01T21:05:00.000-07:00

Dateline: Bridgeport, Connecticut
Editorial Page

Connecticut Post Sunday June 1, 2008 D2

Accommodate bicycles on trains

Article Last Updated: 05/30/2008 06:50:14 PM EDT

The signals are mixed.

We're supposed to stay off the roads, which most people can agree with, what with $50 fill-ups looking like the norm for a while. That leaves walking, biking or mass transit. That's fine, as far as it goes.

Walking works, if you're not going far. Biking? Fine for some people, and the train works for even more. But combining biking with the train? Not so fast.

Metro-North Railroad doesn't make it easy for the bicycle-inclined, keeping the two-wheelers off peak-hour trains. And when they are allowed, there's no storage to speak of, so riders must stand them in the vestibule, forcing everyone else to walk around them and inviting serious grumbling.

It's not that the peak-hour ban is indefensible. Indeed, with gas prices spiking, transit ridership is up around the country, and there aren't enough seats to go around as it is. Crowded conditions with bicycles to boot makes a less-than-pleasant ride a full-on aggravation.

But there are other ways. In California, for instance, Caltrain service south of San Francisco features front cars with no seats but plenty of bike parking. It shouldn't be hard to find old cars around here that have outlived their usefulness for regular passengers but could be gutted for use by cyclists.

Connecticut is near-impossible to get around without a car, which is why our roads are always clogged, climate change is fast approaching and the air is hard to breathe. To think there's a way out of that trap that the trains won't oblige is hard to understand.

With a new batch of train cars scheduled to start arriving next year, now might be a good time to consider some changes. Helping accommodate bicyclists would be a good start, as well as, of course, listening to the problems of everyday commuters. A gasoline crisis can mean big things for mass transit systems, but it takes preparation to get it right and satisfy all customers, old and new.

Page 1 story in May 28 Hartford Courant - Dateline: New Haven

2008-05-28T18:54:00.000-07:00

Hartford Courant, Wednesday, May 28, 2008 A1
Railing Against A Bicycle Ban
Pedal Commuters' Wish: Rush Hour Lift from Metro-North

PATRICK GAVIN walks his bike through the tunnel at Union Station in New Haven after taking a Metro-North train from Bridgeport earlier this month. Facing a nightmare automobile commute between his Hamden home and his job at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, he opted for a bicycle. But his morning commute falls in Metro-North's peak hours, when bikes aren't allowed. Photo by JOHN WOIKE / THE HARTFORD COURANT

By Kim Martineau | COURANT STAFF WRITER

NEW HAVEN — - As he pedaled down Route 1, Patrick Gavin ignored the honking horns, rumbling trucks and big-box stores. An hour and a half later, he rolled through the gates of scenic Sacred Heart University.

The train would be a faster, probably safer, ride to work. But Metro-North Railroad doesn't allow bicycles on rush-hour trains. And without his bike, Gavin has no easy way to get to the New Haven train station from his home in Hamden, or to the Bridgeport station from his job in Fairfield.

The dilemma facing suburban commuters like Gavin is one reason Metro-North is finding its bicycle policy under attack. In March, a group of cyclists stormed Metro-North's annual public forum to demand that its new trains include bike tie-downs and that the railroad reconsider its rush-hour restrictions.

The push to make commuter trains more bike-friendly comes amid rising gas prices, epic I-95 traffic jams and concern about the health problems caused by air pollution.

A state lawmaker from Wallingford who tried this spring to lift the peak-hour ban on bicycles has vowed to try again next year.

Until the rules change, Gavin, 32, is on the road by 6:30 a.m. to ride the 30 miles to Sacred Heart, where he works as a librarian. At the end of the day, he rushes to catch the last off-peak train home.

As his endurance grows, he hopes to extend his morning rides from two days a week to four. The other days he drives.

"I don't want to deal with the frustration of getting stuck in traffic and the money," he said.

If one man has become a spokesman for the bikes-on-trains movement, it is Richard Stowe, an environmentalist from New Canaan who holds a driver's license but has never owned a car. Wiry, with thinning hair, Stowe is seldom without his cherry red, custom-frame bike.

In 2002, Stowe moved back to Connecticut and scored his first victory: getting bikes on Shoreline East's New Haven-to- New London line. Metro-North has been a tougher sell.

In recent years, Stowe has circulated petitions, befriended lawmakers and penned local newspaper columns. This spring, he learned that Metro-North was backing away from plans to provide bike storage on its new trains, to maximize revenue.

Stowe and other bike activists complained to the Connecticut Rail Commuter Council, a volunteer advocacy group. To their surprise, the council refused to adopt a resolution calling for bike storage on the new trains and lifting the rush-hour ban.

In March, the cyclists took their concerns directly to Metro-North at the annual "president's forum" in Manhattan. Their biggest critic, it turns out, is not a railroad bureaucrat but another mass-transit advocate.

Jim Cameron is a retired TV anchor who heads the commuter council. For years, he has complained about overcrowding and commuters left standing because they can't find seats. In the last five years, the number of commuters headed to Grand Central Terminal on the New Haven line has grown 13 percent, to 62,000 daily.

"Bikers have no more 'right' to bring bicycles on crowded rush-hour trains than I have to haul aboard a steamer trunk," he has proclaimed in his newspaper column, "Talking Transportation."

He has labeled the cyclists "well organized, very vocal and relentless."

Some of that pluck can be seen in Stowe's newspaper column, "Eco Man," which has responded to Cameron. If Metro-North has room for bar cars, Stowe has argued, it should have room for bikes.

And if cyclists could bring their bikes on during rush hour, he claims, ridership would grow. Caltrain, the commuter line in California's Silicon Valley, now serves a record 2,400 cyclists daily and often has to turn some away at peak times.

On a recent Saturday, Stowe led a celebration for "National Train Day" at New Haven's Union Station, the city's beaux-arts gateway.

Rep. Mary Mushinsky, D-Wallingford, spoke about a second attempt to pass legislation letting bikes on peak Metro-North trains, particularly the new M-8 cars purchased almost entirely with state money.

As gas prices hit $4 a gallon, she told the group, she hopes the bill will pass in the next session.

"Your best friend is the price of oil," she told them. "We're looking at $150 a barrel this summer and $200 next year. It will be unaffordable for some people to commute to work next year."

Jason Stockmann, a graduate student at Yale, quietly took notes. He works on medical imaging at Yale and recently put his car into storage. Bike tie-downs are critical for the new trains, he said later.

"If we miss this opportunity it could be a really long time until someone musters the will to install these things," he said.

Tom Kehoe, a Democratic lawmaker and marathon runner from Glastonbury, also was at the rally.

He was instrumental in the recent passage of a new bike-safety law requiring cars to leave a 3foot buffer when passing cyclists.

"People are starting to get the message," he told the group. "The roads are not just for cars."

Gavin's conversion to bike commuting came earlier this year after a crash on the Merritt Parkway made him two hours late on his first day of work.

Determined to find a better way, he mapped out a bicycle route on the Internet.

On a recent morning, Gavin ate breakfast, slid his dress shoes and clothes into a pack, said good-bye to his wife and hopped on his road bike.

As he detoured through New Haven's Edgewood Park, a wild turkey darted into the trees. On Route 1, a middle-aged man in work boots pedaled by.

The two men, who often pass on the route, nodded to each other. Pedaling on, Gavin crossed five highway on-ramps and, in a terrifying blur, one highway off-ramp. Biking past a house cat, partially flattened in the next lane, he averted his eyes.

A few drivers honked but Gavin kept his mind on the road and on his plans for work that day.

When he arrived at Sacred Heart, he hopped off his bike and walked to the gym to shower, exuding a Zen-like calm.

By late afternoon, Gavin would be back in the saddle for the 4-mile ride to the Bridgeport station. Back in New Haven, he would pedal another 4 miles home. Round-trip workout: 38 miles.

If Metro-North let bikes on during peak hours, he said, he would leave his car at home every day. He envisions a system like Belgium's, where some train cars are reserved for bikes and remote stations offer bikes for rent.

"It's just part of the culture there and has been for a while," he said. "It's hard to create that here."

Contact Kim Martineau at kmartineau@courant.com.

State of New Jersey bikes-on-trains statute on the books

2008-05-23T10:04:00.000-07:00

N.J. Stat. � 48:12-108. Transportation of bicycles as baggage; penalty for refusal

TITLE 48. PUBLIC UTILITIES
CHAPTER 12. RAILROADS
ARTICLE 20. CARRYING PASSENGERS
A. GENERAL PROVISIONS

The holder of a ticket issued by any railroad company entitling him to transportation on its railroad or ferries as a passenger shall have the right in lieu of other baggage, to the transportation as baggage without further charge of one bicycle to and from the place designated in such ticket. Such transportation shall be on the same train or boat with the passenger where facilities for the transportation of baggage then exist on such train or boat.

The passenger shall remove any lantern from such bicycle but not any usual bicycle bell or cyclometer nor need he crate, cover or otherwise protect the bicycle. No railroad company transporting bicycles pursuant to this section shall be liable for damage done to any bell, cyclometer or like attachments.

Any railroad company refusing to accept for transportation or to transport bicycles as baggage as required by this section shall pay to such passenger ten dollars for each offense, to be recovered in an action at law in any court of competent jurisdiction.

realizing a modal shift to reduce profligate carbon consumption

2008-05-14T10:48:00.000-07:00

Philadelphia Inquirer, Friday, May 9, 2008 Page A27

Rail overhaul, investment vital to Northeast Corridor and nation

Richard Stowe is founder and director of Rail*Trains*Ecology*Cycling, a nonprofit advocacy group
Home to 56.3 million people, the nation's capital, and powerful financial, media and academic institutions, the Northeast region produces 20 percent of America's GDP and 27 million jobs, but is only 2 percent of the nation's landmass.

The mega-sprawlopolis is most clearly defined by the intensity of its sky glow at night, light pollution symbolic of the profligate energy consumed by short-haul flights and millions of automobiles.

Amtrak owns and operates the Northeast Corridor from Washington to Boston. The energy-efficient electrified corridor generates half of Amtrak's riders nationwide and serves 80 percent of America's commuter-rail passengers.

In all, 540,000 passengers travel daily on Long Island Railroad (LIRR) and Metro-North Railroad (MNR) from suburban region-to-city center (including reverse commute); 440,000 passengers board seven other commuter-rail lines daily.

Amtrak, which carries 32,000 passengers daily, accounts for 50 percent of corridor train miles and 10 percent of corridor trips.

Therein lies the paradox: Amtrak, a quasi-private corporation, owns and operates all but 15 percent of track miles on the Northeast Corridor without transparency, public accountability, or a dedicated funding stream, but generates only 4 percent of Northeast Corridor riders.

Over its 37-year history, Amtrak has been the recipient of declining rates of congressional subsidies, increasing politicization, and no aggressive growth strategy plan.

In this vacuum of vision, local rail agency fiefdoms engage in poor planning, Amtrak provides compromised service, expansion of commuter-rail service is stymied, and rail freight movements into New York and New England are thwarted.

That calls for a transfer of ownership, oversight and management of the Northeast Corridor coupled with a sound strategic vision that focuses on Amtrak's strengths, commuter-rail growth, and rail freight shipments through the Trans-Hudson Express tunnels.

To achieve that: Transfer ownership of track, infrastructure and right-of-way to the eight corridor states - Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts - and the District of Columbia. Management should operate under a joint power authority and include regional stakeholders such as Amtrak, commuter-rail operators, state governments, District of Columbia, rail freight carriers, and members of the public. The authority would establish a corridor master plan; oversee procurement and operation contracts, which conform to and exceed the highest green standards; set policy (provide bicycle parking on trains) and monitor measurable goals.

Providing four-city Acela Express service (Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington) without 15-minute Penn Station layovers, low-cost New Haven-originated commuter trains running nonstop or one-stop from Penn Station to Washington, and express commuter-train service from Philadelphia International Airport to Penn Station would allow a much-needed shift from congestion-choking and delay-inducing short-haul air trips to fast, high-speed rail trips.

Rail investment helps reduce oil imports, global warming, overcrowded skies and traffic-related deaths. A vibrant Northeast Corridor is critical to our national interest.

Richard Stowe lives in Connecticut and rides Metro-North Railroad's New Haven Line regularly. Read his blog at http://ecoman.wordpress.com. E-mail him at bike.rail.politics@gmail.com.

bikes-on-trains is state law in new york!

2008-05-08T21:03:00.000-07:00

New York State bikes on trains law has been in effect since 1896 when the League of American Wheelman successfully fought for bicycle access on trains. Section 66 of New York State Railroad Law, to quote the New York Times, mandates "free transportation of bicycles as baggage."

Section 66 of the NYS Railroad Law

§ 66. Checks for baggage. A check, made of some proper substance of convenient size and form, plainly stamped with numbers, and furnished with a convenient strap or other appendage for attaching to baggage, shall be affixed to every piece or parcel of baggage when taken for transportation for a passenger by the agent or employee of such corporation, if there is a handle, loop or fixture therefor upon the piece or parcel of baggage, and a duplicate thereof given to the passenger or person delivering the same to him. If such check be refused on demand the corporation shall pay to the passenger the sum of ten dollars, and no fare shall be collected or received from him; and if he shall have paid his fare it shall be refunded to him by the conductor in charge of the train. Such baggage shall be delivered, without unnecessary delay, to the passenger or any person acting in his behalf, at the place to which it was to be transported, where the cars usually stop, or at any other regular intermediate stopping place upon notice to the baggage-master in charge of baggage on the train of not less than thirty minutes, upon presentation of such duplicate check to the officer or agent of the railroad corporation, or of any corporation, over any portion of whose road it was transported. Bicycles are hereby declared to be and be deemed baggage for the purposes of this article and shall be transported as baggage for passengers by railroad corporations and subject to the same liabilities, and no such passenger shall be required to crate, cover or otherwise protect any such bicycle; provided, however, that a railroad corporation shall not be required to transport, under the provisions of this section, more than one bicycle for a single person.

This language is specific to individuals traveling specifically for personal non-motorized bicycle travel - not the transport of bicycles - "more than one" for commercial purposes.

This language contained within the law does not appear to suggest that it applies only to trains that have baggage cars, nor does it appear to in any way hinder the establishment of a bike car, or a section of a passenger car to be set aside exclusively for the use of bicycle parking. In fact, it describes that bicycles shall be brought on and off trains in a manner that a reasonable person would expect - uncrated & uncovered.

The language herein stated of Section 66 of New York State RR law, in my opinion, does not authorize periods of time in which bicycles may be excluded, or prohibited.

In fact, one may interpret that any time a cyclist is refused entry onto a train with his bicycle in New York State, the railroad corporation is liable to paying a sum of $10 to each cyclist who is denied the opportunity to board his or her bicycle on the train and the specific harm that is aggregated by that denial qualifies the cyclist to reimbursement for the fare he or she paid to travel on that train. There is no specific language contained within the law, which confines that to private corporations, in other words it appears that this law applies to public corporations, too.

This also calls into question the bicycle permit policy and whether it must be revoked since there is a charge associated with being granted that permit, however small that permit fee is.

Design New Haven reports on bikes-on-trains

2008-05-08T20:53:00.000-07:00

Posted the following comments to the Bicycles on Trains: Updated ... Again on the Design New Haven site (http://www.designnewhaven.com/)

Really excellent thread on bikes-on-trains. Bikes belong on trains at peak hours. Its crowded, but we should keep buying MNR trains. Still have 80 cars outstanding on the Kawasaki Rail Car contract. With regard to Jim Cameron, his Talking Transportation column runs in the New Canaan Advertiser. The New Canaan Advertiser runs my Ecoman column and I wrote a refutation to his" Bicycle on Trains?", which ran in the New Canaan Advertiser as "Fit people on trains before bikes." Next time you update "bikes on trains" feel free to link to http://ecoman.wordpress.com

e-mail to city official

2008-04-17T11:39:00.000-07:00

Jed Howbert
Senior Policy Advisor
Office of the Deputy Mayor for Economic Development and Rebuilding
City Hall
New York, NY 10007

Hi Jed,

I enjoyed the discussion on the phone I had with you this afternoon.

That would be great to have a city official to sit in on the meeting that we are in the process of setting up with Bob MacLagger, Senior Director Operations Planning & Analysis, Planning, Procurement & Business Development at Metro-North Railroad. Please direct that invitation to appropriate persons.

You may forward this e-mail (or forward me contact info) to key state officials, who may be sympathetic to and may aid us in our effort to secure bicycle parking areas on commuter trains at peak hours.

Here are some of our talking points:
1) Metro-North Railroad policies should not arbitrarily and capriciously deny bicyclists the right to board bicycles on trains at peak hours and on ten holidays. That policy needs to be changed.

2) Metro-North Railroad should set aside space for safe, secure bicycle parking on the new 300 M-8 trains, the yet-to-be ordered 80 M-8 train cars and the 132 M-2 cars going through critical systems replacement.

Tie-downs that provide only for off-peak hour bicycle parking are insufficient.

a) To put this request into perspective, the planned bar cars for the M-8's are taking the seat-equivalent of a minimum of 720 spaces (10 bar cars x 72 seats per car) versus our request for 300 to 600 seat-equivalent on the M-8's.
b) On the M-8 trains the seat-equivalent area we are seeking would be a 4-seat section (2x2) adjacent to the vestibule. There we would park up to 4 bikes vertically.
c) We are seeking this space on every other cars for an aggregate seat-equivalent space of 600 seats (out of an aggregate seat total of 30,000 seats). We are willing to compromise on this with a seat equivalent space of 300 seats - bicycle parking on one out of every four cars.
d) A section of the bar car could be set aside for bicycle parking. Bicyclists drink beer, too! In fact, at the recent MNR President's Forum, one cyclist stated he would like to see higher quality micro-brew beers served.
e) To offset seat-equivalent space loss, consider flip down seats in the inner track section of the vestibules, or perpendicular to the bicycle parking.
f) On M-2 CSR cars we are seeking a bike car design similar to the Caltrain bike car configuration. Think bar car for bicycles (except that the bike cars would use a seat-equivalent space of only 40 seats per bike car as opposed to the seat-equivalent space of 92 seats that the current bar cars swallow.)

3) Metro-North policies should disband bicycle permit process. Like peak-hour and holiday restrictions, that acts as an arbitrary and capricious barrier to entry. New Jersey Transit, SEPTA, Metrolink, Tri-Rail, PATH are all agencies that discarded bicycle permits.

Thank you for your interest and support.

Richard Stowe
Rail*Trains*Ecology*Cycling
(203) 594-9097

2008 Conference of Governors on Climate Change

2008-04-17T08:22:00.000-07:00

NEW CANAAN ADVERTISER THURSDAY, APRIL 17, 2008 7A
EcoMan
Spring brings green efforts

Easter Sunday, March 23rd, was the first holiday to fall at the outset of spring 2008. I celebrated that brisk, sunny day with a bicycle ride from New Canaan to an unnamed neighborhood south of Chinatown, south of the Williamsburg Bridge. Easter Sunday: the unofficial start of the cycling season.

My destination was Broadway East, where I would feast on what turned out to be an unquestionably un-Easter Sunday-like dinner.

After bicycling down Old Stamford Road I traversed a subdued U.S. 1 to New Rochelle. There I turned left on Echo Road and right on Pelham Road. That allowed me to ride through Pelham Bay Park and down Westchester Avenue. I entered Manhattan on the Third Avenue Bridge, which led me on a fast ride down Second Avenue.

Broadway East is a bright, new, upscale eatery (it opened April 7) with a palate that is decidedly low on the food chain. Our server, Annabelle, was a twenty-something who sheepishly revealed she was from Fairfield County (Greenwich, Darien and Wilton) and had boarded at Westminster School in Simsbury. Annabelle, who traveled in Africa and beyond, while pursuing pre-med at University of Edinburgh, shared with us the restaurant’s philosophy and her favorite dishes on the menu.

After dinner I bicycled back to Grand Central Terminal and with my bicycle boarded the train back to New Canaan. Fortunately, Easter Sunday isn’t one of the ten holidays each year in which Metro-North policies prohibit bicycles on trains.

The downside of those arbitrary restrictions (especially prohibiting boarding bicycles at peak hours) came to the attention of outgoing Metro-North President Peter Cannito on March 26 at the annual President’s Forum. That evening nearly a dozen cyclists expressed their outrage at Metro-North’s recent announcement to continue its current restrictive policies toward bicycles and not include bicycle parking on 300 new M-8 cars even though cyclists had been repeatedly assured that parking would be provided. A 40 percent increase in the New Haven Line fleet (380 MNR M-8 cars plus critical systems replacement rehab of 132 M-2 cars), cyclists argue, is the perfect time to integrate bikes on to trains. Add climate change and potential future fuel shortages into the mix and agency-sanctioned bikes-on-trains-at-peak-hours certainly makes sense.

Of course, other issues arise regarding climate change.

New Canaan resident and longtime Environmental Defense Fund President Fred Krupp posits solutions in "Earth: The Sequel – the Race to Reinvent Energy and Stop Global Warming," which he co-authored with Miriam Horn. Consider it to be a 21st Century update to "Energy Future: Report of the Energy Project at the Harvard Business School Project," the 1979 energy strategy primer edited by Robert Stobaugh and Daniel Yergin (Mr. Yergin’s 1991 tome "The Prize: the Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power" is a great read.) "Earth: The Sequel" opens with an easy-to-bite read into the research, resource and production challenges facing Silicon Valley entrepreneurs transitioning a solar future into the solar decade.

The 2008 Conference of Governors on Climate Change (http://research.yale.edu/envirocenter/) will take place at Yale University. On Friday April 18th, Governors M. Jodi Rell. Jon Corzine, Kathleen Sebelius (Kansas), Eduardo Bours (Sonora, Mexico), Martin Bursick (Czech Republic) and Premier Jean Charest (Quebec) will convene in a 10:30 a.m. plenary session open to the public at Woolsey Hall, 500 College Street. At 1:30 p.m. a signing will take place and at 2:00 p.m. Nobel Laureate Dr. R.K. Pachauri, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will give a public address.

The 2008 conferences serves as a centennial anniversary of President Theodore Roosevelt’s 1908 Conference of Governors, which is credited as launching the modern conservation movement.

Theodore Roosevelt, IV will pay tribute to his great-great grandfather’s legacy in a private ceremony on Thursday evening.

Gifford Pinchot, who in 1900 founded the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies (the centennial event host) and later himself served as Governor of Pennsylvania, organized the 1908 conference.

Thirty years have passed since Fred Krupp founded New Haven-based Connecticut Fund for the Environment (CFE.) On Sunday April 20th one of his protégés, Don Strait, CFE’s current Executive Director will address a Earth Ministries gathering at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church. The talk (a primer on past, present and future Connecticut Fund for the Environment initiatives) will take place in the church’s Library Room at 11:30 a.m. That will be preceded by an organic coffee, organic cookies hour in Morrill Hall at 11:00 a.m. Everyone, regardless of religious affiliation is welcome and encouraged to attend.

Keep it green.

Richard Stowe is president of the New Canaan Environmental Group, an environmental education organization and founder and director of Rail * Trains* Ecology * Cycling, a nonprofit advocacy group promoting sustainable modes of transportation

special report on Presidents Forum to 5BBC board by Steve Faust

2008-04-15T22:36:00.000-07:00

photo by Steven Faust

Date: Mon, Mar 31, 2008 3:36 PM
Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2008 14:38
From: "Steve Faust"
To: Roger Herz , Noah Budnick , Paul Steely White , Josh Gosciak , James Zisfein , mike piedell

Richard
This is my quick writeup to the 5BBC board that was sent via the board
president Jesse Brown.

The general outside contact for the 5BBC is the club secretary - James
Zisfin - jzisfein@yahoo.com

I may have made errors in peoples names and titles - busy taking notes
and listening at the same time. Any corrections appreciated.

We need to assemble a full interstate/interclub task force to deal with
MNR.

Steve Faust

Jesse:
Here is a brief report on the Metro North meeting.
I'm in Boston for the weekend and can't post directly to the ExecBoard
email.
Steve Faust.

most of the bike speakers are here in these 5 pictures:
some of the names may not match the description - some of the spelling is wrong - taking notes and trying to listen to the meeting at the same time.

Guy standing in yellow jacket is a 5BBC leader - the name is Neile Weissman.

photo by Steven Faust

Josh Gosciak is sitting under EXIT sign in gray polypropylene is with 5BBC.

photo by Steven Faust

The yellow shirt and skinny guys are from Conn.
Yellow shirt is Richard Stowe - Rail Trains Ecology -
email at - bikes.rail.politics@gmail
Richard appears to be the key coordinator for Conn cyclists

Skinny guy is Jason Stockman, a Yale Grad student in medical research
and asked for peak hour access.
Heavy guy is not cyclist

Two women are from Conn,
Melinda Tuhus, the one without helmet, is a reporter from
NewHavenIndependent.org

Missing from photo may be "Ken Koglin" from Conn.
- editor's note: Kenneth Coughlin is Transportation Alternatives Board Secretary
Missing from photo is Paul Hammer - Conn Bicycle Coalition - the former head of that group.
Mike Pidel is out of the picture.
Mr. Ed Defreitas was not able to attend the meeting.

NOTES:
Very good meeting. I was first bike oriented speaker - focused on the
M-8 car problem, but opened up with a history of leading bike groups on NH RR starting in the
mid 1960s, and how the 5BBC are still running day and weekend trips on MNR 40
years later. Asked that better space and bike tie downs be provided.
Mentioned Denmark as a model for bikes on trains. In 3+2 minutes, did
not get into Permits, or station parking, but did briefly ask for
reverse peak bike access.

Other speakers followed up after me asking for more bike space in the
cars, for bike storage, possibly hanging by a wheel that could fit
several bikes in the limited space now allocated to wheelchairs. They
asked for peak hour access and particularly reverse peak direction.
Also for better station side bike parking.

2/3 of the speakers were for bike issues. We had a good geographic mix,
me and Josh from the city, Pidel from Westchester and others from all
over Conn. Range of types and backgrounds too.

MNR Pres Peter Cannito's responses were generally good, but he is
missing a few facts and we surprised him with a few things. He has a
severe shortage of seats on rail cars and pays $2.2 million for 100 seat
New Haven M-8 cars. He is in real pain when we talk about loosing one
or two seats, 1 to 2 percent, of a 300 car order is like loosing 3 to 6
cars! Ouch! So cutting rush hour seats does not go over well.
He was very responsive to the request for better ways to tie the bikes
in place - he did not realize the trains are missing anything above the
floor - the wheel chair tie downs.

Response on the Permit - MNR likes it because cyclists have to sign
that they read the rules and this gives the railroad some legal support
in the event of a law suit. But there have not been any suits that we
know of. And most US transit systems have given up on the Permits,
including NJT and PATH. It's probably not worth the cost of collecting
it. The M-8 train designs are pretty fixed but not frozen yet. We have
a damned good shot at getting tie downs, and a passable chance at
hanging racks or something to better keep bikes neatly in place. If
they work here, we may be able to press for retrofits on older cars.

KEY RESULT: FORM A COMMITTEE!!
Really - Cannito asked the various cycling groups to get together a
working group to advise MNR on the rail car design, on the Permit, on
reverse peak access needs, on station parking.
Basically he opened a big window of opportunity here.
Cannito wants the combined group to mail him a letter requesting a meeting.
I suggest that a copy be sent to MTA head Lee Sander as well.

Richard Stowe appears to be the key coordinator for Conn cyclists
- Rail Trains Ecology - bikes.rail.politics@gmail
We need to bring in Transportation Alternatives, NYCC and who else into this...

Cannito suggested Bob McClagger (spelling?) as the bike contact, but I
don't have his email address. Editor's Note: Bob MacLagger
I did get the following name that can be used to link up:
Thomas Tendy,
Senior Director, Customer Service
MNR
420 Lexington Ave, 9th Floor
NY, NY 10017
212 672-1251
tendy@mnr.org

It was worth the time.

Steve.

bikes-on-trains-at-peak-hours

2008-04-12T11:12:00.000-07:00

New Haven Advocate Thursday, April 10, 2008 page 6
Transportation
Training Wheels

Metro-North's new train cars will be a dream ride for commuters - unless you have a bike.
By Betsy Yagla

The cars on Caltrain (pictured), California's mass transit system, have plenty of space for bikes. New Metro-North cars won't.
Jason Stockmann Photo

The bike rack at New Haven's Union Station is always full. There might be fewer bikes there if Metro-North trains allowed them onboard during peak hours.

But Metro North and Connecticut's Commuter Rail Council say space should be reserved for passengers, not bikes, on crowded rush hour trains. That spells trouble for inter-modal commuters who wish to travel by rail and bike to work.

The new Metro-North train cars on order, 300 M8 models, are being designed to accommodate two bikes per car, but only during off-peak train hours. When cyclists were promised a spot for their bikes on the trains, they assumed that it meant any time of day. That misunderstanding has cycling advocates peeved.

Last fall, Connecticut's rail administrator, Gene Colonese, e-mailed New Haven cyclist Hunter Smith, saying "the new M8 rail cars that will begin to appear on the New Haven Line in 2009 are being designed to accommodate bicycles." He didn't mention the no-bikes-during-peak-hours limitation.

Metro-North charges $5 for a lifetime bike permit, but allows them on trains on weekdays only from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and after 8 p.m. There's no bike access on holidays and restricted access on the days before and after. None of this will change with the new rail cars.

"As you know, peak hours are crowded and a bike takes up a significant amount of space that can be occupied by a human being," says Metro-North spokeswoman Marjorie Anders. "Until such time when our trains are not crowded, bikes will not be allowed."

"People are spending $350, $400 a month and they're standing," says Commuter Rail Council president Jim Cameron, who commutes daily from Darien to New York. "If there's no more room for passengers, how could there be room for bikes?" Cameron suggests revisting the issue in 2012, when all the M8s are scheduled to come online.

But cyclists want change now. New Haven cyclist Jason Stockmann says, "It would be very shortsighted for Metro-North not to take the next step and reduce our dependency on automobiles now."

Cyclists want to ride the train with their bikes instead of driving to the station, or looking for scant bike parking at the station. Some commuters work in offices too far to walk to from stations, but close enough to cycle to, says Stockman. Others want to ride to save on gas or lessen their carbon footprint.

In March cyclists attended a public hearing in Metro-North's Grand Central headquarters to ask for bike access on peak trains, but were refused. ECC's concerns did, however, alert state Rep. Mary Mushinsky, D-Wallingford, who's looking to force the issue by adding a bikes-on-trains amendment to a transportation bill in the state legislature.

"People would make that decision if they knew they could take their bike at each end of the trip," says Mushinsky. "It would allow them to leave their car at home and ease up congestion on our roads."

Mushinsky suggests bikes be allowed only on a few morning and evening trains. Others suggest storing bikes, like luggage or strollers, in the overhead compartments, or adding fold-up seats that double as bike parking, like those on trains in Germany. Another idea would require cyclists to reserve a spot on the train, which would also give Metro-North statistics on how many cyclists commute via rail.

Several other states' train systems, including California and Oregon, embrace bikes. "We're just a little behind some of these other cities, but we will get there," Mushinsky says.

byagla@newhavenadvocate.com

Cyclists ride the rails to MTA Headquarters Wednesday March 26th

2008-03-31T10:17:00.000-07:00

New Haven Independent March 27, 2008 12:22 PM
It's Your Town. Read All About It.

(ed. The New Haven Independent is an online publication; see link at bottom of article

Cyclists Fight For Spots On Trains

by Melinda Tuhus | March 27, 2008 12:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (26)
Melinda Tuhus Photo

New Haven cyclists hit a brick wall trying to convince Metro-North’s chief to allow more bikes on trains, but they’re pressing on.

A half-dozen New Haveners joined a group of cyclists on a train ride from New Haven to Grand Central Station Wednesday to promote their cause before the president of Metro North Railroad. He insisted it’s a zero-sum game — i.e., more bike access means fewer seats for passengers.

So the cyclists vowed to take their fight to the governor and the Connecticut General Assembly.

Richard Stowe (in yellow jersey in photo above) has been championing the issue for years. The New Canaan resident is a devoted cyclist and promoter of linking cyclists to mass transit. He’s been beating the drum, asking Metro North to create “safe, secure bicycle parking” on the new M8 cars the railroad has ordered. Right now bikes are allowed on off-peak trains only, and they must go in the entryway by the doors, with nothing to secure them.

Advocates had thought the battle was won last fall when several members of Elm City Cycling wrote to Gov. M. Jodi Rell on the issue. Eugene J. Colonese, the rail administrator for the Connecticut Department of Transportation, responded in an email, “The Department and MNR are aware that bicyclists are a growing portion of our customers. Current ridership levels and equipment cannot accommodate dedicated bicycle cars. The new M8 rail cars that will begin to appear on the New Haven Line in 2009 are being designed to accommodate bicycles.”

But then Stowe got word that wasn’t going to happen. He urged people to attend the annual Metro North President’s Forum Wednesday at MTA headquarters around the corner from Grand Central Terminal. Elm City Cycling members Jason Stockmann, Victorya McEvoy and Paul Hammer (left to right in photo) joined Stowe at the meeting.

In all, about a dozen cycling advocates made a number of creative suggestions for how to accommodate both passenger seating and bike access on the new trains.

Melinda Tuhus Photo

Steven Faust (pictured), a transportation planner and youth cycling leader from Brooklyn, suggested tie-downs to secure the bikes, and a minor redesign of the wheelchair space could “get several bikes secure and out of the way.”

He suggested officials look at what European railroads do to accommodate bikes.

“I fully sympathize with the problem of trying to maximize seats, but there are ways to have reasonable comfortable seats that can flip up [when not occupied by a wheelchair] and provide for bike carriage.”

When Stowe testified he suggested that since so many new cars are being added to the existing train stock, it should be easier to find space to accommodate bicycles.

Melinda Tuhus Photo

Stockmann (pictured) suggested a design that allowed seats to be folded up and bikes attached to the bottom of the seats, “during off peak-hours they could be folded up for bicycle access and if necessary, on-peak they could be unfolded as seats. You’re building into the system the possibility of accommodating more bikes in the future. This would be a transitional approach.” Click here to hear more.

Dedicated Bike Car?

Paul Hammer, former president of the Connecticut Bicycle Coalition, proposed having a dedicated bicycle car — an old car or a bar car — where a large number of bikes could be stored.

Then he suggested a summit involving “engineers and designers, managers, cycling advocates and people familiar with the physics, ergonomics, safety — whatever concerns you might have. I can envision vertical bicycle rack that would go in the vestibules, with tie-downs. But I think it’s time to revisit this before the final decisions are made on these new cars and see if we can come to an agreement.”

Melinda Tuhus Photo

Cannito (pictured) said the first 300 cars ordered are basically already designed and would only allow for minor changes, if any. He said, “I’d have no problem working with the community to come up with the true economics of what you’re asking. In my opinion it’s not a small change. You’re asking for a significant change. A car is $2.2 million and you’re going to need more than one car.”

Cannito said at the meeting that there’s no need for commuters to bring their bikes on trains headed into Grand Central, because they can take the subway to get around — although he supported allowing bikes on off-peak trains so riders could get out of the city.

But several cyclists noted that New York City itself is moving to better accommodate cyclists with more bike lanes and other improvements. And if New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s congestion-pricing proposal goes through — which would charge drivers $8 a day to enter parts of Manhattan — more commuters would presumably turn to mass transit, and the money generated would go toward improving it.

So why not improve bike access? It would allow greater inter-modal transport, save commuters money as gas prices continue to rise, and strike a blow against global warming all at the same time.

Zack Beatty, a New Havener who commutes daily to a job in New York City, asked officials to expand their annual rider survey to include questions about how commuters get to the train and how far they live from the train. “If secure indoor parking were available, would you bicycle to the train?” Click here for details. He suggested following the “80-20 rule — try to do some solution; it doesn’t have to be the perfect solution. I think you could make every car have some solution, and during peak you could say bikes could only go in the last car.”

Beatty added, “There have been a lot of bicycle comments here tonight and, I’m sensing some body language that’s a little threatened and hostile.” Cannito denied that, but added, “Everybody said the same thing.”

After the meeting, several cyclists marveled at the fact that the president could hear so many unique suggestions as “the same thing.”

While Richard Stowe made preliminary arrangements for a follow-up meeting, on the street, Jason Stockmann reiterated what Cannito himself had said — that commuters heading into Grand Central in the morning and out of Grand Central in the evening now constitute just 49 percent of MNR’s ridership.

“Most of your ridership growth is outside New York City, at points along the line. What about expanding the market that the trains can serve, by letting people bring their bikes on the train at rush hour? So you can ride to your local station, take the train, get off and then ride to your workplace. That’s a huge market they’re not serving.” Click here for more.

Stowe said, “I think we need to press the governors in both New York and Connecticut to get right on this. And already two state reps in Connecticut want to put in language that requires that this bicycle parking be provided.”

Comments

Posted by: DowntownNewHaven | March 27, 2008 1:01 PM
Great article. Also see http://www.emagazine.com/view/?3784

Posted by: David Streever | March 27, 2008 1:22 PM
Such a huge dissapointment: Despite assurances from them, they have now reneged, with neither an explanation nor a rationale for why they previously indicated they would provide dedicated bike parking.

Now, they say it just wont' happen, and don't explain why they've changed their earlier stance?

I'm not sure I understand this.

Posted by: Hartford Johnson | March 27, 2008 1:43 PM
They'll get bike cars when we get comfortable seats.

Another government sponsored entity doing its best, which unfortunately isn't good enough.

Posted by: Richard Stowe | March 27, 2008 2:16 PM
Great article, photos, Melinda. I really like the audio links. Especially for a reporter, who was crocheting (it that what you call it?) during the meeting.

The apparent hostility demonstrated by Mr. Cannito's responses was palpable. Especially his 'take the subway, dude' attitude.

Seriously, he's complaining that Metro-North trains are crowded, but at the same town he's advocating that cyclists abandon bicycles in favor of subways - which run packed with straphangers that are crowded by many magnitudes more passengers sitting, or standing on any Metro-North train.

His argumentation appears to be off-the-cuff and contradictory. Does anyone have any insight as to whether his communication deficits were a contributing factor in MTA's decision not renew his contract?

Richard Stowe
Rail*Trains*Ecology*Cycling

Posted by: DingDong | March 27, 2008 4:03 PM
I'm most disturbed by the public process of the whole thing. When the cars were being designed, they said 'don't worry, we're taking bikes into account.' So everyone was silent. Then they announce the design and say 'sorry, it's too late to add bikes; if only we had known sooner.' Are they being duplicitous or just incompetent?

Posted by: Patrick | March 27, 2008 7:20 PM
In the article, it states,"Cannito said at the meeting that there's no
need for commuters to bring their bikes on trains headed into Grand
Central, because they can take the subway to get around �" although he supported allowing bikes on off-peak trains so riders could get out of the city."

Does he simply dismiss all of us who would be using the Metro-North
between Connecticut stations? It's incredibly frustrating for me
because I travel between New Haven and Bridgeport and would like to
use my bike as transportation to and from both stations. I'm not in
the proper cycling shape to do a 50 mile commute every day, but I can
and love to handle the 16 miles+train ride.

Cannito also doesn't seem to be thinking about the future. The
benefits of bike commuting are clear: health and wellness,
environmentally- friendly commute, less road congestion, etc. These
are issues that will encourage people to think about bike
commuting...if they have the ability to do so in a safe manner: better
designed roads, allowances and space for bikes on peak-trains.

Sorry I couldn't make it to the meeting. Thanks to everyone who
attended!

Posted by: nfjanette | March 27, 2008 7:50 PM
When Stowe testified he suggested that since so many new cars are being added to the existing train stock, it should be easier to find space to accommodate bicycles.

This misunderstanding appears to be the groundwork upon which many complaints stand. Most, if not all, of the new train cars will replace decades-old existing units. The commuter runs will still be standing room only by the time they arrive at GCT. This order isn't a surplus: it doesn't even cover replacement of the "middle-aged" units, which now face costly refurbishment instead.

This order of new train equipment is over a decade late. It's not the end-all be-all solution: it's merely the start of what I hope will be a continuous investment by the states into the critical rail infrastructure. More than two years after a study proposed establishment of true north-south (New Haven - Hartford - Springfield) commuter service, nothing substantive has been done to implement the recommended plan. However, there has been a never ending pot of gold to fund major highway projects.

It's fair to state that railroaders tend to be conservative in their thinking. Such thinking saves lives on the rails. Perhaps if they were to receive a well-funded mandate to think outside of the box, there would be the chance to make true improvements rather than upkeep of old equipment.

Posted by: patrick | March 27, 2008 8:53 PM
In the article, it states,"Cannito said at the meeting that there's no
need for commuters to bring their bikes on trains headed into Grand
Central, because they can take the subway to get around �" although he supported allowing bikes on off-peak trains so riders could get out of the city."

Does he simply dismiss all of us who would be using the Metro-North
between Connecticut stations? It's incredibly frustrating for me
because I travel between New Haven and Bridgeport and would like to
use my bike as transportation to and from both stations. I'm not in
the proper cycling shape to do a 50 mile commute every day, but I can
and love to handle the 16 miles+train ride.

Cannito also doesn't seem to be thinking about the future. The
benefits of bike commuting are clear: health and wellness,
environmentally- friendly commute, less road congestion, etc. These
are issues that will encourage people to think about bike commuting...if they have the ability to do so in a safe manner: better
designed roads, allowances and space for bikes on peak-trains.

Sorry I couldn't make it to the meeting. Thanks to everyone who
attended!

Posted by: patrick | March 27, 2008 9:09 PM
NFJANNETE,

From the article above:

"a minor redesign of the wheelchair space could "get several bikes secure and out of the way."

He [Faust] suggested officials look at what European railroads do to accommodate bikes.

"I fully sympathize with the problem of trying to maximize seats, but there are ways to have reasonable comfortable seats that can flip up [when not occupied by a wheelchair] and provide for bike carriage.""

I think a number of people understand the space issue. It's not simply a money/space crunch issue, though. We don't need "a well-funded mandate to think outside of the box." We simply need the President and all the other executives at the Metro-North to pay attention to how other communities have handled this situation and to listen to the sound suggestions of the cycling community.

Posted by: nfjanette | March 27, 2008 9:53 PM
It's ironic that the cycle advocates declare Mr. Cannito to be arrogant and yet seem oblivious to how they come off when stating their positions - arrogant. It's not working - perhaps a different approach is in order. I'm a supporter of the idea to encourage and accommodate cyclers - but I seem to have a more realistic understanding of the challenges than the advocates for this cause.

The Bottom line: bikes take up more room, which means less room for passengers. There is no "extra" space for a fold-up chair on these units; they are maxed-out by with seats for passengers. Every space on a train car is a subsidized space; without tax payer support, neither Metro-North RR nor the state will be interested in funding those spaces for bikes. That's why I point out that if there were more new rolling stock on order, there would be a better chance of accomplishing your goal once enough seats for the existing (and future) load of passengers have been provided.

Everyone wins with a better funded rail system. That's what you should be telling your elected reps at the state and federal level.

Posted by: robn | March 27, 2008 10:32 PM
Cut the crap Mr Cannito. Hard costs as well as soft costs are amortized. (spread over time) That $2.2M for a cab isn't much over its lifetime for many users. Besides, cyclists have been subsidizing both car and rail for years and its time for a bit of payback.

Posted by: DingDong | March 27, 2008 11:01 PM
In Mr. Cannito's defense, I think he is generally well-respected for the job he has done in managing Metro North. Given how little this state has (traditionally, at least) funded it, he and the excellent MN employees have done a great job. Let's see if he can still work out a compromise on this issue or, at least, explain why bikes "were being taken into consideration" during the design process and then seemingly not at all in the final plan.

Posted by: charlie | March 28, 2008 6:32 AM
NFJ, the rest of the civilized world has bicycle storage on trains, and has had it for decades, and many of their trains are generally more crowded than MNRR. Ironically, I think that your comments display a gross arrogance - i.e., the fact that you do not have an understanding of the issue.

There is a pressing need to promote multimodal transportation & TOD along our nation's rail corridors, rather than relying exclusively on trains and automobiles.

The thousands of commuters currently traveling from New Haven to Stamford (or vice versa) each day can take the train, but often have to take 4 car trips per day to and from the stations. That's a recipe for gridlock, environmental degradation, urban decay, and overall social collapse.

Posted by: Bruce | March 28, 2008 11:06 AM
With the right accommodations, bringing a bicycle on the train should be no less cumbersome than bringing a large suitcase on board. People bring all sorts of large boxes and luggage onto those trains.

If they are concerned only with peak hours and they refuse to redesign the cars (which they had originally promised to do), then maybe they can stipulate that bikes have to go overhead during peak hours. Put some straps on the luggage racks. If I put my belongings on an overhead rack, why should anyone care if those belongings consist of two duffel bags or a bicycle? They shouldn't specifically single out bicycles for exclusion.

Posted by: DowntownNewHaven | March 28, 2008 11:54 AM
With the incredible parking spot crunch currently affecting every single station on the New Haven line, it is incredibly puzzling as to why bicycle parking on trains isn't a higher priority for ConnDOT.

I don't think anyone is being arrogant - everyone here seems quite civil about proposing solutions for this.

Posted by: Gary Doyens | March 28, 2008 12:33 PM
Metro North's primary mission is MASS transit - that's moving large numbers of people as efficiently as possible. With too few seats during peak hours as it is, why should any of those seats be taken up with a bicycle? Unless you have a bicycle that folds in thirds or half - how could you get one in the overhead bins with or without a strap and not drop dirt, or smudge grease on somebody's business suit? Why not just take your bike on a non-peak hour?

I find it interesting that bike advocates think cities should be re-designed and 99% of commuters on a train should take a back seat to something they love but something the masses are not doing. In fact, some of you want to levy extra taxes, spend tax dollars for bike lanes and even more tax dollars so you can ride the train with your bike. Why is that our responsibility?

As a side note and because there is so much moaning about evil drivers, I almost ran over two bikers this morning - I went to turn right on a green arrow and the biker decided to go against the red and cross the street on the side of me. Another one decided he was a car and rolling down the middle of Church Street. Not sure that's a way to gin up support for massive public spending for a private enjoyment.

Posted by: david streever | March 28, 2008 1:47 PM
I think the feeling that we are arrogant (the cyclists) is partially springing from our outrage at being misled.

It certainly seems deliberate now: to tell us publically, in e-mails & at meetings & over the phone one thing, & then after it's "too late" to change what you are going to do.

Posted by: DowntownNewHaven | March 28, 2008 3:42 PM
Gary, I think you're missing the broader points of pro-cycling advocates. One of them is that cycling has to do with much more than cycling. It is a way to address many other problems at the same time. If you add a bike lane for a few thousand dollars, you may end up reducing pollution and reclaiming valuable downtown real estate from parking by a much larger degree (i.e., in equivalent dollars needed to remedy the effects of said pollution and replace the tax revenue lost from real estate that has been turned into parking).

Another way to look at it is, you can't look at MNRR and just analyze the trains themselves in some sort of bizarre vaccum. You have to look at the tens of thousands of parking spaces taking up valuable land around the train station (land that could probably be rented for $50-$100/SF, and produce incredible tax revenue for the communities nearby, but instead is used to subsidize parking for drivers), the traffic created by said stations, etc., among many other factors.

Posted by: patrick | March 28, 2008 10:18 PM
Hi Gary,
I don't quite understand your point when you say, "Metro North's primary mission is MASS transit - that's moving large numbers of people as efficiently as possible. With too few seats during peak hours as it is, why should any of those seats be taken up with a bicycle?"

The reason I don't understand your point is that what you're saying seems to imply that we cycling advocates are trying to thwart the whole concept of mass-transit. Quite the contrary...my guess is that most of the cycling advocates are all for mass-transit and are working towards a more meaningful mass-transit system. Most of the suggestions offered take into account the understanding that there is a space issue on the Metro-North. We know this and, at the bare minimum, are trying to advocate seats that can be altered to accommodate bikes when there is room...especially during peak hours.

One of the major problems that I see with the current discussion about bikes and commuters on the Metro-North is the underlying assumption that everyone is heading all the way in to Grand Central. This might be the case for a number of commuters, but it's not true for all. Think about the traffic on the Merritt and on I-95 for a moment. Many of those cars move between Connecticut cities, most of which are along the coast and, therefore, somewhat close to the railroad. It is practically impossible to travel by bike between these cities for the vast majority of the population because the few roads that cross rivers are major roads with loads of traffic. Very few people are going to ride on these roads. Additionally, these commuters are often driving significantly further than they would be willing to bike. If the transportation department were a bit smarter about this whole situation, they could find ways to accommodate bikes on the trains, encourage bike-train commuting, and maybe, just maybe, we could create a culture here in Connecticut that is willing to bike a couple of miles to the station in say New Haven, catch a train to Milford, Bridgeport, Fairfield, Stamford, etc. and then bike the mile or so from the station to work. These North-South roads (between the rail stations and the communities that surround them) are less busy and more bikable. Such a system could:

1) Reduce the congestion on the highways
2) Lower our carbon footprint
3) Reduce the amount of space needed for parking near stations
4) Provide an opportunity to incorporate physical activity into one's daily commute
5) Promote a healthier lifestyle
6) Reduce stress
7) etc.

I guess what I'm trying to say here can be addressed to NFJ, too...none of us would argue with the idea that "everyone wins with a better funded rail system." We are only trying to push the envelope here...trying to find ways to accommodate bike-commuters and regular commuters. When more people are able to be serviced by the rail system, there will be more demand for more rail cars...the more demand for rail cars and the more public support, the more money will be funneled into the rail system...

Posted by: patrick | March 28, 2008 11:01 PM
"Another one decided he was a car and rolling down the middle of Church Street."

As a side note, Gary...cyclists are required by law to ride on the street and not the sidewalk. Moreover, they are encouraged, especially in busy or narrow areas, to "take the lane" for safety reasons.

Posted by: Dan | March 29, 2008 3:23 AM
I often take the train during off-peak periods, and still have to stand because of the lack of seats. Every time a bicycle (or large suitcase) is in the vestibule, it is simply a pain to find a place to stand safely when other people are standing there too. Right now it simply sucks.

But aren't the best solutions often the simplest? How about increasing the size of the overhead rack a few feet, and angling it up toward the ceiling of the train in order to accomodate some head space for those entering the seats. Even if the bike hangs over the rack a bit, it is clearly visible and anyone smacking their head into it is simply at fault for not looking. They can even do this in certain areas of the cars. Look at the locations of the bathrooms in the current cars. Making the overhead rack flush with the wall of the bathroom could offer space for four bikes (as long as no one minds that one gets placed on top of the other) in the space between the bathroom and the vestibule. The new Harlem Line cars are somewhat different, but even in those cars there are still areas where a larger overhead rack can be created to accomodate bicylists without affecting other riders.

In order to win support for more funding, it has to be shown that Metro-North can take hundreds of people off the roads. Hoards of cyclists riding the trains are visible, and can help gain public support for even more funding of the railroad. Hell, with the lack of journalistic integrity and ingenuity in our current local media, I'm sure the Register will have a front page photo of cyclists on the train and Channel 8 will devote a (badly done) interest story to it.

Posted by: Bill Saunders | March 30, 2008 4:25 AM
If you want to be a multi-modal commuter, (to reduce your carbon footprint, or whatever other politically correct malarkey you wish to spout), take some initiative YOURSELF, and have a secondary beater bike waiting for you at your daily destination.

Posted by: DingDong | March 30, 2008 11:27 AM
Bill,

Some people do leave a bike at the station they travel to. But the point is this: not only do I want to reduce my carbon footprint and take cars off the highway, you want me to do that to. And I want others to. So does the State of Connecticut. So that's why people were hoping that Metro North would, as promised, at least include some room for one or two bikes per car. This makes it infinitely easier to commute by bicycle and train. This is not ground-breaking: plenty of other commuter railways around the world and country do it.

Posted by: Bill Saunders | March 31, 2008 9:25 AM
Ding Dong,

When there are hundreds of bicycles parked at each station along Metro-North's corridor, maybe then they will take notice, but at that point, do they really need to make a major infrastructure investment besides more bike parking racks?

If you want to reduce your carbon footprint, don't own a car (I haven't had one in nine years). Lead by example -- it always comes across as dogmatic whenever you tell people how they need to behave. Remember, not everyone is in a socio-economic position (families with children, people working multiple jobs) to jump on the biking bandwagon. Be happy that you have a lifestyle that permits it.

Posted by: Ned | March 31, 2008 11:16 AM
The state of Connecticut has wants??? Jodi will have a smoother commute without all those peons clogging up the roads. Maybe she can hire Jon Corzine's driver?
Imagine the ten lane 3+ billion dollar Q Bridge with only five cars (Zil limousines, carrying politicicans no doubt) and a Fung Wah bus on it at rush hour...

Posted by: david streever | March 31, 2008 12:57 PM
Good advice to have 2 bikes, I know people who do that successfully.

However, ultimately, it's not very flexible for that to be the ONLY choice: especially with how incredibly easy it is to steal a well-locked bike.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=J7zb8YXrmIA

Do you think your bike is safe in New York? This dude hacksaws, clips, buzz grinds, and finally uses a hammer & spike to steal his own bike over & over. The police finally get involved: to tell his friend to get out of the street.

I don't know, I don't feel comfortable leaving a bike parked overnight unless I am comfortable showing up & having it gone, which isn't a good situation to be in when you have to get to work.

I think the reality is that MTA made a promise.

A promise they had no intention of keeping, in order to shut us up.

Now they want to pretend it never happened, and that's not right.

A "coat closet" car or even the raised ceilings that others described are not unreasonable & would work perfectly.

POSTED BY: DINGDONG | MARCH 31, 2008 1:24 PM
Bill,

I'm a little perplexed by your comment. I don't own a car. I haven't for four years. What I am saying is that the State needs to encourage people, other than me, to travel by transit and by bicycle. Your idea of owning two bikes is a good one. Putting in more bike lanes or multi-use paths around the state is another. Allowing for transportation of bicycles on trains is a third. I don't really understand the grounds for your opposition to this. How is this dogmatic?

POSTED BY: BILL SAUNDERS | MARCH 31, 2008 5:07 PM
Ding Dong,

This current 'bikes on trains' debate fails to recognize a thing called reality. From my perpective, there is currently nothing standing in the way of anybody who wishes to be a multi-modal commuter. Sure, the present state of affairs might not be the 'perfect' solution in your eyes, but it is certainly workable. Recognizing the imposed limitations of any system should lead to creative, practical (and cheap) solutions. You can promote train/bike commuting right now, without looking for any further help from the state, or expensive retrofits from Metro-North. Now that you know Metro-North's plans in this regard, it is time to move on and refocus. (Unless your position is "Give me convenience, or give me death", to quote Jello Biafra)

Let's think about the present state of the rail system for a second. You may or may not be aware of the Acela, the high-speed train designed to significantly cut down trip time between NYC and Boston (New Haven being smack dab in the middle). Great idea, but the only problem is that the tracks are not designed to handle a train going that speed, so the super-train turned into a super-dud. So, in terms of infrastructure improvements to the existing rail system, given limited funding, don't you think that fixing the tracks would come before a biking retrofit (especially if there other workable options for cyclists)?

A lot gets bandied about 'things are different other places'. Well, we are not other places -- though specific examples are rarely cited.

Let's look at Europe, (which is often brought up). Though I never really thought much about it until today, it strikes me that bicycles are taken much more seriously as a mode of transportation there because of the severe economic trauma suffered by the populace from two great wars. Bicycles became a matter of necessity, rather than an option. When I was in Amsterdam several years ago I was amazed at the thousands of bicycles parked outside the train station. I've never seen so many bikes in one place. Don't tell me those bicycles are brought into town every day 'on commute' -- Europeans are much more realistic/practical than that.

Let's look at Boulder, Colorado, which is one of this countries great examples of a planned mecca for alternative transportation. The big difference there is the concept of regional planning, and an abundance of land to dedicate to such endeavors.

As you can see, the socio-economic realities cited above are much different than ours -- the oldest planned community in the Nation. As I have stated before on this board, I am all for more flexibility for riders, including designating some of our more desolate sidewalk space as multi-use. But there are limitations that everyone needs to recognize. For example, the little old lady I saw last week riding her bike on the sidewalk of Chapel Street -- are you going to tell her she has to ride in street because "It's the LAW", thought the busy street may be beyond her comfort level as a rider? (As a side note, with the hundreds of millions that Yale sinks into building projects in this town, one would think we would have one of the bike-friendliest downtowns in Connecticut).

As for the 'dogma comment', it was not directed at you specifically, rather at an overall tone of many of the above posts. Carbon footprint, personal health, stress reduction -- all hooey. People are going to make there own lifestyle choices based on their own personal realities.

So, I guess if you all must continue to fight metro-north to get your way, you must have a Sisyphus Complex. I say lessen your burden and get out of the way of that rolling boulder! There are better fights out there.

POSTED BY: NFJANETTE | MARCH 31, 2008 7:20 PM
Let's think about the present state of the rail system for a second. You may or may not be aware of the Acela, the high-speed train designed to significantly cut down trip time between NYC and Boston (New Haven being smack dab in the middle). Great idea, but the only problem is that the tracks are not designed to handle a train going that speed, so the super-train turned into a super-dud. So, in terms of infrastructure improvements to the existing rail system, given limited funding, don't you think that fixing the tracks would come before a biking retrofit (especially if there other workable options for cyclists)?

It was, at best, a pipe dream that the Acela train sets could significantly change the run time between New Haven - NYC. The route has too many curves and Metro North RR - which controls that track - is only interested in speeds less than 90 MPH - mostly 79 MPH. However, the primary function of the Acela, IMHO, was to be the "sizzle" that sold the "steak" of upgrading the tracks to Boston and installing the electric catenary wires. That was an important accomplishment and the first serious project to expand some aspect of the rail infrastructure in this area in many decades. Next: do the same for the tracks to Hartford - upgrade existing and replace the missing second track - and establish a new commuter schedule. Then, add the new bike-friendly design of the commuter train cars to that project...

POSTED BY: PATRICK | MARCH 31, 2008 10:31 PM
Wow...I don't really know where to begin, Bill. I guess I'll start by asking, why do you have such an attitude? What exactly is wrong with advocating for space on trains for bikes? Do you, or anyone else posting against such action, really feel passionate about keeping bikes off trains? If so, why?

Do you think that most of us haven't considered the revolutionary two bike idea? I most certainly have considered this at length, but, as David Streever already mentioned, I can't chance showing up at my destination and finding out that bike #2 has been stolen.

What do you mean, Bill, when you say "to reduce your carbon footprint, or whatever other politically correct malarkey you wish to spout"?

I, for one, do want to bike commute to: 1)reduce my carbon footprint; 2)lessen the amount of money I spend on my commute; 3)incorporate a work-out into my daily routine; 4)reduce the amount of stress in my life (i really get annoyed sitting in traffic on the Merritt).

Bill, you also say:

"If you want to reduce your carbon footprint, don't own a car (I haven't had one in nine years). Lead by example -- it always comes across as dogmatic whenever you tell people how they need to behave. Remember, not everyone is in a socio-economic position (families with children, people working multiple jobs) to jump on the biking bandwagon. Be happy that you have a lifestyle that permits it."

That's great that you haven't owned a car in nine years, but I have a wife and child and am not in the socio-economic position to go without a car (and I'm not really sure I want to live without one...you really should stop telling people how to live their lives, as it comes across as being "dogmatic").

I think I'll stop short of responding to your last post, Bill, as this is already long enough. Besides, the post was quite a disjointed mess that made few points and brandied about a good deal of speculation.

Look...none of us is telling people how to live their lives. We are simply doing our best to try to live a better quality, more responsible, and healthier life for ourselves. I really am at a loss here concerning the resistance in the community. I mean, I definitely understand NFJ's point about a funding shortage. There are options, though, some of which have already been suggested. Had the Metro-North administration actually considered some of these options as they said they would, we might not be wasting our time here arguing over this.

POSTED BY: PATRICK | MARCH 31, 2008 10:33 PM
bandied, not brandied

POSTED BY: BILL SAUNDERS | APRIL 1, 2008 5:52 AM
Patrick,

I believe I recognized the fact that not everyone is in a position to not own a car.

And I think the other typo in my post was 'though', instead of 'thought', when talking about the little old lady.

Thanks for lessen in semantics.

POSTED BY: DOWNTOWNNEWHAVEN | APRIL 1, 2008 9:49 AM
Bill, you wrote:

"I've never seen so many bikes in one place. Don't tell me those bicycles are brought into town every day 'on commute' -- Europeans are much more realistic/practical than that."

Don't be so sure about that. Many European cities have 10+ times more bicycling per capita than American cities, and that number is only increasing. European cities of all sizes have implemented bike-share programs and systems of bike paths - including tunnels, bridges, stop lights, etc. - that put our Interstate Highway system to shame. The impact that has is probably part of the reason why the dollar is becoming worthless, since Americans are tied to expensive cars that they each spend an average of about $15,000+ per year on (after gas, insurance, tax, maintenance, and car loans). They are also forced to buy more imported and chain-store goods (due to the large-scale strip malls created by an auto-dependent society), rather than shopping locally, which puts our country even further into debt. The key priority in current thinking about urban planning isn't how to serve existing cyclists, it is how to serve the people who would ride if they felt a little more comfortable doing so. There are 150 million bicycle-owners in the United States, but very few of them feel comfortable riding to work - and addressing the reasons for that would be much cheaper than building another few miles of highway. Look at the Farmington Canal Trail on any weekend and imagine all those thousands of people biking to work if there was a good way for them to.

"As a side note, with the hundreds of millions that Yale sinks into building projects in this town, one would think we would have one of the bike-friendliest downtowns."

It is a very good point that Yale, as one of the largest and most significant employers in the state of Connecticut, should be more involved in promoting sustainable transportation. It is great that the University has invested so much into its overall sustainable building campaign, but they haven't (until very recently) been spending enough time on the biggest problem, which is how their students and staff get to and around the campus.

POSTED BY: NED | APRIL 1, 2008 9:11 PM
Portland, OR. streetcars (not exactly a train, but close) have space for bicycles, but, it looked to me, like a lot of wasted space vs. the number of standing passengers. In addition, you're not encouraged to bring your bike onto a crowded streetcar - like at rush hour... Also, note the part about "keeping your bike clean" (can you say chain grease? - pretty much describes the lower part of my bike), and not "brushing up against other [passengers]" - okay, show me how to do that on a crowded Metro North train? Not to mention that people in Portland are annoyingly nice. Noroton Heights RR station has bike lockers - maybe six of them. Metro North could do better. Bicycle parking at Union Station, in New Haven, is inadequate. A folding bike seems like the best option, but if you can get Metro North to accommodate bikes on the train, I'd like to see it work.

POSTED BY: PATRICK | APRIL 1, 2008 9:45 PM
Bill,

Sorry...I didn't notice that you used bandied...the "bandied, not brandied" comment was a correction of my own gaffe (I noticed in a read-through after posting that I'd accidentally written "brandied" instead of "bandied").

POSTED BY: RICHARD STOWE | APRIL 2, 2008 12:13 PM
Patrick, great comments. I would like to speak to you about your ideas. Contact me at bike.rail.politics@gmail.com or (203) 594-9097.

BIkes-on-trains is in part about having a place in our transportation system for bicycle culture. Think of it as a bike lane on the train. A bike lane is not always in use every minute of the day, but says "we" are traffic. Bikes-on-trains is super bicycle friendly when space on trains is granted and peak hour restrictions & bicycle permits are removed from the equation.

Regarding NFJanette's comments: C-DOT owns tracks bet. New Haven & Greenwich; NYS owns bet. Portchester & GCT. MNR operates signals. Track speeds are set by FRA (Federal Railroad Adm.) based on conditions. 15% of track in CT is 60 mph or less. Top speed in CT is 75. 3 miles in Westchester is 90 mph. Otherwise 80 mph or less. CT needs to come up with an upgrade plan to increase speeds along the corridor. Amtrak NYC-BOS is restricted by DEP agreement (based on CT Coastal Management Act of 1980) that restricts Amtrak + Shoreline East trains to 39 per day (original 1996 agreement = 34). That's 19 each way and is enforced due to five 100 year old drawbridges east of Old Saybrook. If those drawbridges are replaced with high level bridges (boats go under) - then unlimited trains can run east of Old Saybrook to Boston. CT residents need to initiate that call & that is tougher than dealing with C-DOT because Amtrak owns that track (& Amtrak has very little or no transparency - though a very opinionated U.S. Senator may influence)

Richard Stowe
Rail*Trains*Ecology*Cycling

POSTED BY: DOWNTOWNNEWHAVEN | APRIL 2, 2008 12:38 PM
Great points, Richard -- the current state of our national train system, even in the Northeast corridor, where it is best, would make the Albanians cry. I hope that some progress can be made at a national level. It is critical to our nation's economy (see my post above for details).

To follow the thread of comments, or post your own comment go to this New Haven Independent link:
http://www.newhavenindependent.org/archives/2008/03/bikes_on_trains_2.php

Cyclists pack MTA Headquarters 5th Floor Boardroom

2008-03-27T11:25:00.000-07:00

New Haven Independent reporter and Elm City Cycling advocate Melinda Tuhus joined organizer Jason Stockmann and a crew of New Haven cyclists riding the rails from New Haven to Grand Central Terminal on Wednesday March 26th to attend Metro-North's Annual President's Forum at MTA Headquarters, where they were met by cyclists from New York City.

New Haven cyclists also included Zack Beatty, Paul Hammer and Victorya McEvoy (pictured below with helmet.)

photo by Steven Faust

The New York showing included New York Cycle Club member Ellen Jaffe, New York Cycle Club and Five Borough Bicycle Club member Mike Piedell, FIve Borough Bicycle Club At-Large Board Member, retired Federal Transit Administration administrator Steven F. Faust, AICP and Transportation Alternatives Board Secretary Kenneth Coughlin and cyclist Christine Summer.

photo by Steven Faust

The cycling contingent unexpectedly held court at this year's meeting that turned out to be a send off to outgoing President Peter Cannito whose contract, according to an unnamed source, was not renewed.

Mr. Cannito was resistant to cyclists pleas, but toward the end of the meeting he suggested that cyclists could meet with Metro-North and Connecticut DOT officials. Due to the greater than anticipated turnout, the meeting ran over by ten minutes.

At the end of the meeting two officials were named to meet with cyclists: Robert MacLagger, Senior Director, Operations Planning & Analysis at Metro-North Railroad and Gene Colonese, C-DOT rail administrator, a former Metro-North scheduling official. C-DOT rail is based in New Haven.

After the meeting one Metro-North employee queried another: "Did you attend that meeting?" When he replied, yes, she responded, "Amazing."

Connecticut Rail Commuter Council strips resolution to improve bicyclist's access to trains

2008-03-26T22:26:00.000-07:00

photo by BEN GANCSOS

Stamford Advocate Wednesday, March 26, 2008 Page B1,B2

Bicyclists seek more access on the rails
By Chris Gosier
Staff Writer

NEW YORK - The Connecticut Rail Commuter Council has endorsed more bicycle-friendly rail stations but stopped short of seeking more bike space aboard Metro-North Railroad trains.

The council last week partially endorsed a proposal by Richard Stowe, an activist from New Canaan who said the railroad should follow the lead of other transit systems that are more accommodating to bicyclists.

Stowe wants cyclists to be allowed to bring their bikes on trains during peak hours. Now they sometimes have to wait a few hours to make return trips because of rush-hour restrictions, Stowe said.

"There's many needs within the community of transit users," said Stowe, director of Rail*Trains*Ecology*Cycling, an advocacy group. "We would like to see the New Haven Line . . . be a leader on this."

But council members said his proposal may not work because there is so little space on trains.

"The only way we're going to do this is to take seats away from people," Jeff Steele of Fairfield, vice chairman of the council, said at its meeting Wednesday.

The council endorsed a statement Stowe submitted but struck the portion calling for "safely and securely accommodat(ing) bicycles on New Haven Line train cars."

The council endorsed the part calling for "safe, sheltered bicycle parking at stations along the New Haven Line."

The vote means the council will send a letter to Metro-North officials saying they would like more bike racks at stations, Chairman Jim Cameron said.

He described it as a formality, because most of the officials who would get the letter were at the council's meeting. But the council could send the letter to elected officials in cities along the New Haven Line where bike racks are in high demand, he said.

Bikes are often chained to fences and posts at the Darien and Noroton Heights stations because bike racks are full, he said. Bike racks are cheaper than adding new parking, he said.

"I think the towns should go out and take a look at their stations," he said.

Bike racks have been installed at 16 of the 36 stations on the segments of the New Haven Line, although most are not covered, said Judd Everhart, spokesman for the state Department of Transportation.

"It's kind of a mixed bag of bike facilities up and down the New Haven Line," he said.

On trains, seating for commuters must come before bicycle space, Cameron said.

"We have passengers that are paying for seats that don't get a seat," he said.

Finding more bike space on trains is possible long-term, he said.

Stowe said he isn't asking for train cars to be retrofitted with bike space. But bicycle space should be put on new train cars, or on cars that are being overhauled, he said.

"If you're doing something already, the incremental cost of creating a bike rack on the train is relatively close to zero," he said.

DOT is considering bike racks on at least some of its new M8 rail cars being developed, Everhart said.

All Metro-North stations in New York have bike racks, although they're not sheltered, Metro-North spokeswoman Marjorie Anders said. The rail line runs special weekend trains to bicycling areas and special events, she said.

"We are pretty bike-friendly, and have been rationalizing and liberalizing our policy as the years go by," she said.

Commuter Council rejects resolution

2008-03-19T21:24:00.000-07:00

Norwalk Hour March 18, 2008 page 1, 6

Local activist pushes for bikes on Metro-North trains

By JARED NEWMAN
Hour Staff Writer

Richard Stowe has been a bicycle salesman, a writer, an environmental activist and a third-party candidate for first selectman of New Canaan, where he resides, and on Wednesday, he’ll take up the role of beleaguered bicyclist.

Stowe wants more bicycles allowed on Metro-North Railroad trains, a cause that he’s championed over the last few years. He is scheduled to speak to the Connecticut Rail Commuter Council Wednesday, when the advocacy group for Metro-North riders meets at Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan.

Hour photo/BEN GANCSOS
New Canaan resident Richard Stowe is trying to get designated spots for bikes on Metro-North commuter trains.

“I think with rising gas prices, there are more and more people looking for ways of travel other than just what was always the accepted American way,” Stowe said in an interview Monday.

Jim Cameron, chairman of the commuter council, said Stowe has spoken to the group numerous times, with “an entourage of bike enthusiasts” in tow.

“I think in the long run it’s something we could support as long as it’s not going to get into denying passengers’ seats,” Cameron said.

He expects the council to adopt some sort of broad resolution, calling for Metro-North to consider bike accommodations as new trains are introduced to the New Haven line.

Metro-North’s current policy allows bikers to buy permits, valid for their entire lives, allowing them to bring their bikes aboard for off-peak travel. Bikes are only allowed in the front and rear cars, and there can’t be more than two per car during the week and four per car on weekends, with exceptions for the occasional “bicycle train.”

Additionally, bikes aren’t allowed on board during holidays, and train conductors have ultimate discretion.

The only exception, according to Metro-North spokesman Dan Brucker, is if the bike is completely collapsible and can fit in an overhead bin.

Brucker said Metro-North has no plans to expand the hours for bike accommodations. “Here’s why, because our trains, especially on the New Haven line, are at capacity, and hence to have a bicycle in the aisle would be virtually impossible,” he said.

A fleet of 300 new rail cars are on the way, but Brucker said they won’t accommodate more bicycles either because they’ll still run with almost a full crowd of commuters.

“Also, as you may or may not know, train platforms are jammed, much less having a bicycle on there and people getting on and off,” Brucker said.

Two years ago, Stowe had the attention of state and rail officials. He spoke in favor of allowing bikes on trains before the Transportation Strategy Board — part of the governor’s Office of Policy Management — and in a report from the following year, the board recommended bike space on passenger trains at all times of the day.

Hour photo/BEN GANCSOS
New Canaan resident Richard Stowe is trying to get designated spots for bikes on Metro-North commuter trains.

Stowe also corresponded with Cameron, who told him that Metro-North was listening to Stowe’s proposal.

“We were just under the understanding that through the verbal communication with (rail) officials that this was proceeding in a manner that was parallel to our goals,” Stowe said.

Last month, though, Stowe learned that the design for the new M-8 rail cars didn’t include bicycle accommodations. He scheduled another meeting with the rail council to plead his case.

“We contend that this is the time to make the commitment to be inclusive of having bicycle parking space on these new train cars,” Stowe said.
A fellow bicycle advocate, Franklin Bloomer, who chairs Greenwich Safe Cycling and served a regional advisory branch for the Transportation Strategy Board, supports Stowe’s cause, but thinks that it’s too late.

“These cars have been designed, the orders have been placed and the trains have not been designed to accommodate bicycles,” Bloomer said, “but as the DOT ... moves forward in developing alternate modes of transportation, this is one of the really important things.”

Staff writer Jared Newman may be reached at (203) 354-1045 or jnewman@thehour.com

another winter without snow?

2008-02-10T18:43:00.000-08:00

New Canaan Advertiser, Thursday, January 24, 2008 Page 6A

EcoMan
By Richard M. Stowe

Warming warrants greater attention

Dateline: January 11, 2008
Location: New Canaan
Time: 2:00 p.m.
Temperature: 55
Average January High: 38
Average January Low: 19
Record January Low: -18

I know what you’re thinking: What is the record January high? Well, that was set last year (2007): 69.

Try to imagine a new record low being set this year.

The latest climate change research reveals that Greenland’s glaciers are melting into the sea twice as fast as previously thought.

60 minutes re-broadcast its hour-long The Age of Warming on Sunday evening. It’s well worth the time to read the transcript, or watch the video at the Age of Warming link - (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/03/30/60minutes/main2631210.shtml)

Warmer winters is a growing concern among Olympic skiers and professional hockey players, such as Andrew Ference, the Boston Bruins defenseman, who is seeking a commitment from the entire National Hockey League to go carbon neutral.

Winter athletes have joined concerned citizens in requesting that “our leaders (to) freeze and reduce carbon emissions now” in an online petition (http://www.stopglobalwarming.org).

There’s a national organizing effort called Focus the Nation (http://www.focusthenation.org/). Focus the Nation is assembling a mass teach-in on global warming solutions for America at schools and churches in communities across the United States on January 31, 2008. Focus the Nation website lists New Canaan Country School and St Luke’s School as participants. At New Canaan Country School 4th graders will talk about global warming at their weekly assembly and at home will ask each one of their families to switch at least one fixture from incandescent to compact fluorescent (cfl). Upper school students (grades 7 – 9) will screen the 2% solution on January 30th.

OK, now, back to presidential politics.

Question: In 2007 how many times did Sunday talk show hosts - Tim Russert, George Stephanopoulos, Bob Schieffer, Wolf Blitzer and Chris Wallace - mention global warming?

Answer: 3 plus 24 global warming related questions (12 by Tim Russert, 5 by George Stephanopoulos, 4 by Chris Wallace, 3 by Wolf Blitzer).

Question: How many presidential campaign questions did these 5 hosts ask in 2007?

Answer: 2484

According to Gene Karpinski, President of the League of Conservation Voters these statistics were culled by reading the transcripts of every one of the five Sunday morning talk shows and every debate that one of the aforementioned journalists was associated with in 2007.

That was in 2007, the year the International Panel on Climate Change won the Nobel Peace Prize! And, let’s not forget that Vice-President Al Gore, a former presidential nominee, won the Nobel Peace Prize, too.

Question: Who asked those questions in which they mentioned global warming?

Answer: Chris Wallace of Fox News Sunday asked two questions and Wolf Blitzer of CNN asked one question.

Question: Who didn’t mention global warming in any of their questions?

Answer: Bob Schieffer, host of CBS’s Face the Nation, asked zero out of 238 questions; Clinton protégé and former Clinton senior advisor on policy and strategy, George Stephanopoulos, host of ABC’s This Week, asked zero out of the 726; Tim Russert, host of NBC’s Meet the Press asked zero out of 755 questions.

The League of Conservation Voters believes global warming warrants more coverage by these Sunday talk show hosts.

If you agree with that position, LCV has set up an online petition for you to register your support: http://www.whataretheywaitingfor.com/

This is how the remaining Presidential candidates, who serve, or have served in Congress, line up in terms of the League of Conservation Voters lifetime voting record rating on environmental issues.

Senator Barack Obama 96%
Representative Dennis Kuchinich 92%
Senator Hillary Clinton 90%
Senator John Edwards 59%
Representative Ron Paul 30%
Senator John McCain 26%
Senator Fred Thompson 12%

The candidate’s positions on energy and global warming are spelled out at http://www.lcv.org/voterguide/

Keep it green.

Presidential primary speculation

2008-02-03T11:49:00.000-08:00

New Canaan Advertiser, Thursday, January 3, 2008

Ecoman
By Richard M. Stowe

As December gives way to January, New Years Resolutions chatter has been upended by discussions about the leading presidential candidates, the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary.

There’s the intrigue generated by Huma Abedin, Senator Hillary Clinton’s supernatural presidential campaign’s “traveling chief of staff,” who was featured in the August issue of Vogue.

Then there’s the cell phone calls taken on stage by Rudy Giuliani from his third wife Judith, whom he met in 1999 at Club Macanudo, an Upper East Side cigar bar.

If you plan to vote in the 23-state February 5th super primary and you would like to choose a presidential candidate whose views and values align most closely with your own, visit the site http://www.glassbooth.org/.

From a climate change perspective, keep in mind that only three candidates participated in the first ever-global warming debates in November: Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Dennis Kucinich.

Thursday January 3rd (the same day as the Iowa Caucus) presents an opportunity for New Canaan drivers to learn about modern roundabout design as an alternative to traffic signals. Part I of an Interactive Web Seminar will take place from noon to 1:30 p.m. in the Board Room of Town Hall (2nd floor).

And at 10 a.m. (after a 9:30 a.m. coffee) on January 8th (the same day as the New Hampshire primary) George Hawkins will give a must see presentation at Darien Community Association 274 Middlesex Road entitled Cowboys, Spacemen and a Theory of Almost Everything: How Responding to Global Warming Connects to Traffic Jams, Housing Prices, Property Taxes and the Flood in My Creek.

Mr. Hawkins is a 1983 summa cum laude graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School. Currently Mr. Hawkins is Director of the District (of Columbia) Department of Environment (http://ddoe.dc.gov/ddoe/site/default.asp?ddoeNav=|31003|)

When I met Mr. Hawkins a few years ago at a New Partners for Smart Growth conference in Miami, Florida he was serving as Executive Director of New Jersey Future (http://www.njfuture.org/), a smart growth non-profit advocacy organization.

Prior to that he was executive director of Stony Brook Millstone Watershed Association. Since 1999, he has been a visiting lecturer at the Woodrow Wilson School for Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, where he teaches environmental law and policy for the Princeton Environmental Institute.

Happy New Year! Let’s keep it green.

removable fences on cetma rack

2008-01-02T22:03:00.000-08:00

Lane Kagay of Cetma Racks (http://www.cetmaracks.com) has returned to Portland, Oregon after spending a snowy Christmas break with his wife in his hometown Chicago.

His 5-rail and 7-rail front mounted bicycle cro-moly racks are now available with removable fences. That design is precise and practical.

In his latest posting, he announced that a new rack in is in the works. I'm looking forward to seeing that. Plus he reported he has left his day job to make racks on a full-time basis. This is all very good news.

Iowa Caucus

2008-01-02T21:34:00.000-08:00

In the last eight Presidential contests, the winner in both the Democratic and Republican party caucuses in Iowa have gone on to win their respective nominations six out of eight times.

It's January 3rd and we shall soon learn the results of tonight's caucus.

Will John Edwards last minute surge allow for a stunning upset? Will Ron Paul do better than expected after Fox News announced it banished him from participating in the upcoming New Hampshire debate?

Or will a media-sanctioned victory be in the offing for Hillary or Obama? Will Mike Huckabee display a Howard Dean moment, or will his poll surge materialize into victory?

thanksgiving dinner was nearly vegan

2007-11-23T22:30:00.000-08:00

Bicycled from Manhattan to Silvermine on Thanksgiving Day. Took a new route in the Bronx (W. Gun Hill Road to Webster).

continuous improvement

2007-11-19T20:50:00.000-08:00

I spoke to Lane Kagay of Cetma Racks tonight.

Earlier today, Mr. Kagay announced on his blog another innovation to repertoire of "low center of gravity" front racks - a Cetma Rack with a removable "fence"!

TALK ABOUT INNOVATION!! This is a "live feed" in continuous improvement! It's amazing what Lane is doing.

made in u.s.a. - a product well worth the money

2007-11-18T20:25:00.000-08:00

Recently I keep going back to visit this one website: http://www.cetmaracks.com/.

If you live in Seattle, Washington you can even order pizza off a link provided on the website.

But this website isn't about pizza.

It's about the product created and marketed by a gutsy, visionary, individualistic craftsman and entrepreneur named Lane Kagay. Mr. Kagay apparently inspired by bicycle messengers, cuts steel, drills holes, welds, grinds, finishes, sandblasts, powder-coats, assembles, packs, ships and markets "low center of gravity" front-mounted bicycle racks.

I've heard lots of excuses about why not to ride bicycles. One former school board mom, now a selectwoman, said that school kids couldn't possibly ride to school with all the books, sports equipment they need to carry these days - they need to drive. Well with the latest iteration of cetma racks that argument falls flat on its face.

This rack is the most important innovation I've seen in the bicycle industry since clipless pedals were introduced by Look in the mid-1980's.

Asphalt Curbs

2007-11-01T22:34:00.000-07:00

Lambert Road, the street that I grew up on, was reconstructed and repaved earlier this summer. That’s a good thing. Prior to repaving it, bicycling on Lambert Road was a bone-shaking ride. To the relief of residents, a number of other roads or sections of roads have been resurfaced, too. Most recently, one side of Farm Road approaching New Canaan High School from South Avenue was repaved.

But the resurfacing on Lambert Road, Farm Road and a number of other roads includes extensive drainage work and newly introduced asphalt curbs. Adding asphalt curbs is a bad thing.

Here’s why. The curbs channels all water into the catch basins. The pollutants that are picked up on the road by the rain are washed right into the catch basin and drainage system and travel via watercourses directly to Long Island Sound. The asphalt curbs prevent rainfall from dispersing into adjacent vegetative areas and recharge groundwater. Without curbs rainfall pollutants are filtered out through vegetation and subsurface soils.

Secondly, amphibians such as salamanders and bullfrogs have trouble getting over the steep curbs.

Third, the curbs incrementally add on to the price tag of each road-repaving project, while at the same time incrementally narrow our already narrow (prior to paving all but 180 feet of Lambert Road was 18 feet wide) roads.

Fourth, the curbs not only are displeasing to look at (just wait for the snowplows to make their mark on those curbs), but the curbs also act as a barrier to prevent bicyclists from having an option to pull off the road when a speeding car threatens to strike from behind.

Richard M. Stowe
President, New Canaan Environmental Group

No War, No Warming

2007-10-23T21:15:00.000-07:00

Received a telephone call from Kelly Blynn of Step It Up who was calling from Amtrak as she was returning to New Hampshire from the No War, No Warming action in Washington D.C. organized by Ted Glick.

New Canaan Environmental Group Fall Symposium

2007-10-23T20:17:00.000-07:00

The New Canaan Environmental Group is holding what is being billed as its most important environmental forum ever.

The symposium to be held from 2 to 5 p.m. on Saturday October 27th at the Lapham Community Center will feature two presenters – Dan Burden and Denise Savageau.

Denise Savageau

In its June 18, 2001 issue, Time Magazine (http://www.time.com/time/innovators_v2/civic_leaders/profile_burden.html) identified Dan Burden, the Environmental Group’s keynote speaker, as one of the six most important civic innovators worldwide in his efforts to create better places to live, work and play.

Mr. Burden currently serves on the Florida DOT “Greenbook” Committee to draft standards for traffic calming.

He was instrumental in developing traffic calming programs in Florida cities such as Bradenton Beach, Gainesville, Key Largo, South Miami Beach and West Palm Beach; and cities across the country such as Austin, Texas; Asheville and Charlotte, North Carolina; Boulder, Colorado; Honolulu, Hawaii; Lansing, Kalamazoo and Traverse City, Michigan; San Diego and Santa Monica, California; and Seattle, Washington.

Mr. Burden has photographed and examined walking and bicycling conditions in over 1400 cities worldwide. In 1994, under the auspices of the United Nations, he served as a bicycle consultant in China.

In his travels, Mr. Burden has not “found one (community) where designing for the car has made it a successful place. Indeed, the most successful villages, town and cities in America are those designed before the car was invented, and where the least tinkering has been done since.”

Mr. Burden is likely the most nationally recognized authority on “walkable” communities and bicycle facilities and programs. His command of disciplines and issues include street design, traffic calming, public safety, bicycling and greenways and has allowed him to develop a holistic vision for creating healthy communities, which are pedestrian and bicycle-friendly.

In 1996, Mr. Burden founded and serves as Executive Director of a non-profit Florida-based consulting firm called Walkable Communities, Inc (http://www.walkable.org/). Mr. Burden has completed 140 week-long community, or transportation design charrettes and serves as one of the main instructors for the National Highway Institute course on Bicycle and Pedestrian Facility Design, which is directed at traffic engineers, planners and community developers.

Walkable Communities, Inc. recently merged with Glatting Jackson Kercher Anglin, (http://www.glatting.com/), the prestigious community planning and design firm with over 150 professionals – including the eminent traffic-calming guru, Walter Kulash - and offices in Orlando and West Palm Beach, Florida and Atlanta, Georgia.

Prior to that Mr. Burden served for 16 years as the Bicycle and Pedestrian Coordinator at the Florida Department of Transportation. It is during this period, actually when Mr. Stowe, the Environmental Group president and New Canaan Party candidate for First Selectman, stayed with his wife Lys Burden and daughters in Tallahasee, Florida during his 1993 cross-country bicycle ride that Mr. Burden and Mr. Stowe first spoke. Twenty years earlier, as a budding National Geographic photographer, Mr. Burden led his wife Lys and another couple on a bicycle journey starting in Alaska. Dan and Lys Burden ended their participation in the bicycle journey in Panama when Mr. Burden became ill, but the other couple rode all the way down to Argentina.

The once-in-a lifetime bicycle ride encouraged Mr. Burden, his wife – then based in Missoula, Montana - and thirty others to organize Bikecentennial, a mass cross-country bicycle ride from Astoria, Oregon to Washington, D.C., which took place in 1976 to celebrate the nation’s bicentennial. After that historic ride took place, Mr. Burden created the Bicycle Federation of America in 1977 and served as its director for two years.

Mr. Burden has penned two books, Street Design Guidelines for Healthy Neighborhoods (1999) and Streets and Sidewalks, People and Cars: the Citizens’ Guide to Traffic Calming published by the highly regarded Local Government Commission Center for Livable Communities (http://www.lgc.org/center/).

Mr. Burden holds a B.S. in Forestry and a Masters in Interpersonal Communication from University of Montana at Missoula.

Mr. Burden will commence his presentation at 2 p.m. with a compelling series of Powerpoint photographs and take questions at 3:30 p.m.

Ms. Denise Savageau, will follow Mr. Burden, at 4 p.m.

Ms. Savageau has served as the Conservation Director for Conservation Commission in the Town of Greenwich for ten years. Serving in that capacity. Ms. Savageau works to protect the natural and cultural resources in the Town of Greenwich. These resources include water supply and open space protection, brownfield development, fisheries restoration, wildlife and watershed management, which includes flooding threats from the Town’s watercourses, such as the Byram River.

Ms. Savageau is a trained facilitator at the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection’s Environmental Education Programs and she has worked to train educators at Audubon Greenwich, Soundwaters and the Bruce Museum. She organizes a yearly conservation lecture series for the Garden Education Center of Greenwich.

Ms. Savageau formerly worked as District Manager for the Hartford County Soil and Water Conservation District, where she provided technical assistance and education to local officials, farmers, and residents in 29 municipalities in Hartford County.

Mr. Stowe first came to know Ms. Savageau while he served on the Environmental Council of Stamford Board. Ms. Savageau is highly regarded in environmental circles across the State of Connecticut.

Ms. Savageau holds a B.S. in Agricultural Economics with a concentration in Environmental Economics and Natural Resource Management. Her husband Michael Aurelia is a professional wetlands scientist.

Ms. Savageau will discuss the importance of having separate Conservation and Inland Wetland Commissions and the role the Conservation Commission overseeing flood control, stormwater and watershed management. She will elaborate on stormwater-related issues from a water quality and water velocity perspective and spell out potential best management practices.

With the recent flooding in New Canaan, her presentation is certainly topical.

Thank you letter to Attorney General Blumenthal

2007-10-08T10:29:00.000-07:00

New Canaan News-Review September 27, 2007
Blumenthal Must Fight FAA Decision
Staff Reports
Article Last Updated: 09/27/2007 02:49:07 PM EDT

The following letter was addressed to Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal. A copy has been provided to the News~Review for publication.

Dear Attorney General Blumenthal:

I am writing on behalf of the New Canaan Environmental Group to thank you for speaking at the Clear Skies and Clear Energy Rally on the steps of Town Hall in New Canaan on Aug. 29.

We are unhappy with and disappointed by, but not surprised by, the Federal Aviation Administration's Record of Decision on Sept. 5.

The language you used at the New Canaan rally regarding future legal action the state of Connecticut might take against the FAA appeared to be very strong.

If you have not already, please contact New York state Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo regarding the Sept. 5 Record of Decision and that you jointly plan a lawsuit with the state of New York against the FAA's Record of Decision.

We hope that you will review the merits of a lawsuit based on Section 4(f) of Public Law 89-670 (1966), which reads as follows: "It is hereby declared to be the policy of the United States government that special effort should be made to preserve the natural beauty of the countryside and public park and recreation lands, wildlife and waterfowl refuges, and historic sites." And that "The secretary (of transportation) may approve a transportation program or project requiring use of publicly owned land of a public park or land of an historic site of national, state or local significance only if (1) there is no prudent and feasible alternative to using that land; and (2) the program or project includes all possible planning to minimize harm to the park, recreation area, wildlife and waterfowl refuge, or historic site resulting from the use."

Consider these facts:

The 69-acre Weir Farm National Historic Site, located in Wilton and Ridgefield, is the only property in Connecticut that is affiliated with the National Park Service.

I personally spoke via telephone with Linda A. Cook, the superintendent of Weir Farm NHS. She appeared to be quite concerned about the FAA's Record of Decision to fly jets directly over Weir Farm (elevation - 651 feet).

An 800-acre state park, Wooster Mountain State Park, is situated in the southern section of Danbury.

Across the New York state border in Pound Ridge is the 4,700-acre Ward Pound Ridge Reservation, Westchester County's largest park, comprising 26 percent of all county parkland in Westchester County and 22 percent of land in Pound Ridge.

Thank you for your participation in the Aug. 29 New Canaan Environmental Group rally and for your effort to defeat the FAA's disastrous decision.

Richard M. Stowe

President, New Canaan Environmental Group

The New Canaan Environmental Group holds a Clear Skies & Clean Energy Rally on the steps of Town Hall on Wednesday, August 29th

2007-09-05T19:18:00.000-07:00

Residents and politicians gather yesterday for a rally at New Canaan Town Hall about the Federal Aviation Administration’s plan that increases air traffic over Fairfield County. U.S. Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Bridgeport, right, was joined by state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal.
(Paul Desmarais/Staff photo)

Stamford Advocate Thursday, August 30, 2007

Leaders fight FAA flight paths

By Monica Potts
Staff Writer

NEW CANAAN - Addressing about 40 people at a rally on the steps of Town Hall, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said environmental impact reports for a federal proposal that would increase air traffic over Fairfield County lacked important data and that the public commentary period had been inadequate.

He said the state was investigating challenges to the plan.

"We have to stand as a state to seek enforcement of laws and hold the federal government accountable," Blumenthal said.

The New Canaan Environmental Group organized the rally, which also was intended to promote use of clean energy.

The proposal, which the Federal Aviation Administration expects to adopt next month, includes shifting a holding pattern for the Westchester County Airport and arrival paths for La Guardia Airport east from current paths over Westchester County and the Hudson River.

Residents have expressed concerns about an increase in noise and air pollution as well as safety concerns about low-flying planes.

"The decibel increases for the town of Darien aren't statistically significant according to the FAA," said Evonne Klein, first selectwoman for Darien. "But they are significant to the residents of Darien."

U.S. Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Bridgeport, told rally participants that his request for the FAA to hold additional public hearings on the plan was rejected.

"What I find totally unacceptable is their unwillingness to listen to people who are negatively impacted," he said.

Opponents of the plan said legal challenges to the FAA's assessments may be their last recourse. A bill co-sponsored by Shays that would have cut funding for the redesign project until the agency addressed quality-of-life concerns was rejected last month.

Shays cautioned that the courts would not support an alternate plan that shifted the problem to another community, particularly if poorer communities ended up paying the price.

Shays said he usually flies out of La Guardia, and that he frequently experiences delays there. He said he tries to travel by alternate methods and that flying constitutes about one-fifth of his travel.

Some community members said they are looking into alternatives to air travel.

Richard Stowe, the president of New Canaan Environmental Group said the United States needs to consider more sustainable transportation methods, and that the most feasible solution was an improved and expanded rail system across the country.

He said he traveled to Detroit by Amtrak train and bus to attend Rosa Parks' funeral, and that his trip revealed the inconveniences of traveling on the country's aging rail system.

"It's a long haul," Stowe said. "The travel time is just not realistic to the pace that our country is accustomed to."

Michael Greenberg - Live at Town Hall on August 29th at 4:30 p.m.

2007-08-23T21:25:00.000-07:00

New Canaan Advertiser Thursday, August 16th, 2007 Page 2A

Rally at Town Hall August 29th
Environmental Group to hold concert

The New Canaan Environmental Group is hosting an end-of-summer
concert and "clear skies" and "clean energy" rally on the steps of Town
Hall, 77 Main Street, at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday August 29th.

Michael Greenberg, a budding singer-songwriter, guitarist and
performing artist from East Haven, Connecticut will be making his second
appearance in New Canaan. Michael Greenberg previously performed at the New
Canaan Library at the Step It Up rally.

More information on Mr. Greenberg can be found at www.michaelgreenbergmusic.com.

Joining him on the steps of Town Hall will be two speakers.

Michael G. Kroposki of Ridgefield will alert the public as to the
inadequacies of the FAA Airspace Redesign Final EIS, with regard to noise,
safety and air quality impacts of the proposed increased flights over
New Canaan and neighboring communities. Mr. Kroposki is a graduate of
Brooklyn Law School and holds an advanced degree (LLM) from New York
University. He is a retired patent attorney.

?It has come to the attention of the Environmental Group that the FAA
has released its Airspace Redesign Final Environmental Impact Statement
without a venue for public comment with legal standing even though
substantive new material and revisions to the Draft Environmental Impact
Statement appear in the Final EIS. The FAA?s release of the Final EIS of
the Airspace Redesign without public comment appears to contravene the
intent of National Environmental Policy Act to encourage public
comment on the impacts of proposed projects. Furthermore, this action breaks
previous precedent set by the FAA when it held public hearings after
the completion of the Juneau, Alaska Final EIS. It is important to
bring these matters to light so that the public may pressure Federal and
State elected officials to open this process again. That way the public
can properly vet the adverse impacts that airspace redesign has on New
Canaan and lower Fairfield County,? said Richard Stowe, president of the
New Canaan Environmental Group

Bob Wall, of Fairfield, will speak about Clean Energy in Connecticut
and New Canaan. He will explain the "20 percent by 2010 campaign" and the
benefits New Canaan will accrue by joining that campaign. Neighboring
communities that have signed onto the campaign include Westport,
Weston, Stamford, Fairfield, and Ridgefield.

Shawn is fit - She even cuts her lawn with a push mower

2007-08-23T21:22:00.000-07:00

Hartford Courant Sunday August 19, 2007 Page C4

A New Spin On An Old Standby
Pedal Power A Practical - And Fun - Alternative To Petroleum-Based Travel

By RICHARD STOWE

We now know that our seemingly insatiable appetite for petroleum is taking us down a dangerous road, one that leads to biodiversity collapse, climate change and geopolitical instability.

The solution often put forward to reduce petroleum use - increase the use of bio-fuels - comes with its own set of problems. A doubling of corn prices in the past year probably is related to an increasingly larger share of corn production diverted to making ethanol. Indonesia's push to use palm oil for bio-fuel could decimate habitat critical to Sumatran tigers, Asian elephants and other important species.

Here is the quintessential opportunity to think globally and act locally. We can lessen the threat to our food supply and animal habitats if we will just use our own bodies a little more. We should follow Shawn Liprie's example.

I bumped into Shawn recently at the Westport Farmers Market. A Westport resident and single mom with three children, she rolled up with a BOB trailer (http://www.bobtrailers.com/) - which carries up to 50 pounds - attached to her bicycle.

Shawn is fit - she plays quarterback in a women's football league, plays golf and tennis and kayaks. She even cuts her lawn with a manual push mower. A proud mother, she let me know that a Staples High School graduation ceremony photo of her daughter, Amber Coutermash, had just appeared on the front page of a Westport newspaper.

The trailer, she explained, enables her to shop at grocery stores or carry out many other errands by bicycle. That day, aside from going to the farmers market, she would bike to Fed Ex, the bank, a golf course to sign up for tee times and to a football game. Shawn even hopes to find or design a trailer to carry her kayak down to Long Island Sound by bicycle.

She said she started using the bike trailer for environmental reasons as well as fun and exercise. "I wish more people would try it and see how easy it is. Even my push mower for my lawn is fun and I don't have the hassles of oil, gas and mechanical breakdowns," she reports.

Shawn's car mostly sits in her driveway. That's quite a feat in Westport, the heart of the Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk-Danbury sprawlopolis, which ranked No.7 out of the 10 worst cases of urban sprawl in a 2002 report released by Smart Growth America, Rutgers University and Cornell University.

Another option for hauling goods by bicycle are the gonzo California-designed, Taiwan-built Xtracycle (http://www.xtracycle.com) Sport Utility Bicycle, which extends your conventional bicycle by 15 inches (frame extender, rack and panniers add only nine pounds to an existing bicycle, but enables cyclists to carry up to an extra 150 pounds and that may include a passenger). Another still is the made-in-Iowa Bikes at Work (http://www.bikesatwork.com) trailer available in three lengths, weighing between 27 and 43 pounds, which can carry bulky items, even refrigerators, up to 300 pounds.

Fifty-four percent of Americans live less than five miles from work. Many errands and activities are within that distance, too. At five miles or less, car engines are cold. Cold engines are fuel-thirsty and release considerably more pollutants on a per-mile basis than warm engines.

In terms of energy efficiency, bicycling is the clear winner over competing modes. The calories required for a 10-mile roundtrip by car is 18,600 (a half-gallon of gasoline); bus 9,200; train 8,850 and walking 1,000. By bicycle, it is 350 calories.

In terms of space requirements, or water consumption, bicycling is even more efficient: 12 bicycles fit in the space required by one car in a parking lot; 40 gallons of water are used to refine each gallon of gasoline a car burns.

So if more of us did what Shawn does, we'd save the earth from global warming and burn off some extra calories in the process.

Richard M. Stowe of New Canaan is founder and director of Rail * Trains * Ecology * Cycling, a nonprofit advocacy group promoting sustainable modes of transportation, and president of the New Canaan Environmental Group, an environmental education organization.

bicycle is better than fuel-dependent machine

2007-07-26T08:56:00.000-07:00

New Canaan Advertiser Thursday, July 26, 2007 Page 5A

Eco-man
Bio-fuel won't cure addiction to the machine

By Richard Stowe

Its not oil Americans are addicted to - we may be experiencing the inflationary effects of diverting grain harvest from food to bio-fuel.

Directing an increasingly larger share of corn production to make bio-fuel at ethanol distilleries may have led to a doubling of corn prices in the past year.

The outlook for converting palm oil, which as a bio-fuel is four to six times more efficient than corn, to bio-diesel is even worse.

Indonesia may set aside forty percent of its future palm oil production for bio-fuel. That’s a plan a healthy planet cannot afford.

The scale of today’s oil of palm industrial monoculture (eighty-four percent of palm oil is harvested in Indonesia or Malaysia) has created significant and unavoidable adverse environmental impacts.

In Indonesia oil palm acreage has increased thirty-fold since the 1960’s (that growth primarily was driven by the use of palm oil for food and cosmetic purposes) and in Malaysia oil palm monoculture accounted for eighty-seven percent of the deforestation between 1985 and 2000.

Tropical forest loss in Indonesia and Malaysia is eliminating critical habitat for Sumatran tigers (Panthera tigris sumatrae – one of five tiger subspecies remaining), two orangutan (Malay word for man of the jungle) species - the Bornean (Pongo pymacus) and Sumutran (Pongo abelii), Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) and Sumatran rhinoceros (Dicerorhinus sumertrensis).

What we’re really addicted to is the automobile. Once an Americans steps outdoors, he or she invariably steps into a car or truck (150 million Americans had 49 million motor vehicles in 1950; 300 million Americans had 237.7 million in 2003).

Record levels of motor vehicle ownership in the United States (771 vehicles per thousand people in 2000) and record air travel (witness the FAA’s plan to accommodate more flights in the New York metropolitan area) have created an insatiable appetite for liquid fuel – whether its petroleum or ethanol; the average American household consumed 1067 gallons of gasoline for vehicle travel in 1994. That’s the conundrum we face – our economy, our lifestyle seems to depend on cars, trucks and planes - significant contributors to climate change, pollution (motor vehicles are responsible for 55 percent of cancer contaminants in America) and biodiversity collapse.

Recently while shopping for organic, local produce at the Westport Farmer’s Market I saw a solution - when Westport resident, Shawn Liprie, - a single mom with three children, rolled up with a BOB trailer (http://www.bobtrailers.com/) – which carries up to 50 pounds - attached to her bicycle.

Shawn is fit – she plays quarterback in the women’s professional football league and plays golf, tennis and kayaks. Ms. Liprie who gardens, even cuts her lawn with a push mower. And she is a proud mom who put me on notice that a front-page photo of her daughter, Amber Coutermash, at the 2007 Staples High School graduation ceremony, had just appeared in a Westport newspaper.

The trailer, she explained, enables her to shop at Super Stop & Shop, Stew Leonard’s and Wild Oats or carry out multiple errands by bicycle. That day, aside from going to the Farmer’s Market, she would bike to Fed Ex, the bank, Longshore Country Club to sign up for tee times and to a football game. Shawn even hopes to find or design a trailer to carry her kayak down to Long Island Sound by bicycle.

At Shawn’s home her car mostly sits in the driveway. That’s quite a feat in Westport, the heart of the Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk-Danbury CT sprawlopolis, which ranked number seven in a list of the ten worst cases of urban sprawl in a 2002 report released by Smart Growth America, Rutgers University and Cornell University.

Other options for hauling goods while bicycling exist. One is the gonzo-California designed, but built in Taiwan Xtracycle (http://www.xtracycle.com) “Sport Utility Bicycle”, which extends your conventional bicycle frame by 15 inches. Frame extender, racks and panniers add only nine pounds to an existing bicycle, but enables cyclists to carry up to an extra 150 pounds and that 150 pounds can include a passenger. Another is a made-in-Iowa Bikes at Work (http://www.bikesatwork.com) trailer available in three lengths, weighing between 27 and 43 pounds, which carry bulky items, such as refrigerators, up to 300 pounds.

Two organizations, each with different constituencies, currently advocate for cycling as transportation in their respective locales in Connecticut. Both hold bicycle to work events on the last Friday of the month. Hartford based-Central Connecticut Bicycle Alliance (http://www.wecyclect.org/) has advocated for bicycle racks on buses and is reviving the Discover Hartford Bicycling and Walking Tour on September 8, 2007.

New Haven-based Elm City Cycling (http://www.elmcitycycling.org/) has advocated for bicycles-on-trains on Metro-North. ECC disseminates information about New Haven’s monthly critical mass and this summer is the national host of Bike Summer. On June 23rd I rode one hundred miles in the crown jewel event of Bike Summer– the New Haven Century. I can attest to the back roads beauty of Woodbridge and the crystal clear coastal views in Madison, Guilford or Branford. On Thursday, July 26th at 5:30 p.m. ECC hosts a Bike Summer Art Reception at Fuel (516 Chapel Street New Haven.)

Fairfield County would certainly benefit from a cycling as transportation advocacy group to support cyclists, such as Shawn.

Fifty-four percent of Americans live less than five miles from work. Many errands and activities are within that distance, too. At five miles or less car engines are cold. Cold engines are fuel thirsty and release considerably more pollutants on a per mile basis than warm engines.

In terms of energy efficiency, bicycling is the clear winner over competing modes. The calories required for a ten-mile roundtrip by car is 18,600 (1/2 gallon of gasoline); by bicycle it is 350; bus 9200; train 8850 and walking1000.

In terms of water consumption, or space requirements, bicycling is even more efficient; forty gallons of water are used to refine each gallon of gasoline a car burns and twelve bicycles fit in the space required by one car in the parking lot, or street.

Yes, Shawn is a role model for moms wondering how to save the earth from global warming (and burn off extra calories) - one mom at a time.

School bus parking fiasco

2007-07-19T15:46:00.000-07:00

New Canaan Advertiser Thursday, July 19, 2007 Page 8A

Bus parking, new lot will harm Waveny

Editor, Advertiser:

Nearly a year ago Ditte Reifsnyder made a bombshell announcement: the School Bus Facility Task Force, which she chaired, had chosen the playing fields at Saxe Middle School as the preferred location for the school bus facility. Fortunately, Town officials and the public resoundingly rejected that plan.

Plan B, the plan to park the school buses at the high school, was quickly set in motion.

Park & Recreation chair Jeb Walker offered a plan to sacrifice Waveny Park property for the school bus facility, but was outmaneuvered by Ms. Reifsnyder, when she proposed placing the school bus facility in the parking lot east of the high school and shifting the attendant loss of student parking on the high school campus into Waveny Park.

Plan B, it turns out has significant and unavoidable adverse impacts not only on the limited usable outdoor areas at the New Canaan High School campus, but also on New Canaan’s crown jewel – Waveny Park.

It constitutes a gross incursion into the Waveny Park with a 800-foot long, 80-foot wide double-barreled, tiered, sprawl-like, mall-like 266-space surface parking lot, which stretches nearly all the way to Waveny Park Road and with the high school back entrance creates a continuous, uninterrupted corridor of impervious, asphalted surface from Farm Road to Waveny Park mansion.

On Tuesday July 10, 2007, P & Z summarily granted the request for an 8-24 referral and special permit to relocate the school buses, construct bus facilities and a fuel station on the New Canaan High School campus. At that meeting I stated that there were better options for parking school buses, such as a bus company proposal to park the buses in Wilton or developing a plan to park the school buses at the transfer station.

Below are some statements commissioners made at the meeting and my response to each statement.

Commissioner Scannell wondered what was the reasoning for the commission to not grant the 8-24 referral. Well I think Chairman Papp described it best last summer when he said: “The aesthetic impact of parking buses (along) the most important route to New Canaan. South Avenue is really the calling card of the town and to spoil it substantially may not be considered compatible with the Town plan, which also calls for aesthetic and appearance consideration.” Mr. Papp was referring to the Saxe proposal, but the high school parking plan is directly across the street, thinly veiled only by the Waveny Woods.

In response to my suggestion to park the school buses at the transfer station Chairman Lazlo Papp said that it had been determined that there was not enough room for the buses at the Transfer Station to around and it was directly adjacent to parkland.

But what if they built a Town Park and nobody went to it? That is exactly what has happened with the unnamed Town Park at the Transfer Station dedicated under First Selectman Bond and built under First Selectman Neville’s oversight. No one to date has acknowledged the disutility of this dedicated parkland.

Furthermore town officials have failed to grasp the opportunity to trade this Transfer station land out of park status in exchange for dedicating the Michigan Road Dorothy Clark property as a woodland preserve.

Commissioner George Wendell’s commonly held assertion that a school bus parking lot at New Canaan High School “(This) is about as centrally located as possible,” But that statement is predicated on the unproven presumption that less fuel will be used by siting the buses at the high school.

A counterargument is that by locating the buses at the high school, the bus routes first have to travel though no school bus pick-up zones. School buses will waste a significant amount of fuel driving through these no pick-up zones adjacent to South, Saxe and New Canaan High School. Mr. Wendell’s statement also does not account for the fact that the school bus drivers work two separate shifts - morning pick-up and afternoon drop-off and drive off somewhere else in their personal vehicles during the break in between those two shifts.

Finally, Commissioner Scannell’s point that reducing another Town’s green areas for school bus parking is not a good argument for protecting New Canaan’s green areas discounts the reality that New Canaan doesn’t have industrially zoned land, but adjacent towns and cities such as Wilton, Norwalk and Stamford do.

Now is the time to put the brakes on Plan B and come up with a plan that will not further deface the New Canaan High School-Waveny Park corridor.

Town officials are currently engaging in a Safe Routes to School study to enlarge or optimize the no pick up zones. Truly a worthwhile study, it ultimately may reduce the number of buses the Town contracts. Each bus that is not needed saves the Town $75,000 per year, and the cost of removing one bus for one year equals the savings town officials boast are accrued by using the existing 20,000-gallon fuel tank at the high school.

Richard M. Stowe

New Canaan Advertiser Thursday, July 19, 2007 Page 4A

Clarifications

Richard Stowe said the following statement reported on page 1 of the July 12th New Canaan Advertiser contains factual errors

Richard Stowe, a local environmentalist, said the plan would create light pollution, “adversely effect every high school students’ school yard,” and the 125-space parking lot designated for students and park goers where the buses are currently being parked predicates plans for an ice rink and is “gross incursion” on green space.

What was actually said:

Mr. Stowe said that the 120-space parking lot designated for students and park goers in combination with an asphalted back entrance to that dual-use high school parking lot via Waveny Park road is a “gross incursion into Waveny Park.”

Mr. Stowe also made a point that additional parking conjoined with asphalting a back-entrance to New Canaan High School (not the dual use parking lot by itself) “will likely induce further development in the area.” When Mr. Stowe was asked for an example, he cited the ice rink proposal.

Live Earth rocks Meadowlands

2007-07-08T08:55:00.000-07:00

Went to Live Earth yesterday. The fact there wasn't a train into
Giants stadium turned out to be a disaster on the way back to the
city. Concertgoers crowded shuttle buses as one bus after another
lined up to pick up the post-concert throng in order to drop them off
at Secaucus Junction, the closest NJ Transit train station. Once we
arrived at Secaucus Junction we had a 50-minute wait to the next
train.

Shortly after we arrived, Alicia Keys joined Keith Uban belting out the Rolling Stones hit Gimme Shelter. The Poliice played the fnal songs of the evening.

rain on the 4th of July

2007-07-04T17:05:00.000-07:00

Went to Twins v. Yankees game at Yankee Stadium (http://mlb.mlb.com/news/gameday_recap.jsp?ymd=20070703&content_id=2064446&vkey=recap&fext=.jsp&c_id=min) last night. Took the 5:14 p.m. train from New Canaan to Fordham, then walked over to take the 4 train to 161st Street. The culinary opportunities at Yankee Stadium are limited so I settled for a Heineken, but it was a great opportunity to experience Yankee Stadium before the 'House that Ruth built' gets unceremoniously demolished. I took a 10:32 p.m. from 125th Street back to New Canaan.

In the morning I didn't feel fresh when I got up to participate in 'Four on the Fourth', which started on Oenoke Ridge in front of St. Mark's Church and finished on the New Canaan Nature Center driveway. It was my first four mile run. Learned that 'Family Fourth' was canceled today and rescheduled for Sunday.

Weather headed south as the afternoon wore on.

emagazine online bikes on trains commentary

2007-06-27T14:08:00.000-07:00

A commentary from http://www.emagazine.com

Green Living
The E MAGAZINE Handbook for LIving Lightly on the Earth
New this week
June 25, 2007

COMMENTARY: Bikes on the Rails
Making Room for Bikes on Trains (and Everywhere Else)

By Julia Hirsch & Jim Motavalli

Traveling across Connecticut during rush hour can be beastly. During a typical afternoon on Interstate 95, cars crowd the road, crawling along at 30 miles per hour or less. Drivers, often solo and on cell phones, dangerously crisscross the lanes and slam on brakes, just to nose a few inches ahead. All the while, they waste fuel and spew dirty emissions. Traffic is not only an inconvenience, but also a symptom of our fuel dependence and environmentally irresponsible behavior. But what are the alternatives?

Recently, a group of concerned citizens have been trying to ease the way for a bicycle-friendly form of train transportation. Biking to work can reduce one’s carbon footprint and help de-clutter the highways. And the distance one bikes to work can be extended when used in conjunction with a commuter rail service. Transportation Alternatives, a New York City-based nonprofit group working to promote bicycling, walking and public transit, advocates this combination, citing that it is often faster, cheaper and more environmentally sound than driving.

Bicycle commuters traveling on the Metro-North line between New York and its suburbs have been hampered by cumbersome regulations. In order to bring a bicycle on a Metro-North train, one must have a bicycle permit. This regulation alone discourages potential commuters. In addition to the permit regulation, bicycles are not allowed on trains during peak hours, obviously the most convenient for commuters en route to work. Finally, many of the cars on the Metro-North line have minimal bicycle parking and storage, limiting the number of bicycles allowed per car. All of these regulations work to discourage bicycle commuting.

At a recent Metro-North Commuter Council meeting, Richard Stowe and other members of the Connecticut Rail Commuter Council circulated petitions advocating the deregulation of bicycle travel on trains. Although most of the issues are still pending, there was discussion of removing the bicycle permit requirement. Another issue that the Council plans to address is the safety and convenience of bringing a bicycle on the Metro-North trains. Some argue that bringing bicycles on trains is dangerous to other passengers and may crowd and inconvenience an otherwise smooth commute. Stowe argues that designated bike parking would eliminate the safety concern and help integrate bikes into the daily commute. The Commuter Council’s strategy is to persuade Metro-North to include bicycle parking on its new train cars (which are slated to begin service in 2009).

America by Bike

The movement to promote bicycle commuting in conjunction with train travel is growing all over the nation, but fighting for bicycles remains a guerrilla action in car-crazy America. While the U.S. has the highest per-capita bicycle ownership in the world, according to the League of American Bicyclists, automobiles are used for more than 95 percent of our trips. Only three million Americans say they ride their bikes “frequently,” meaning more than 14 or 15 times a year. According to Alex Campbell, a spokesperson for leading electric bicycle maker Zap, as many as 120 million bikes sit forlornly on flat tires, waiting for riders. In the U.S., bicycles are overwhelmingly used for recreation and exercise, not for commuting.

The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition fights for urban pathways, encouraging traffic-calming policies and lobbying on behalf of bike-friendly legislation. “Providing safe streets for bicyclists is like making a grant of $420 (a year’s worth of bus passes) to thousands of people with limited incomes,” the group proclaims. “That would improve the quality of life for the one-third of San Francisco households who do not have access to a car.”

San Francisco is also home to a monthly event called Critical Mass, in which thousands of bicycle riders take to the streets, many of them in colorful costumes. “We wanted to celebrate the bike and dominate the streets for a change,” said one spokesman for the loosely organized group. Police broke up a 5,000-strong Critical Mass ride in 1997, and arrested 100 people for blocking traffic, but there were ultimately no convictions. In 1999, state judge Sue Kaplan ruled that the arrests were illegal, and Critical Mass has operated without harassment since then.

People are finding innovative uses for bicycles. Joan Stein and Jim Gregory own and operate the pedal-power Fresh Aire Delivery Service in the small town of Ames, Iowa. Fresh Aire has transported furniture, lumber, even a children’s playhouse. No less than two bicycle delivery services were launched in Berkeley, California, run by Pedal Express and Berkeley Youth Alternatives.

The Colorado-based Bicycle Transportation Systems (BTS) has an idea that makes a crazy kind of sense, combining pedal power with an innovation in mass transit. It’s a kind of two-way tunnel in which bike riders are pushed along by a constantly moving column of air, reducing air resistance and allowing speeds of up to 25 miles per hour. The company claims its system is 90 percent more efficient than normal cycling, and bikers can travel six miles with the energy it would otherwise take to travel one. The system can reportedly be used to move freight as well as bike riders, but it would require an expensive and fully enclosed dedicated bikeway. Only a city intensely dedicated to bicycle transportation would even think of building such a corridor.

Bike racks are sprouting up all over. According to the International Bicycle Fund, 3,000 have recently been installed in Santa Cruz, California, and 1,600 in Seattle. In Portland, I saw some ingenious bike lockers, which make the enclosed bicycle nearly impossible to steal.

Perhaps it says something about America that our anti-car campaigns are couched in the positive rhetoric of encouraging the open-air sport of bicycling. Like motherhood, bicycling is very hard to oppose, even though our traffic regulations discriminate regularly. The rock band bicycle (with a small “b”), led by bike activist Kurt Liebert, toured from Portland, Maine, to Washington, D.C., in the summer of 2000 entirely by bike.

If we want to tackle our fuel dependence and carbon emissions head-on, we need to encourage the responsible use of public transportation on a national scale. Back in Connecticut, Stowe spoke of a movement to convince Congress to implement a high-speed rail service from coast to coast, as well as another line stretching across the Southern regions of the U.S.

If this is achieved, shorter high-speed rail corridors and commuter rail lines would easily feed off these larger lines, making train travel more accessible and efficient across the nation. Stowe predicts that this will have a positive effect on the fuel dependence and energy waste engendered by suburban sprawl.

So where do we go from here? In terms of the local struggle, Stowe suggests contacting New York Governor Eliot Spitzer and Connecticut Governor Jodi Rell to advocate the removal of bicycle permits and restrictions during peak hours. Reducing our carbon footprint can start at the individual level, but in the end, it requires a greater structural change. A solution may be found in improving access for both bicycle commuters and their non-biking counterparts on the railways.

CONTACT: National Association of Railroad Passengers

JULIA HIRSCH is a student at Vassar College and an intern at E.
JIM MOTAVALLI is the editor of E.

Add to extra day to Memorial Day weekend to honor Rachel Carson

2007-06-26T08:30:00.000-07:00

New Canaan Advertiser, Thursday, May 24, 2007 Page 7A

Ecoman
A holiday for Rachel Carson

By Richard M. Stowe

Born on May 27, 1907 to a nature-loving mom, the youngest of three children, in a simple, quaint farmhouse near Springdale, Pennsylvania, 15 miles northeast of Pittsburgh, an area now covered by modern artifacts such as the Galleria at Pittsburgh Mills and Pennsylvania Turnpike, Rachel Carson, in her 56 years, grew to be one of the America’s most influential citizens.

Ms. Carson attended what is today known as Chatham University, just twelve miles from her birthplace. She studied English, Creative Writing, majored in Marine Biology and graduated magna cum laude in 1929. On scholarship at John Hopkins University, she received a Masters of Arts in Zoology in 1932.

Hired by the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries to write radio script, Ms. Carson became the first woman to take and pass the civil service test and second hired by the Bureau of Fisheries for a full time professional position. In 1936, Rachel Carson was a junior aquatic biologist; in 1949 she rose to Editor-in-Chief for all U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service publications.

In 1951, Oxford University Press published Ms. Carson’s first commercially successful book. The Sea Around Us remained on the New York Times bestseller list for 86 weeks, won the 1952 National Book Award and was subsequently adapted as an hour-long Oscar-winning documentary film.

With newfound financial security, Rachel Carson became a full time writer. She summered north of Portland, Maine at a seaside cottage on Southport Island, whose beach and tide pools became the subject of her 1955 book, The Edge of the Sea.

But it was Silent Spring, published in 1962, in which Rachel Louise Carson summoned the public’s conscience in a way that no American female author has done since Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin was published one hundred ten years earlier.

In January 1958, the Boston Herald published a letter by Olga Owens Huckins, in which she expressed outrage at the aerial spraying of pesticides over her family’s private two-acre bird sanctuary in Duxbury, Massachusetts in 1957. The goal of spraying was to kill mosquitoes; the lethal result - many dead birds. Ms. Carson attributes that letter, forwarded to her by Ms. Huckins, as her deciding factor to write Silent Spring.

It was while writing Silent Spring, a book that criticizes the reckless application of pesticides, that Ms. Carson was diagnosed with breast cancer.

In a National Women’s Press Club speech on December 4, 1962 Rachel Carson glowed, “Early in the summer as soon as the first installment of the book appeared in the New Yorker, public reaction to Silent Spring was reflected first in a tidal wave of letters - letters to Congressman, letters to government agencies, to newspapers…”

But Ms. Carson also acknowledged pesticide industry and trade association-sponsored “masters of invective” who personally attacked her and her work in an “unquiet autumn” public relations strategy to “designed to protect and repair the somewhat battered image of pesticides.”

The language in Silent Spring was prophetic; read the opening paragraph of the closing chapter.

Whether you reflect on the emerging pollinator crisis or challenge of climate change, her words are timeless.

In December 2006, a list of the 100 most influential Americans of all time appeared in the Atlantic Magazine story entitled They Made America. A panel of ten eminent historians ranked Rachel Carson number 39. Among women, only Elizabeth Cady Stanton (30) and Susan B. Anthony (38) placed higher.

The premiere Environmental Protection Agency conference room is the Rachel Carson Room, but she deserves greater recognition.

As the centennial of her birth passes on Sunday, it’s time for Congress to dedicate her birthday as a Federal holiday, a first for a woman or an environmentalist. Her birthday would be celebrated on either Friday or Tuesday of Memorial Day weekend creating the nation’s first four-day holiday weekend.

bicycle to pelham

2007-05-13T20:11:00.000-07:00

On Saturday afternoon, after spending the morning at May Fair, and bicycling down to the Darien Library, where I printed out some high speed rail petitions, I rode down the Boston Post Road to the corner of Noroton Avenue, where I met up with Jason Stockmann and friends.

We rode backroads through Stamford, Greenwich, where we dropped the sole female riding with us off at the Greenwich train station, where she hopped on the 6:13 p.m. train to New Haven.

We continued on back roads through Byram, Portchester, Rye, Harrison, Mamoroneck, where we dropped off

Then the three of us bicycled backroads through Larchmont, New Rochelle and Pelham, where I hopped on the 8:37 p.m. train to Grand Central Terminal.

Two weekends ago on Sunday April 29th I joined Zaac, Bill Bradlee and David Kroodsma of Ride for Climate and two cyclists from New York in Greenwich for a backroads ride to Central Park via Scarsdale and Bronxville. Very nice ride.

improving LIRR service

2007-05-10T20:39:00.000-07:00

Attended May LIRR Commuter Rail Council 12:15 to 2 p.m. meeting at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority 5th Floor Boardroom at 347 Madison Avenue.
The following was submitted as public comment.
A list of suggestions, which LIRR should pursue.
1. Joint LIRR-MNR New Haven Line service via New Rochelle Junction, Hellsgate Bridge, Fresh Pond Junction, Bay RIdge Branch, create a junction at Bay Ridge and LIRR main track to alternative 1: Jamaica Station, Nassau County; alternative 2: Rockaway Line to JFK Airtrain loop
2. LIRR main track/ Sunnyside Yards/ 63rd Street tunnel; alternative 1: Hudson Line to Albany; alternative 2: Harlem Line to White Plains and beyond
3. High speed rail - Grand Central Terminal to Los Angeles Union Station. LIRR Jamaica Station should have direct service to Los Angeles Union Station. The Deep Cavern Eastside Access to Grand Central Terminal is not well suited to this goal.
4. Bicycles-on-trains. May is bicycle month. Eliminate permit; peak hour restrictions; design new train cars with dedicated bicycle parking.
5. Extend electrification, double track and grade separated track beyond Babyon & Ronkonkoma to Patchogue or Speonk and Riverhead. Create a level of service and speeds to accomodate summer season beach bound travel.

letter in the mail

2007-04-07T11:22:00.000-07:00

Received the following letter from Attorney General Richard Blumenthal in the mail today.

State of Connecticut
Richard Blumenthal, Attorney General

April 5, 2007

Richard M. Stowe
12 Mead Street
New Canaan, CT 06840

Dear Richard:

I appreciated your attending the event recently at the Wilton Library, and sending your very informative letter dated March 30, 2007.

As I mentioned during our conversations on April 3, we will be interested in learning more about your suggestions for expanded and improved cross service from Danbury to Fairfield county. I understand your criticisms of efforts to widen Route 7.

I hope that we have an opportunity to continue our discussions about these very significant topics.

Many thanks, and warmest regards.

Sincerely,

Dick Blumenthal

RB/ljc

Welcome to the Machine: Part Two

2007-04-07T11:19:00.000-07:00

New Canaan Advertiser, Thursday, April 5, 2007 Page 5A

Ecoman

“Step it Up” to reduce greenhouse gases

By Richard M. Stowe

The machine’s coal, oil and gas suppliers are often located in Texas.

Dallas, Texas-based TXU boasts on http://www.txucorp.com, “TXU Power owns and operates one of the nation’s largest lignite surface-mining operations…”

In April 2006, TXU announced plans to build eleven new coal-fired plants in Texas.

By February 26, 2007, plans for eight of those plants were scrapped when Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and Texas Pacific Group purchased TXU in a 45 billion dollar leveraged buyout.

In a first for a leveraged buyout, Environmental Defense and Natural Resources Defense Council, two opponents of those coal-fired power plants, were invited to take part in a seventeen-hour negotiated agreement in San Francisco, California.

The agreement doubles wind power investments and directs $400 million toward energy efficiency programs. TXU promises to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, endorse a mandatory federal cap on carbon emissions and not expand coal operations outside of Texas.

Former Environmental Protection Agency administrator William K Reilly, now vice-president of Texas Pacific Group, invited Environmental Defense to participate in the negotiations.

Environmental Defense president Fred Krupp said “we shifted this from a local debate over generating electricity to a national debate over capping and reducing carbon emissions”

The rise in carbon emissions, which is attributable to humans burning coal, oil and natural gas, is a macro-environmental indicator.

2000 Democratic presidential candidate Vice-President Al Gore is using his brand-name recognition to focus the nation’s attention on global warming.

The 2006 Academy Award-winning documentary box office hit and accompanying book, An Inconvenient Truth, is part autobiography and part explanation of the documented and projected impacts to human health and ecosystems by climate change.

In it Vice-President Gore recounts his awe as a student in the 1960’s at Harvard University under the tutelage of Roger Revelle, the eminent Harvard scientist who in 1957, International Geophysical Year, became the first scientist to open a research station (atop Mauna Loa in Hawaii) to measure greenhouse gases.

With the esteemed Dr. Revelle as his professor, no wonder Vice-President Gore has displayed a passion for climate change.

In 2005, Australian scientist and conservationist Tim Flannery provided a more in-depth, scientific account of global warming in The Weather Makers: How Man is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth. After reading The Weather Makers Richard Branson pledged three billion dollars toward developing sustainable energy. On January 26th Mr. Flannery received the 2007 Australian of the Year award.

For a more passionate and urgent reading of climate change scenarios we may face, tap the thoughts of Mike Tidwell in his 2006 non-fiction tale, The Ravaging Tide: Strange Weather, Future Katrinas, and the Coming Death of America’s Coastal Cities. In 2002, Mr. Tidwell founded Takoma Park, Maryland-based Chesapeake Climate Action Network (http://www.chesapeakeclimate.org/), a regional grassroots climate change advocacy group. Mr. Tidwell may be the nation’s pre-eminent regional climate change proselytizer.

In 1989, then twenty-eight year old Bill McKibben penned The End of Nature, the environmental epic chronicling the coming travails of climate change. Mr. McKibben became an instant ecological icon. Today, the prolific and lanky Mr. McKibben, who serves as scholar-in-residence at Middlebury College in Vermont, has set alight a grassroots brushfire for Step It Up: a National Day of Climate Action - http://www.stepitup07.org. Scheduled to take place on Saturday April 14, 2007. Mr. McKibben hopes to inspire a heartfelt movement to act against climate change. The decidedly philosophic Mr. McKibben is taking on a Herculean challenge to garner media attention by moving the discussion of global warming from blog suites to America’s streets. Step It Up organizers hope to mobilize Congress to pass legislation to cut carbon by 80 percent by 2050.

Attorney General Blumenthal and I finally speak by telephone

2007-04-03T19:51:00.000-07:00

After playing phone tag Attorney General Blumenthal on my birthday yesterday, I finally spoke to Attorney General Blumenthal around lunchtime. I congratulated him for the part he took in the Supreme Court victory on global warming. He said he had not received the letter, which I have copied below. After 5 p.m. he called me again to say he had received the letter and we continued our conversation. To be continued after he reads the letter.

Richard M. Stowe
Rail Transport Excellence Coalition
12 Mead Street
New Canaan, CT 06840

30 March 2007

The Honorable Richard Blumenthal
55 Elm Street
Hartford, CT 06106

Dear Attorney General Blumenthal:

Thank you for attending the presentation at the Wilton Library.

It was good to have a chance to speak to you about my concerns about your apparent support for State Senator Bob Duff’s call for extending Super 7 to Danbury.

I am stunned and dismayed by Mr. Duff’s campaign and proposed bill to extend Super 7.

And even more disappointed that you and State Senator Andrew Mc Donald joined him at a well-publicized rally earlier in Norwalk this year.

Unfortunately Route 7 widening is currently taking place.

I wish I had contacted you before the Route 7 widening project was set in stone.

But we can’t changet the past.

So let’s focus on the present and future.

Global warming.
The coming global peak oil era.
Biodiversity collapse.
Death.
Injury.
Iraq War.
Iran.

The role of automobiles and petroleum are intertwined in their contributions to these environmental and social degradation indicators. Substitutes to petroleum are not viable due to trade-offs and scarcity of these resources. And the space the automobile consumes is unconscionable.

A Super 7 scenario drives up the cost of housing in Danbury and further degrades level of service on the Merritt Parkway and the Connecticut Turnpike.

Background information:

1950: 49 million cars in the United States +
21 million cars in rest of the world = 70 million cars worldwide.

2000: 221 million cars in the United States +
513 million cars in rest of the world = 735 million cars worldwide.

The annual global human population growth rate from 1950 to 2000 = 1.9%.

The annual global automobile growth rate from 1950 to 2000 = 5.2%.

Our state or transportation region’s policy should not be to build more roads or parking lots to accommodate more cars!

We need less car ownership, not more!

Danbury Branch Line (railroad running on Route 7 corridor):

1) Danbury branch line signalization has not been updated for 100 years.

2) Signalization is manual block, not CTC (centralized train control) like the New Haven and New Canaan lines.

Update signalization immediately.

3) It is the Danbury branch line that needs widening.

Danbury Branch is currently entirely single track except for a siding at the Wilton train station.

Imagine the Connecticut Turnpike with just one lane and a shoulder in just one location to queue up cars traveling in the other direction! That's what the Danbury Branch is like and we need to widen (add a track wherever feasible - two tracks or siding) it now. As service frequencies increase, siding should be added incrementally.

4) Electrify line when service frequencies reach 90 trains per day - rule of thumb for viability.

5) Upgrade Merritt 7 station to something akin to Stamford Transportation Center without parking garages: raised platforms, two tracks with outside boarding, a green, solar-oriented train station above railroad tracks and direct pedestrian access from Merritt 7 to Merritt 7 buildings that line Main Avenue.

6) Upgrade Maybrook line tracks between Dykman’s Junction (Southeast) and the Danbury Metro-North station – track speeds, signalization and third rail electrification, so that Harlem Line trains terminate in Danbury, a city four times the size of Southeast.
Dollars per mile may be high, but its only 12 miles (6 miles or less are in Connecticut).
Can you imagine the state of Connecticut’s economy if the New Haven line terminated in Rye or Portchester (insteadof New Haven)?

Route 7 improvements:

C-DOT needs to do a suitability study for modern roundabouts for the entire Route 7 corridor.

Links to help you think outside the box.

http://www.ourston.com/09_Live_Webcam.htm
http://www.ourston.com/ (check side bar)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/main.jhtml?xml=/motoring/2006/10/14/mflights14.xml

Reduce light pollution:

Super 7 already light pollutes and light trespasses the Merritt Parkway. Super 7 is a light pollution alley, so is the Connecticut Turnpike. Instead of adding to it, let’s remove needless light pollution. Light pollution is global travesty. Less light pollution equals less electricity consumption.

Downgrade & narrow Super 7 north of the Merritt Parkway. End Super 7 at Merritt Parkway interchange with modern roundabouts. Downgrade and narrow Super 7 north of the Merritt Parkway to one lane in each direction. In Super 7's place north of the Merritt Parkway, build “super” affordable, green LEED certified, solar-oriented housing on this state-owned land.

Create a direct bicycle and pedestrian connection from super affordable, green certified, solar-oriented housing with Glover Avenue Merritt 7 station.

Market price curb parking and terminate mandatory minimum parking requirements set by municipal planners.

Parking subsidies are the problem. By market pricing parking, a shift will occur where individuals seek appropriate means of travel, whether by train, bus, bicycle or walking.

It may make sense to use the state-owned Super 7 land north of Grist Mill Road to site a bicycle corridor.

I hope you would like to speak more about these solutions.

Thank you for taking time to read this letter.

Keep it green.
Peace.

Sincerely,

Richard M. Stowe
(203) 594-9097
(203) 966-4387

Ecoman: Welcome to the machine

2007-03-01T12:01:00.000-08:00

New Canaan Advertiser Thursday, March 1, 2007 Opinion Page 5A
Ecoman
Welcome to the Machine

by Richard M. Stowe

Addicted to oil?

OK, but what we’re really addicted to is the machine.

The machine invariably runs on carbonaceous fuels – coal, oil, or natural gas - or those so-called atoms for peace.

To witness the overwhelming power of the machine in New Canaan, take a look at the formerly pastoral fields at Irwin Park (according to one count, 47 trees were felled at the end of January and nearly two-thirds – 64% - of those trees were determined to be healthy) or further down Weed Street, to the now disfigured wetlands and woodlands, formerly known as the White property.

The 20-acre woodland property had been virtually undisturbed for years when Town Council turned down an offer to buy it as a park preserve only five years ago.

If local is micro-environmental, then regional or global is macro-environmental.

It’s the macro-environment where we measure the aggregate impact of all of our activities.

What about our health?

On Thursday February 1st the New England Journal of Medicine (http://content.nejm.org/cgi/reprint/356/5/447.pdf) reported and the Wall Street Journal summarized the results of a seven-year Women’s Health Initiative observational study, which measured the added cardiovascular health risk of breathing increased levels of fine particulate matter (PM 2.5) by 58,600 postmenopausal women in cities across the United States.

Fine particulates are produced when burning fossil fuels ”in our vehicles, power plants, and factories” as well as “from secondary particles produced by oxidation of gaseous particles emitted by these same sources.”

The conclusions were, to quote C. Arden Pope, professor at Brigham Young University, “stunning.” Professor Pope was involved in two previous soot studies where risk assessment was considerably lower.

The study concluded that the risk was 150 percent greater for women living in nation’s most polluted metropolitan areas versus the nation’s least polluted city, Honolulu. That risk differential is equivalent to the difference between an active smoker and non-smoker.

Of the 203 cities surveyed Pittsburg, PA and smog-belt sprawlopolis, Riverside-San Bernardino, CA topped the list as sootiest cities with at least 21.O micrograms of fine particulates per cubic meter of air. Honolulu placed 203rd with 5.0 micrograms per cubic meter of air.

New York City (17.0 micrograms per cubic meter of air) placed number 24 in the top tier of cities with the highest level of fine particulates though neighboring Nassau-Suffolk counties (12.4 - #141) places much lower.

Metropolitan areas in Connecticut such as Bridgeport (14.4 - #83), Waterbury (14.0 - #97), New Haven-Meriden (13.9 - #99), Danbury (13.4 - #112), Stamford-Norwalk (13.2 - #118) fall in the midrange, whereas New London-Norwich (11.7 - #158) and Hartford (11.5 - #161) have fewer fine particulates.

In 1997, the Environmental Protection Agency set a limit for exposure to fine particles at 15 micrograms per cubic meter of air.

In a February 1st editorial, the New England Journal of Medicine reports, “The findings of the WHI study strongly support the recommendation for tighter standards for long-term fine particulate air pollution.”

Last year a panel of scientists outside the Environmental Protection Agency, recommended by a 20-2 vote to lower the limit for fine particulates to 13 to 14 micrograms. In October 2006, however, Environmental Protection Agency administrator Stephen L. Johnson rejected the recommendation based on what he believed to be a lack of definitive science.

The WHI study may erase that doubt.

That’s it for this inaugural column. The column will look at impacts of the built environment on human health and nature and offer suggestions how to improve the built environment.

Keep it green.

Richard M. Stowe is president of the New Canaan Environmental Group. Prior to that he served six years as a board member for the Environmental Council of Stamford, and advocates for commuter rail and bicycling via Rail Transportation Excellence Coalition. He received a bachelor of science degree in environmental science from Marlboro College in 1980.

clark woodland preserve

2007-01-24T21:26:00.000-08:00

This morning I rode my Cannondale up to 74 Jennifer Lane to meet Brad Powell and Brendan Hanrahan. Brad and Brendan had already met when I arrived. Brendan and I walked much of the Clark property. As he had on the telephone yesterday, he had much insight to share.

Bicycling back down Smith Ridge Road I encountered what appeared to be a three-car accident. So I stopped by the New Canaan News & Review to let them know about it. Held the door open for Lauren, who I shortly learned does ad sales for the News-Review.

Attended Clark property public hearing, where I gave the following comments.

My name is Richard Stowe. I live at 12 Mead Street.

Chairman Annunziato, Parks & Recreation Chair Young, members of Town Council, members of the public, thank you for turning out for tonight’s public hearing to determine the best use for the Clark property.

I also wish to thank the New Canaan Advertiser for the photos of the Clark property displayed on their website this week.

The Clark property’s most significant asset may be water, watercourses, wetlands and vernal pools upon which a forested canopy sits.

Consider what Yale ecologist David Skelly said in a talk at the Ferguson Library’s Harry Bennett branch last week as he describes the fate of frogs in Connecticut.

“We remove timber, we build golf courses, we increase nutrients in the water and we essentially create snail farms.”

Snails become infested with thousands of trematodes – a parasite.

In the spring as the snails explode, the trematodes escape into the water, where they crawl into tadpoles and lodge into their kidneys.

The parasites cause cysts in the frog’s kidneys. Up to 500 cysts are found in an infested frogs kidney.

What impact does it have on the frog? The frog either swells up like a balloon or it dies.

And Connecticut does not have a wide variety of species of frogs.

Council members, we recognize that you have many responsibilities in your duty to represent us and we appreciate the care and concern you give in offering your time to serve our community.

As concerned citizens we stand here tonight ready to assist or help you in anyway we can for the betterment of our community. It is my hope that the Town Council Parks & Recreation committee will recommend forming an appointed committee with representation of Clark property stakeholders to study and evaluate potential uses for the property and make a recommendation as to the Clark property’s best long term use.

The committee should certainly marshal all available resources available at the state level such as the Environmental Review Team, the Southwest Conservation District and the newly formed Office of Responsible Growth.

I believe it this type of informed decision making, which will best serve to enhance the Town of New Canaan’s quality of life and character of our community.

Transportation Strategy Board recommends providing "dedicated bike space on passenger trains at all times of the day"! plus September 3rd commentary

2007-01-17T10:33:00.000-08:00

In a report entitled Connecticut's Transportation Strategy: Report and Recommendations of the Transportation Strategy Board January 2007, the Transportation Strategy Board adopted many of the recommendations offered by Rail Transportation Excellence Coalition, Elm City Cycling, Clean Water Action at an August 2006 public hearing in New Haven, in the Bicycle and Pedestrian section of its January 2007 report.

Signatures on bikes-on-trains petition, public comment at TSB public hearings and letter writing really did make a difference!

Read the excerpted public comment given at a TSB meeting at Gateway Community College in New Haven last summer and...

VERBATIM PROCEEDINGS
CONNECTICUT TRANSPORTATION STRATEGY BOARD
PUBLIC HEARING
RE: ACTION PLAN FOR CONNECTICUT
AUGUST 9, 2006
60 SARGENT DRIVE
NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT
Verbatim proceedings of a Public Hearing before the Connecticut Transportation Strategy Board held…at 6:58 p.m.

(excerpted)… CHAIRMAN KELLEHER: …Grace Burson? Good evening.
MS. GRACE BURSON: Good evening. Thank you for this opportunity. I’m here as a private citizen, although I’m more or less affiliated with several environmental and activist groups. This is essentially my own opinion that I’m presenting. From the perspective of someone who’s environmental concerned, but who’s also the owner of a car and a bicycle and who uses both to get around in Connecticut and also takes public transportation when possible and I have to say having just gotten back from a year spent in Germany I’m still in a bit of culture shock because on the Swiss/German border the public transit is spectacular. You can get up in the morning and know you can get anywhere within a 100 mile radius on a combination of bike in a designated lane, bus, short haul commuter rail and long haul high speed inter-city rail and that was -- that really spoiled us rotten during the past year.
But I personally don’t think there’s any reason that Connecticut couldn’t be exactly the same.

… So in what I’m saying about the rail and bus aspects that’s my own opinion, but when I talk about bikes I’m also representing the opinion of the other biker who had to leave and asked me to speak for him as well because we’re on the same list so we’ve had the same talking points. So first of all, I just want to reiterate what many people have been saying, that getting people off the highway is paramount at this point. That continuing to build highways is really just blocking ourselves into a corner and doesn’t improve anything because you just build more lanes and more drivers appear to take up those lanes and so it’s kind of self-defeating project and the future is really with public transit and especially with inter-modal forms of public transit.
I want to put in another plug for the New Haven/Hartford/Springfield rail line. I think it’s a terrific idea. I think it’s long overdue. My father has been commuting to work from New Haven to Hartford for the last 28 years and he uses the E-Z Ride or whatever it’s called van pool, E-Z Street, that’s it, but I think he probably would have been riding the train if there had been one all of this time. So probably 10,000 or $20,000 in rail -- in rail fees that he would have paid over the course of that career that instead went to E-Z Street.
And particularly in all of the projected rail improvements, all of which I think are really important, I’d like to make a plug for, including wherever possible room for bikes on those trains. On the Metro North cars, the also long overdue Metro North cars that will be coming online I believe in 2009 I think there’s some question as to whether those will have space for bikes and I’d just like to make a plug for allowing bikes on those cars because the more you can get to the station in some other form than a car the more you don’t need that parking garage that Mike Piscatelli was so eloquently pleading for and fewer -- the less congestion you have in the city center as well as on the highway.
MR. PHIL SMITH: We’ll check, but my recollection is that there are bus (sic) facilities on the new cars.
MS. BURSON: Okay.
MR. PHIL SMITH: Bike facilities, I’m sorry.
MS. BURSON: There was definitely some concern among the subscribers to that email list that they had heard that that was in fact not going to happen, but if it is all the better. And also this is probably something for local municipalities rather than the State Transportation Plan, but bike lanes, bike lanes, bike lanes. It makes a huge difference when you can just cycle happily alongside the traffic knowing that you have your own space where people are not going to come up on your behind and honk and throw things at you out the window and tell you to get out of the road. It’s safer, it’s easier, it’s less of a hassle and everybody’s happy.
There’s been some great progress in New Haven in the past few years with the Orange Street bike lane, but I’ve also heard that with the cost of fuel and paint going up along with the price of oil that that may start to slow down a bit and I’d just like to give a little push to continue to stripe a bike lane anywhere that a street is repaved if at all possible. And as someone who, as I said, I just got back from Europe and have been in the job market and I’m about to probably start a job in Simsbury very soon that New Haven/Hartford/Springfield rail line can’t come soon enough and if it has a bike car on it then maybe I can just take my bike and get off and ride to work and that would be great.
CHAIRMAN KELLEHER: Thank you.
MS. ALEXANDER: Thank you very much and apologies. I’m going to run because I’d like to get home on my bicycle before it’s pitch dark.

CHAIRMAN KELLEHER: We fully understand. Thank you very much Grace.
Our next presenter is Roger Smith. Is Roger here? I’m going to put a little bit of time pressure on. We have four names remaining and if you can help me out with my call by quarter of 9:00, 15 minutes. So --
MR. ROGER SMITH: I’ll do my best.
CHAIRMAN KELLEHER: -- well, you and three others. So you can lead off.
MR. ROGER SMITH: Okay. My name’s Roger Smith and I’m the campaign director for Clean Water Action in Hartford and we don’t normally testify before the Transportation Strategy Board, but we’re here today out of a concern about global warming…

…So our first concern is that carbon dioxide doesn’t seem to be part of the planning process. Transportation right now accounts for somewhere about 39 percent of emissions from fossil fuel sources in Connecticut and we expect that if we don’t do anything that vehicle miles are going to increase somewhere around 22 percent by the year 2020 according to our state climate plan. And these rising emissions are completely incompatible with the global warming goals that our Governor has set out for the state of Connecticut as part of a regional initiative…

And the second recommendation that we have is that we really support an immediate start on our rail system here. I mean, again, with the lag times, you know, we need to get whatever planning is to be done done now so we can actually get this thing started and moving. And I wanted to say that we shouldn’t be choosing between the New Haven to Springfield line and the Shoreline East line. Without both of them we’re not going to be meeting our greenhouse gas goals or our air pollution goals.
And I’m also concerned that we make sure that we’re doing it right. So, you know, if we’re buying new rail cars now we’re going to have them for a while, so you know, do they all have the capability to, you know, to support bikes. And if we’re going to be upgrading any bridges are we sure that we’re doing it in a way that’s going to maximize rail transit over the next 30 years or 50 years or whatever the life is of the bridge? So there’s some things there with lag times that we don’t want to get stuck on the wrong side of it realizing too late that we need to make some expensive changes.

CHAIRMAN KELLEHER: … Jason Stockman?
VOICE: Jason has left and he asked (indiscernible, too far from mic.)
CHAIRMAN KELLEHER: Okay. So we’re going to make up the time because Richard Stowe is our next speaker so you’re going to handle both?
MR. RICHARD STOWE: Yep.
CHAIRMAN KELLEHER: And you’re going be a hero here. You’ve got six minutes.
MR. STOWE: Okay.
CHAIRMAN KELLEHER: If you do it in three I’ll do whatever you want, whatever you propose, we’ll just -- it’ll be policy next week. I’m just kidding.
(Laughter)
MR. STOWE: Chairman Kelleher and TSB members, it’s an honor to address you in such an esteemed academic environment. Karen, it’s a pleasure to see you again this evening. Members, with global warming at our doorstep, the global peak oil era looming, unacceptably high numbers of motor vehicle related deaths and injuries both human and fauna, air quality noncompliance in Connecticut’s most populated corridors, continued gas price increases and vehicular congestion on our roads it is time for the state of Connecticut to seek new cost effective transportation strategies and transportation investments.
Simply widening a highway or enlarging a signalized interchange is no longer a viable -- viable transportation solution option. That includes building concrete freeways dedicated exclusively for buses on top of invaluable railroad right of ways. Instead, the state of Connecticut needs to formulate a comprehensive statewide transportation strategy in which commuter rail and rail freight are primary drivers of the state’s economy and the bicycle replaces the automobile for many short trips.
This strategy includes safer on street cycling through bicycle friendly road design, improvements in rail conductivity with neighboring states. One example would be Metro North service from New Haven through New Rochelle Junction to Jamaica Station, JFK in Nassau County via the Hellsgate Bridge. Bicycles should also be given unfettered inter-modal access to the state’s trains and buses.
The state of Connecticut will soon make its largest purchase of passenger rail cars in over 30 years. At minimum a purchase of 210 M-8 train cars and Kawasaki rail cars with an option to purchase 170 more. Now is the time to select leather seat coverings for the M-8 train car seats. Leather seats will be superior in look, feel and durability. Jet Blue Airways has successfully provided leather seats on all of its coach seats.
The good news is that these cars are designed not only to run on Metro North’s New Haven line, but also on Connecticut DOT Shoreline East corridor. The bad news is that the current design for the M-8 car does not yet include dedicated space for parking bicycles. Tri-Rail, Caltrain, Altamont Commuter Express, Metrolink, Coast or Pacific Surfliner, Capitol Corridor are all examples of U.S. commuter rail lines, which now have dedicated bicycle parking on their train cars. In Europe dedicated bicycle parking on trains is the rule, not the exception.
It’s time for Connecticut’s Metro North New Haven line to join those agencies by providing dedicated bicycle parking on its new M-8 train cars. And just for the record, I had a conversation with Charles Clarke who oversees the rail car design process and it was his opinion that at this point there is not a separate set aside for bicycles on the trains, but if there’s public interest, you know, that could be accommodated.
Any loss of seating due to a dedicated area for bicycle parking may be recovered by purchasing more train cars because we have like the option to buy 380. We’re purchasing 210, but we can upgrade, you know, up the order and the benefit for that, aside from the bicycle -- the bicycle access is that with more -- even though you may have fewer seats per train car, with more train cars that allows for more frequent train service and that’s something everybody would benefit from.
Dedicated bicycle parking on trains allow for -- allow bicyclists to bicycle on both ends of a train trip to locations too far to bicycle commute to. It is a feasible way to contribute to -- to commute to work without a car. Seamless rail commuter service from Grand Central to New Haven, Hartford or Springfield, we went a long way this year with Governor Rell’s proposal to have a branch line between New Haven and Springfield. We should really go all the way on this because the rule of thumb in the rail industry is you lose over half your ridership when you have to just switch from one train to another.
In the 1990s Amtrak went through a Federal consistency review process to gain approval for it’s $1.7 billion northeast corridor electrification project from New Haven to Boston. Amtrak and the DEP Boating Division signed an agreement in 1996 which limited the number of trains traveling east of Old Saybrook to 34 trains per day. In 2003 an enforcement action was taken against Amtrak for exceeding that limit. As a result of that action Amtrak agreed to reduce Shoreline East service to New London but was also granted permission to operate 38 trains per day east of -- east to Old Saybrook. In 2004 that number was increased to 39. Excuse me, east of Old Saybrook, yeah.
A rule of thumb measure for an economically viable electrified corridor requires a minimum of 90 trains per day. So this issue has to be addressed. The limit on the train service is based on a coastal access provision in the Connecticut Coastal Management Act of 1980. When trains cross the five movable bridges which span the Connecticut River, Niantic River, Shaw’s Cove, Thames River and Mystic Harbor boating use is impeded between Long Island Sound and the rivers or harbors north of the drawbridges. With drawbridges Metro North’s new M-8 cars are confined to running it’s service only as far as Old Saybrook. By replacing drawbridges with high-level bridges Metro North’s new M-8 cars can operate frequent service from Grand Central to New London and Providence optimizing the electrification investment on the northeast corridor. With high level bridges boaters will have unimpeded access between the rivers and Long Island Sound.
Trirail recently doubled tracked its corridor and replaced a drawbridge with a $70,000,000 high-level bridge over the New River in Fort Lauderdale. In the 1990s a drawbridge in Bridgeport was replaced with a high level bridge on the New Haven line. New Jersey Transit will likely replace a drawbridge over the Hoboken River with a high level bridge. Interstate 95 has high-level bridges. Why shouldn’t the Shoreline East corridor? Why widen I-95 when you can significantly upgrade the Shoreline East corridor by building high-level bridges and carry people and goods much more efficiently by train?
Amtrak has already started construction on a lift bridge over the Thames River. The replacement of the Niantic River Bridge is in its final design, but has no funding. You must change Amtrak’s current course of action so that drawbridges are replaced with high level bridges, otherwise train service will be severely constrained on the Shoreline East corridor east of Old Saybrook for the remainder of the century.
Let me just say there are lots of other issues of concern in the transportation arena such as modern roundabouts and smart growth without minimum parking requirements. In fact, how many of you have read the book The High Cost of Free Parking? I highly recommend it. And I’ll just conclude that Connecticut, the land of steady habits, will soon see the benefit of positive change. I encourage the state to take action on the specific suggestions contained within this letter. If it does Connecticut will take a leadership position which will likely be watched and emulated by much of the nation on providing safe, sensible, efficient, effective and health-minded transportation for it’s residents, employees and visitors. Thank you for allowing me to run over there.
CHAIRMAN KELLEHER: That’s okay. Thank you Richard very much. Thank you for your passion and commitment for what you stand for.
MR. STOWE: Sure.
CHAIRMAN KELLEHER: And thank you all, those of you that have stayed. It certainly has been very informative for all of us. We appreciate your candor and your input and taking the time out of your busy schedules to be here with us and as I said, Richard exemplified what all of you did which is really a passionate commitment to the opinion that you have and we certainly respect that. So thank you very much.
(Whereupon, the hearing was adjourned at 8:48 p.m.)

the commentary piece written in August for the Hartford Courant. It may have indirectly reinforced our message to policymakers.

It was reprinted in Stamford Advocate & Greenwich Time on Sunday September 10, 2006.

THE HARTFORD COURANT Sunday, September 3, 2006 C5
Commentary
PLACE
COMMENTARY ABOUT WHERE WE LIVE

Make Room for Bikes on Rail Cars

By RICHARD M. STOWE

Last month the State Bond Commission approved $459 million toward the largest purchase of rails cars in state history - 300 new M8's (with an option to purchase 80 more) from Kawaski Rail Car, Inc. and $25 million
toward refurbishing existing rail cars. Initial delivery for new cars is due in 2009.

The good news is that these cars are designed to run not only on Metro-North Railroad's New Haven Line, but also on the state Department of Transportation's Shore Line East corridor.

The bad news is that the design for the M-8 cars does not yet include dedicated space for parking bicycles.

Connecticut should formulate a statewide transportation strategy in which the bicycle replaces the automobile for many short trips and commuter rail replaces the automobile for many longer trips.

This transportation strategy will help reduce our addiction to oil and mitigate its unwanted effects - blood-stained fields in the Middle East, oil-soaked waters in the Mediterranean, global warming, the coming global peak oil crisis, unacceptably high numbers of motor vehicle-related deaths and injuries, air pollution, continued gas price increases and mind-numbing congestion on our highways.

To increase rail safety and speed, we should invest in infrastructure, such as signalization upgrades, double tracking and grade separation projects as well as the new rail cars. Similarly, we should improve bicycle safety by the judicious development of multi-use trails and by using bicycle-friendly road design. Car lanes may be narrowed and shoulders widened by simply repainting roadway edge striping. Narrower car lanes calm traffic and wider shoulders improve safety for bicyclists.

Finally, bicycles and trains should be coupled in an intermodal strategy, in which bicyclists are encouraged to bring their bikes on trains.
Nationally, this was once discouraged by requiring riders to buy bicycle permits and by keeping bikes off peak-hour trains.

When these impediments are removed (Governor Christine Todd Whitman eliminated permits in New Jersey), and separate bicycle parking areas on new train cars are established, more bicyclists commute by train.

Examples of federally-subsidized commuter rail and state-subsidized Amtrak lines that have dedicated bicycle parking on their train cars include Tri-Rail (from West Palm Beach, Fla., to Miami), Caltrain (from
San Jose, Calif., to San Francisco), Altamont Commuter Express (Stockton, Calif., to San Jose), Metrolink (a six-county Los Angeles metro region), Coaster (San Diego County), Pacific Surfliner (San Diego to San Luis Obispo, Calif.) and Capitol Corridor (San Jose to
Sacramento). Central Florida Commuter Rail will provide bike parking on its train cars when the 61-mile commuter rail line serving the Greater Orlando vicinity opens in 2009.

And in Europe, bicycle parking on trains is the rule, not the exception.

It is time for Connecticut to join the parade by providing bike parking on the new M-8 train cars.

The new M-8 train cars and the refurbished cars will give Metro-North's New Haven Line excess capacity for the first time in its history. With a larger inventory of rail cars, Metro-North can not only provide dedicated space on its new rail cars for bicycle parking, but also more frequent train service.

Letting cyclists bring their bikes on trains will reduce demand for scarce motor vehicle parking spaces at stations. Bicycling becomes a feasible way to commute to work without a car.

Including bicycle parking in the final design of the rail cars is a cost-effective investment in our public transportation system. Bypassing such an investment now may lead to much more expensive rail-car retrofits at a later date.
Connecticut will soon see the benefits. And it will likely be emulated by other state rail agencies on the Northeast Corridor. Let's encourage Connecticut legislators and officials to provide safe, sensible, efficient and health-minded transportation for residents, employees and visitors.

Richard M. Stowe of New Canaan is director of Rail Transportation Excellence Coalition of Connecticut and president of the New Canaan Environmental Group, an environmental education organization.

Photograph of Caltrain bike car was published in the Hartford Courant.

CALTRAIN WAS ONE OF THE PIONEER RAIL SYSTEMS in the United States for accommodating bicycles. The system, which runs from San Francisco to San Jose and Gilroy, faces calls for more bike capacity on its trains.

rain, fog, record warmth

2007-01-05T17:31:00.000-08:00

Rainy day and warm. As I walked out of Whole Foods Market. As I left the market, I turned to the woman walking beside me and commented about the weather. Her reply: "I'm going to the beach tomorrow."

Stopped by Greenwich Time and Greenwich Post offices. A story about the Greenwich express train proposal appeared in the December 28th Greenwich Post. It appears below.

Greenwich Post Thursday, December 28, 2006 7A

Area man's transportation proposal could mean faster trains to New York

By Ken Borsuk
Staff Reporter

A New Canaan man's proposal could have a big impact on Greenwich Metro-North customers.

Richard Stowe, of the Rail Transportation Excellence Coalition, is advocating converting the New Canaan to Stamford shuttle services to direct, seamless service to Grand Central Terminal in New York City. He said doing this would have several advantages, including creating a "Greenwich express train" throughout the day, which would feature trips to Stamford in seven minutes and allow for trips to Grand Central in only 40 minutes. It would also connect New Canaan and Greenwich all day long.

"The Greenwich Avenue station is one of the highest passenger boarding stations on the whole Metro-North New Haven line, which is one of the most heavily patronized corridors in the nation," Mr. Stowe said. "Twice as many ride it daily than they do Amtrak national at the Greenwich station, it seems that Metro-North patronage at the Greenwich station, it seems that Metro-North should provide a quicker express service."

Mr. Stowe, a longtime transportation and environmental advocate, said converting the service would allow more people to take the trains, increasing business for Metro-North, as well as getting more cars off the already congested highways. With shorter travel times would better serve commuters and benefit area businesses.

He added the change would eliminate the need for passengers to change trains when going from Grand Central to New Canaan, which, he said, has created potential challenges for the elderly, physically disabled and those carrying luggage or packages.

"Since employees and train cars are already assigned to the New Canaan branch line, additional costs, crews and cars needed to establish the Greenwich Express train are incremental." Mr. Stowe said in a letter he had sent to Stamford Dannel Malloy and other elected representatives. "No expensive infrastructure investments are needed."

According in Mr. Stowe, his proposal has met with a lot of support wherever he's brought it. On Dec. 13, he addressed the Connecticut Commuter Rail Council, a state authorized organization representing commuters, in Bridgeport and has been invited to come back for its Jan. 17 meeting in Stamford. He said he's also gotten good feedback from the state Department of Transportation's Department of Rail.

"I'm seeing a lot of interest in this," Mr. Stowe said.

Mr. Stowe would appear to have a supporter in the legislature in State Sen. William Nickerson. Mr. Nickerson, who represents Greenwich and New Canaan, said his office receives many transportation proposals, but agreed with Mr. Stowe's call for increased service.

"We need to improve transportation services, improve scheduling and we need to build the new railroad with the new rail cars as soon as possible," Mr. Nickerson said. "It will be a benefit both to our citizens' convenience. Richard is an important part of the dialogue abut this as a transportation advocate and I certainly enjoy hearing from him."

Mr. Nickerson has made improving rail service a legislative priority and has worked with Gov. M. Jodi Rell to secure financing for new rail cars.

"The concept of providing more service on Metro-North is one I certainly support," Mr. Nickerson said. "There's no question that the future of transportation in Fairfield County is train service and not just from Fairfield to New York City, but in the growing trend of people from New York City to the job centers in Stamford and Greenwich."

More information about the Rail Transportation Excellence Coalition is available by calling 966-4387 or e-mailing bike.rail.politics@gmail.com.

kbosuk@acorn-online.com

as the planet burns

2007-01-04T23:38:00.000-08:00

Out with the old, in with the new.

8th district of Ohio representative John Boehner, and newly minted House minority leader, passed the gavel to 8th district of California representative Nancy Pelosi.

Representative Pelosi made history becoming the nation's first women Speaker of the House. Congratulations to her, congratulations to the Democratic party, congratulations to America. Let bells ring for freedom and equality for all. Let's celebrate the day.

But, its been so much warmer this winter than I expected and I think that's of greater import.

So now, can we focus our elected representatives attention on ratifying the Kyoto protocol, so the world can move on to a stronger agreement to come to grips with the surging tidal wave of global climate change.

Combine that reality with the fact that worldwide discoveries of oil peaked in 1961 and the peak of worldwide petroleum production is closing in on us.

a bureaucratic response

2007-01-04T23:01:00.000-08:00

Before the Christmas holidays I received the following letter from H. James Boice, the Deputy Commissioner of State of Connecticut's Department of Transportation.

Office of the Commissioner
State of Connecticut
Department of Transportation
2800 Berlin Turnpike, P.O. Box 317546
Newington, Connecticut 06131-7546

December 11, 2006

Mr. Richard M. Stowe
P.O. Box 732
New Canaan, CT 06840

Dear Mr. Stowe,

Your recent letter to Senator William H. Nickerson regarding rail service on the New Haven Line has been forwarded to the Department of Transportation (Department) for response.

The Department is conducting a Needs and Feasibility Study on the New Haven Line's recommended infrastructure and service improvements which will include an evaluation of the costs and benefits of the recommended improvements. The results of this study will provide decision-makers with the information necessary to determine how the needs of the Waterbury and New Canaan Branch Line corridors fit into an overall statewide transportation strategy, which must balance needs and funding ability. The study will commence in 2007.

Your suggestions have been forwarded to the Department's Bureau of Policy and Planning for evaluation during this study. In addition, you will be added to the study's e-mail mailing list.

Thank you for your suggestions concerning the Connecticut commuter rail system.

Sincerely,

H. James Boice
Deputy Commissioner

cc: The Honorable William H. Nickerson

Considering that this proposal requires no infrastructure upgrades to either the New Canaan branch line, nor the New Haven main line, this appears as if it is a poor attempt to bury a challenging proposal for 7 years or so (the projected time to completer two phases of the Danbury branch line study.)

While I welcome the New Canaan and Waterbury studies, it is evaluation of infrastructure improvements that merit priority in the study. I believe that the MNRR scheduling department is perfectly capable of passing judgment on worthiness of service improvement proposals without the assistance of outside consultants.

I just need to marshal support for this proposal, so it can it can be set on a fast track to implementation.

Tri-Rail: South Florida's commuter rail

2007-01-02T13:54:00.000-08:00

Story below based on the following sources:

Dateline: Fort Lauderdale, Deerfield Beach, Florida
Source: South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Date: Sunday, December 24, 2006
Story: Tri-Rail goal: Get on track, on time p. 2B
By: Michael Turnbell, transportation writer
Editorial: Issue: Tri-Rail carries 3 million in a year p. 4H
Source: Tri Rail website
Story: Train Tracking Status: Overview - http://www.tri-rail.com/double_tracking/fact_sheet.htm

Investing in Commuter Rail on South Florida's gold coast
by Richard M. Stowe

On December 11, 2006 Tri-Rail, South Florida's commuter rail line surpassed 3-million passengers in a one-year period for the first time in its eighteen year history. Also of note is that ridership grew by 36 percent for the summer months of June, July and August from 2005 to 2006. The 72-mile rail corridor, which runs parallel to Interstate 95, operates between Mangonia Park (north of West Palm Beach) and Miami Airport (east of the Miami International Airport).

What's fueling this burst in ridership? Its a nearly completed 338.5 million dollar project called the Double Track Corridor Improvement Program. The project includes building 43.5 miles of second mainline track, 24 new, rehabilitated or replacement bridges, signalization upgrades and full closure of all seventy grade crossings. The acquisition of five locomotives has allowed for the number of weekday trains to increase from by a third - from thirty to forty.

Just two more miles of double track await completion.

The crown jewel of the project, a new high level bridge spanning the New River in Fort Lauderdale, is scheduled to be completed this April. The double track bridge will replace a single-track drawbridge, which delays train passengers and boaters alike. In April ten more trains will be added to the schedule so trains will run in twenty minute intervals during peak hours.

Control of dispatch operations will also shift from CSX to Southern Florida Regional Transportation Authority, first on the high level New River bridge and then systemwide in a 491 million dollar agreement between CSX and the State of Florida announced in August. This agreement will not only improve on-time performance (Tri-Rail trains will now have priority over CSX freight trains), but also will allow future commuter rail expansion southward to Homestead and north to Jupiter.

Bicycling to and from Tri-Rail stations is easier now, too, because since December 2006, bicycle permits are no longer required when you take your bicycle on the train.

With these changes Tri-Rail is proving itself as a positive role model for other commuter rail operators, while at the same time providing both residents and sun seeking tourists with a viable alternative to Southern Florida's crowded Interstate 95 corridor.

2006-12-10T19:00:00.000-08:00

The worse than do nothing 109th Congress came to a close this weekend. One of my new years resolutions is to establish more meaningful communication with the incoming 110th Congress.

seeking bikes on train petition signatures

2006-12-07T19:54:00.000-08:00

Yesterday morning I attended the the Connecticut League of Conservation Voters Education Fund Legislative Conference on the Environment.

It was cold at 7 a.m. when I jogged toward the South Avenue entrance to Waveny Park to meet Jane Moffett of Greenwich. At 7:30 she drove up in a white Toyota Corolla and we set off for the meeting at the Jaycees boathouse on the west bank of the Connecticut River north of Hartford.

The moderator for the meeting was CTLCV board member Julie Belaga, the Republican nominee for Governor in 1986 (She lost to William O'Neill) and speakers featured political luminaries House Speaker Jim Amman, Co-chair of the Environment Committee State Senator Bill Finch and Environment Committee's ranking chairman State Senator John McKinney and DEP commissioner Gina McCarthy.

Julie Belaga was among many who signed the bikes on trains petition I circulated.

Jane and I left the boathouse in the early afternoon.

That evening I bicycled to a Democracy for America party in East Norwalk featuring Jim Dean and Ned Lamont. Jim, Ned and his wife Annie were among those who signed the bikes on trains petition that evening.

Today I picked up the following letter from my state senator.

Senator William H. Nickerson, 36th District
State Capitol
Hartford, Connecticut 06106-1591

November 30, 2006

Mr. Richard M. Stowe
P.O. Box 732
New Canaan CT 06840

Re: New Canaan Branch Line

Dear Richard:

Thank you for your letter expressing your thoughts on how service on the New Canaan line might be improved.

In order to provide you with a response I am forwarding a copy of your letter to Deputy Commissioner Boice at the Department of Transportation with the request that he respond to you, with a copy to me. I look forward to his answer.

Meanwhile, I appreciate having the benefit of your thinking.

Very truly yours,

William H. Nickerson

WHN:mat

cc: Deputy Commissioner H. James Boice - w/enc.
Department of Transportation
2800 Berlin Turnpike Box 317546
Newington, CT 06131-7546

a evening ride to the cove

2006-11-30T20:23:00.000-08:00

Bicycled 20 miles, most of that total was a ride down to the Soundwater's Annual meeting earlier this evening. Heard Gina McCarthy, the Commissioner of Connecticut's Department of Environmental Protection, the state's agency charged to protect the state's environment speak. I arrived late, but she was still taking questions.

I asked the final two questions of the evening: the first was regarding the conflict between enforcing the Coastal Management Access Act of 1980 and the agreement Amtrak signed with Department of Environmental Protection, which caps the number of trains allowed to travel east of Old Saybrook per day; the second was related to the "No Child Left Inside" theme of her talk, in which I asked if she would promote statewide bicycle instruction for children. After the program ended I collected signatures for the bikes on trains petition and briefly met Ms. McCarthy.

The ride itself was more interesting than the meeting. The smell of composting leaves at the Waveny Park mulch pile was industrial in strength. The warmth and humidity in the air was truly incredulous for last day in November. The smells of salt water at the mouth of the Noroton River seemed summerlike. Light pollution from the back side of the restaurant on the Boston Post Road was stark. Glare from Waveny paddle tennis courts lights was blinding. Light pollution was evident at every turn of the ride: some was municipal, much was private, the rest was sky glow.

monday, monday

2006-11-27T20:00:00.000-08:00

I've been home for about an hour and half. I bicycled down to Cablevision earlier this evening to take the test for the public access training course, which I've been attending for the last five Mondays. It was warm when I left the building so I bicycled over to Wild Oats to pick up some food. There I learned that Schela who has been my favorite checker for the past five years just got married! Too bad I wasn't invited to the wedding! Rode thirteen miles.

Sunday was another balmy day. I rode 37 miles up from Manhattan, then I played some paddle tennis. Just enough cycling so I felt like I got some exercise.

Today, I sent out the following press release to four newspapers.

Rail Transportation Excellence Coalition has requested improvements to New Canaan branch line service during off peak hours in telephone conversations with C-DOT rail officials and officials in the MNRR scheduling department.

One request is to allow for a cross-platform transfer in Stamford from track 5 where train #1777, the New Canaan local train (departs New Canaan at 5:14 p.m.) to train #1577, a GCT-bound express train, on track 3. To attain a cross platform transfer, trains #1777 and #1775 from New Canaan would depart a few minutes earlier, train #1742 would arrive in New Canaan earlier and train #1577 would depart Stamford a few minutes later.

“If this change is feasible, Manhattan-bound passengers boarding in New Canaan will save nearly 20 minutes on this last afternoon weekday train to Grand Central Terminal,” said Richard Stowe of Rail Transportation Excellence Coalition.

A more far-reaching proposal suggested to Metro-North scheduling officials, is to convert New Canaan branch line off-peak shuttle service to direct semi-express service. These semi-express trains would arrive in Stamford from New Canaan or Manhattan at approximately 20 to 25 minutes after the hour (currently scheduled off-peak express trains arrive and depart Stamford between 50 and 55 minutes after the hour.) In order to draw a sufficient number of passengers to the off peak express service, at minimum, the semi-express service would include a station stop in Greenwich. Other intermediate stops may include New Rochelle and Rye.

The upside to this proposal is significant.

As Richard Stowe points out, “This service, if initiated, will be a great gift to elderly populations, physically disabled individuals and those carrying heavy luggage and packages who travel on the New Canaan branch line, by eliminating challenging platform changes, which require negotiating time-consuming stairways, escalators or elevators, when returning to New Canaan from Grand Central Terminal. Trip times will be shorter, too.”

Faster direct trains better serves existing customers and draws new passengers, which will benefit business communities in Greenwich, New Canaan and Stamford.

An additional express train through Stamford translates to daily half-hour express service to Manhattan from Stamford all day long and an off-peak ‘Greenwich Express’ train, with a seven minute trip to Stamford and 40-minute ride to Grand Central Terminal.

This service would also seamlessly connect the New Canaan station with the Greenwich Avenue station throughout the day. Currently, on most off-peak service from New Canaan to Greenwich, the passenger is saddled with a twenty-minute layover at the Stamford Transportation Center, followed by a ten-minute trip to Greenwich station.

A letter, which details the proposal, has been sent to local state reps and state senators, who currently serve on the Connecticut General Assembly’s transportation committee and to the chief elected officials in Greenwich, Stamford and New Canaan.

“This proposal is consistent with Governor Rell’s goal to create safer and more convenient mass transit options, which induce commuters off the car-choked Connecticut Turnpike and Merritt Parkway corridors,” said Richard Stowe.

Since employees and train cars are already assigned to the New Canaan branch line, additional costs needed to establish the “Greenwich Express” train would be incremental. No physical infrastructure investments are necessary.

Any future infrastructure improvements, which may take place as the result of the New Canaan branch line study, will certainly benefit this direct service to Grand Central.

Members of the public who support upgrading the New Canaan branch line shuttle service to a Manhattan-bound “Greenwich Express” are encouraged to contact Rail Transportation Excellence Coalition at bike.rail.politics@gmail.com or (203) 966-4387.

Rail Transportation Excellence Coalition
P.O. Box 732
New Canaan, CT 06840
(203) 966-4387
bike.rail.politics@gmail.com

And the following letter to Mayor Malloy, the First Selectmen in Greenwich and New Canaan and six local state senators and state reps who currently serve on the Transportation Committee.

The Honorable Dannel P. Malloy
10th Floor Government Center
888 Washington Boulevard
Stamford CT 06902

Dear Mayor Malloy:

I am writing to share with you a service improvement to the Metro-North New Haven Line, which Rail Transportation Excellence Coalition proposed to scheduling officials at MNRR and C-DOT rail division on Friday November 17, 2006.

The proposal is to convert or upgrade New Canaan branch line off-peak shuttle service to direct semi-express service.

These semi-express trains would arrive in Stamford from New Canaan or Manhattan at approximately 20 to 25 minutes after the hour (currently scheduled off-peak express trains arrive and depart Stamford between 50 and 55 minutes after the hour) followed (or preceded) by a station stop in Greenwich.

To draw sufficient numbers of passengers for the service, other intermediate stops might include New Rochelle and/or Rye.

There are six major advantages to converting the New Canaan to Stamford shuttle service to direct, seamless service to Grand Central Terminal.

1) Increases in the passenger/operating cost ratio. Currently, the New Canaan branch line draws from 450 to 500 passengers daily on average (300 to 350 board at the New Canaan station) on all of its off-peak trains. By running a seamless service to Grand Central Terminal, the New Canaan train adds passengers on at Stamford and Greenwich. West of Greenwich (1400 passengers/day weekday off-peak), the New Canaan train may also stop at New Rochelle (1600) and/or Rye (1100) or Fordham to pick-up or drop off additional passengers.

2) Travel time to and from Grand Central Terminal will be shorter. Faster, direct train service better serves existing customers and draws new passengers, which benefits business communities in Greenwich, New Canaan and Stamford.

3) Creates half-hour express service throughout the day at the Stamford Transportation Center, a desired goal set by public officials.

4) Creates an off-peak ‘Greenwich Express’ train all day long, with a seven-minute trip to Stamford and 40-minute trip to Grand Central Terminal.

5) Seamlessly connects the New Canaan station with the Greenwich Avenue station throughout the day. Currently, travel time between the two stations is 47-minutes - that includes a twenty-minute layover on almost all off-peak trains at the Stamford Transportation Center. With seamless service, travel time is cut in half to 24 minutes!

6) Seamless service eliminates the need for passengers to walk from one platform to another, which requires negotiating stairways, escalators or elevators, when returning to New Canaan from Grand Central Terminal. Required platform changes on New Canaan branch line off-peak trains may create undue challenges for elderly populations, physically disabled individuals and those carrying heavy luggage and packages and may suppress patronage among these groups.

Since employees and train cars are already assigned to the New Canaan branch line, additional costs, crews and cars, needed to establish the “Greenwich Express” train are incremental. No expensive infrastructure investments are needed.

The Connecticut General Assembly can help make this proposal a reality in the upcoming 2007 legislative session, by passing a bill to support starting this seamless service. Seamless service from Shoreline East and Springfield-Hartford—New Haven to Grand Central can also be included in this bill. Initiating seamless service from New Canaan to Grand Central provides a bold, but realistic way to help reduce traffic congestion in our car-choked region.

Please share your views with me on this proposal.

Thank you,

Sincerely,

Richard M. Stowe
Rail Transportation Excellence Coalition

"Poor George, he can't help it, he was born with a silver foot in his mouth"

2006-09-14T21:13:00.000-07:00

This morning (first four paragraphs written on September 14, 2006) I learned of passing of Ann Richards, the Governor of Texas from 1991 to 1995.

While visiting my brother in Huntsville, Texas in 1990, I had the opportunity to watch Ms. Richards face off against Clayton Williams in a televised gubenatorial debate. Ms. Richards clearly upended the west Texas oilman. But the oilman, with a swimming pool shaped like an oil rig, undermined his campaign when he told reporters "Rape is like the weather, you can't do anything about it so you might as well lay back and enjoy it."

Ms. Richards most notable act as Governor was to veto legislation, which threatened the Edwards aquifer.

Funny thing, three years later while Ann still was the Governor of Texas I bicycled across the United States. On that trip I stayed in Austin long enough to attend a heated Austin city council hearing on a development proposal, which would threaten water quality in the Edwards Aquifer watershed. New Orleans, Louisiana-based Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. was the developer seeking project approval.

Freeport McMoRan was in the news eight days ago (November 19, 2006) when announced plans to acquire Phelps Dodge and in doing so create the largest copper mining concern in the world.

Phelps Dodge property in Arizona also appeared later on in my cross country ride. That day I rode past Phelps Dodge's huge open pit copper mine in Morenci (elevation 4000 feet) on a 60 mile climb from Clifton (elevation 3400 feet) to Hannagan's Meadow (elevation 9300 feet) - my biggest one-day elevation gain on the trip.

The Morenci mine was the site of an August 1983 United Steel Workers Union general strike of infamy when then Governor Bruce Babbitt joined forces with company executives to help break the backs of organized labor by calling in the National Guard. Ann Coulter's father - John Coulter, an ex-FBI agent, an attorney and Phelp's Dodge vice-president, served as one of Phelp's Dodge eastern labor relations directors at that time and apparently played a role in breaking the 1983 strike.

Sorry I didn't attempt to schedule a visit with Governor Richards at the State Capitol at that time. The thought never occurred to me.

Sunday paper

2006-07-30T06:35:00.000-07:00

Its a sunny Sunday morning. It's 9:30 a.m. and its already 81 degrees.

In my patio honey bees are hovering over the echinaeca flowers, which in appearance seem to be a pinkish variety of a black-eyed susan and a bumble bee is pollinating the budding flowers of what will soon be this year's crop of raspberries.

I'm relaxing after a day at the beach, a train ride to Bayshore and a ferry ride to Ocean Bay Park with Wanda, a turbulent swim at Point 'O Woods, a midday sun retreat into the forest, first to visit Annalise in Oakleyville, a friend I met last summer - an anthropology professor, who teaches in Europe, then a walk through Sunken Forest and finally a swim back the coast from one end of Point 'O Woods to the other.

Nearly a week earlier on Monday July 24th, after returning from dropping off my brother at JFK airport and out of food, I set out on my bicycle to Wild Oats to refill my refrigerator.

After listening to morning radio news bites, I routed my visit to the Boulder, Colorado organic food provider via South Norwalk, when I learned that Joe Lieberman and Barbara Boxer were rallying at Sweet Rexie's. I thought I might have an opportunity to say hello to Barbara Boxer, my one time Marin County supervisor.

But that never came to pass, after a reporter from the Washington Post, Shailagh Murray, an attractive brunette, approached me to find out my name after I made a quiet attempt to communicate with Senator Lieberman as he walked down Washington Boulevard. But that was a blessing, as the conversation, which ensued with Ms. Murray, was intriguing.

Today as I open up the online Sunday Washington Post, the results of Ms. Murray's reportage appear as a feature story (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/29/AR2006072900667.html) entitled "Lieberman's Eroding Base." She closes the article quoting me, my first appearance in that paper.

Defending the status quo on LIRR (why LIRR's single minded focus on Eastside Access to GCT thwarts sensible improvements to LIRR)

2006-07-20T07:41:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday July 18, 2006 at 12:27 p.m. I sent the following electronic letter to Long Island Railroad (LIRR):
suggested LIRR improvements
1. LIRR needs to electrify Montauk branch line track to Speonk - more efficient, faster.
2. LIRR needs to electrify LIRR Main branch line track to Riverhead - more efficient, faster.
(LIRR should use MNR-style 3rd rail - safer, winter storm resistant)
3. LIRR needs to grade separate track Montauk branch line track to Speonk - more efficient, safer, faster.
4. LIRR needs to grade separate track LIRR Main branch line track to Riverhead - more efficient, safer, faster.
5. LIRR should build platforms to connect with 33rd "6" line station so commuters so they can get downtown faster than de-boarding at Penn Station.
6. LIRR needs to jointly plan for one-seat direct service from New Haven to Jamaica & Nassau County via New Rochelle Junction, Hellsgate Bridge, Astoria, Bay Bridge branch line to LIRR main track east of Woodside - destination Jamaica and beyond.
7. LIRR needs to a) drop bicycle pass requirement and 2) draw up a plan to remove bicycle boarding restrictions - this discriminatory regulation, which is counterproductive to meeting clean air standards (bicycle boarding restrictions increase car trips to & from suburban stations.)
8. In the meantime, to stimulate commuter & beach ridership, LIRR should run one-seat Montauk branch line trains out of Hunterspoint Avenue and co-ordinate with MNR & MTA to offer a joint discounted ticket on travel between MNR, 7 train & LIRR. And publicize it.

The letter was assigned a reference number 060718-000098

Today at 10:05 a.m. I received a response from Mike Charles, a LIRR-MTA representative.

"Thank you for your e-mail. We appreciate your interest in improving
the public transit system in the metropolitan area, particularly
concerning the LIRR. Capital improvement dollars are severely limited
and each proposal is carefully considered before any implementation.
At the present time, there are no available capital dollars for most of the
suggestions you make since the money has already been committed for other
projects that are either underway or will be in the near future. I suggest
you refer to the Capital Improvement program section of the MTA
website for details of on-going projects that will improve connectivity of
the MTA system along with other major capital programs. Concerning the
bicycle pass program, as you may be aware, the bike pass program covers
both commuter railroads. Restrictions are necessary in order to accommodate
the majority of customers who do not have bikes, especially during rush hour
periods and to heavy summer travel locations."

LIRR trains are crowded on Friday evening rush hour trains during the summer beach getaway season. The solution to that problem is providing (buying) the requisite number of train cars and subsequently add service to accomodate commuters and bicycle commuters during peak hours. Currently LIRR is doing neither and Metro-North to a lesser extent isn't either. In this coming age of post-peak petroleum production and higher gasoline costs its time to abandon the status quo and demand our public agencies support providing bicycle access on peak hour trains without a bicycle permit.

Clearly, capital dollars are scarce because the primary Capital Improvement project LIRR has committed to is the LIRR 'deep cavern' Eastside Access to Grand Central Terminal, a project projected to cost approximately nine billion dollars. Its time for LIRR to think outside a cavern.

Glacial meltdown

2006-07-03T11:13:00.000-07:00

As the world warms, photographers are documenting the rapid changes. The Science Section of the New York TImes on Tuesday June 13, 2006 displayed photographs the Muir Glacier in 1941 and 63 years later, in 2004 see http://www.nsidc.org/data/glacier_photo/special_high_res.html

Commuter cyclists should be able to kick back and enjoy the ride

2006-06-08T08:32:00.000-07:00

Wrote a letter-to-the editor to the Connecticut Post in response to a June 5, 2006 front page feature story entitled "On the bar car: Commuters kick back and enjoy the ride"

Connecticut Post Thursday June 8, 2006 Page A10

While I do not oppose bar cars as a relic from a bygone era, I do
find it objectionable and elitist that Metro-North and
Connecticut DOT officials as well as representatives
from the Metro-North Rail Commuter Council appear to
have no interest in setting aside bicycle parking on
train cars either now or in the future - that point in
time in which 342 new train cars are delivered.

Nor do they appear to advocate eliminating the arbitrary
and capricious "bicycle permit" required of cyclists
bringing bicycles on Metro-North when they are allowed
during off-peak hours and weekends.

While serving as governor of New Jersey, Christine Todd
Whitman dispensed with those permits in an effort to
create a more bicycle-friendly transit system.

And in California, commuter trains serving the San Jose to San
Francisco corridor have bicycle cars that were set up over a
decade ago to serve bicycle commuters all day and all
of the night.

With over 2,000 cyclists riding California trains daily, a camaderie exists between cyclists on those
bicycle cars even without serving drinks on board.

Bar cars only serve drinks between noon and 9 p.m.
Perhaps a first step would be to convert a section of
the bar cars for bicycle parking. An area set aside
for bicycle parking should also be included in the new
train car designs.

With rising traffic congestion and gas prices, its
time for Metro-North and other east coast commuter
rail agencies to accommodate (bicycle commuters) on board trains
during (peak) hours.*

Richard M. Stowe
Rail Transportation Excellence Coalition

* The editorial department made changes to the letter and the words in parentheses are words I added in to compensate for what may have been deleted to save space.

Memorandum of decision United States District Court, District of Connecticut - Case No. 305-CV860 (MRK)

2006-04-03T21:46:00.000-07:00

Plaintiffs prevailed in a challenge to a Connecticut DOT interchange project at Main Avenue and the Merritt Parkway in a memorandum of decision handed down by United States District Judge Mark Kravitz on Friday March 31st in the case Merritt Parkway Conservancy, et al. v. Norman Mineta, et al. The Federal Highway Administration and the Connecticut Department of Transportation were found to be in non-compliance of satisfying the requirements of Section 4(f)(2) of the Department of Transportation Act. Section 4(f) protects (historic) resources unless there is no feasible alternative or all possible planning is undertaken to minimize harm to the protected resources. The two historic resources most at risk were the Main Avenue Bridge, a classical revival stone arch bridge deemed to be a contributing element in the Merritt Parkway’s listing on the National Register of Historic Places in 1991 and the Glover Avenue Bridge, a stone arched bridge eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places.

“We are pleased with the prudent decision Judge Kravitz handed down on Friday. Judge Kravitz hoped for a court-ordered negotiated settlement between the parties under Magistrate Garfinkle, but the apparent intransigence of highway officials sunk that possibility. Connecticut DOT should take advantage of this decision by reviewing feasible alternatives to bridge widening at Main and Glover Avenues. Employing high capacity modern roundabout into the interchange design and including rail infrastructure improvements to the Danbury Branch line to allow for reverse commute service into the Merritt 7 station are two designs we suggested DOT incorporate into the final project. In New York State there is a mandate to evaluate the feasibility of modern roundabouts (http://www.dot.state.ny.us/roundabouts/round.html) for all new intersections; Connecticut DOT should follow New York State DOT’s lead,” said Richard Stowe of Rail Transportation Excellence Coalition.

NYMTC Annual Council Meeting

2006-03-21T08:29:00.000-08:00

Attended New York Metropolitan Transportation Council Annual Council Meeting on Thursday, March 16, 2006 at 11:45 a.m.
New York Metropolitan Transportation Council
199 Water Street - 22nd Floor
New York, NY 10038
Shortly after I arrived Resolution #2006-4 was adopted in which there was a recognition of service by Thomas Suozzi, Nassau County Executive and Outgoing Co-Chairperson. Mr. Suozzi is seeking the Democratic nomination for Governor
Public Participation followed:
I was the sixth speaker from the public. My oral remarks were as follows:
My name is Richard Stowe. I live in New Canaan, Connecticut and am representing Rail Transportation Excellence Coalition.
As a transportation advocate I am an enthusiastic supporter of the ideas expressed by Donald Shoup in The High Cost of Free Parking. I encourage NYMTC to study market priced curb parking and offstreet parking as a future revenue source for regional rail transportation projects.
1) RailTEC supports eliminating peak hour prohibitions against boarding bicycles on all MTA Metro-North & LIRR commuter trains and eliminating bicycle permits.
2) RailTEC supports seamless single ride service from Connecticut to Nassau County via New Rochelle Junction, Hellsgate Bridge, at the "Y" (Bowery Bay Gate Interlocking) in Astoria, Queens, then southeast on the Fremont subdivision of the Bay Ridge line, create a junction onto Long Island Railroad main track to Jamaica Station and Nassau County. This allows outerborough and suburban commuters to avoid congested Manhattan train terminals.
3) RailTEC recommends that NYMTC write a letter of support to Connecticut legislators in support of initiating a seamless, single ride for a Grand Central Terminal to New Haven-Hartford-Springfield commuter rail service.
4) Regarding Resolution #2006-2 RailTEC strongly supports Access to the Regions Core Alternative "G" with through running commuter trains from New Jersey, Penn Station, Grand Central Terminal to Connecticut.
5) In addition RailTEC supports one-berth platform stops in the 32nd Street and 33rd Street tunnels at the Park Avenue 6 line
6) Finally, RailTEC supports the 31st Street "Schumacher" rail freight alignment from New Jersey to Long Island.
NYMTC adopted resolution #2006-2 a council amendment of the 2005-2030 Regional Transportation Plan to include New Jersey Transit's locally preferred alternative (Alternative "P" aka the deep cavern alternative)* from the Access to the Region's Core study
* "G" = Grand Central Terminal; "P" = Penn Station
After I made my comments I stepped out in the hallway, where I met Nassau County Executive, Thomas Suozzi and Executive Commissioner of the Nassau County Planning Commission, Patricia Bourne. Mr. Suozzi commented that the proposal I advocated for seamless service between Connecticut and Nassau County was one he had never heard before. He appeared to show interest in the proposal.

Ideas For Pool House's Future

2006-03-05T21:47:00.000-08:00

Editor:

A special meeting of the Parks & Recreation Commission took place last Wednesday evening at the Lapham Community Center. Future plans for the once-threatened Landis Gores-designed modern home, formerly known as the Irwin pool house, were discussed by representatives of the Friends of the Landis Gores Pavilion.

As some of you may know I have actively spoken out in favor of the restoration of this seminal structure. In fact, last year I alerted both Pam Gores, wife of Landis Gores, and Janet Lindstrom, executive director of the New Canaan Historical Society, that the building was still standing, but at the same time that it was slated for demolition. It is my belief that this sturdy and beautiful modern will one day be the central feature of Irwin Park.

The first goal is to raise money to save this modern, but when the final architectural plans are drawn I want to be sure that its twin south-facing wing walls are fully glazed to allow for passive solar heat gain during the chilly but sunny winter months. Mr. Gores' roof overhang design already blocks out strong summer solar heat. If the wings are to be used for exhibits, it would be appropriate to locate a Trombe wall behind the glazing, so that the interior side of the Trombe wall may be used for exhibit material. A Trombe wall, named after Frenchman Felix Trombe, is a south-facing wall, which has thermal mass characteristics. It is normally composed of adobe, concrete or stone.

We have too few examples of passive solar design in New Canaan. This building is situated perfectly for it. Incorporating passive solar design into this building will be an excellent educational tool not only for adults but also for children. It is notable that Landis Gores was a leader in passive solar design. In fact, my family and I attended the opening of Mr. Gores' and his wife Pam's energy-efficient and solar designed House for All Seasons on Soundview Lane in December 1979.

I hope you will join me in supporting the preservation of the Landis Gores modern at Irwin Park and speak out in favor of incorporating south-facing glazing into the building's wings.

If you agree with me that the preservation of this building will greatly add to the character of New Canaan, please don't hesitate to pledge a generous donation.

Those who were unable to attend Wednesday's meeting may contact me either by phone (966-4387) if you agree that preservation of this iconic memorial to New Canaan's modern architects will be treasured in the future as an invaluable town asset.

Richard M. Stowe
New Canaan

Why We Fight

2006-01-29T17:41:00.000-08:00

Went to see recently released 'Why We Fight' with Ed Keating, Pulitzer Prize winning photographer, at Lincoln Plaza Cinema in Manhattan Saturday evening.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower, whose views are also conveyed via his son and granddaughter, turns out to be the unlikely hero of this thoughtful documentary. His warning that the "acquisition of unwarranted influence...by the military industrial complex" could "endanger our liberties or democratic processes" was prophetic given various aspects of the Patriot Act and recent disclosures of President Bush's approval of warrantless NSA wiretaps.

Eisenhower's clarion call that the country needed an "alert and knowledgeable citizenry" to check the undue influence of our "huge industrial and military machinery" was visionary seeing that the United States now spends more on defense than all European NATO countries and Russia combined.

Today, this military indistrial complex has evolved into what I would describe as the petroleum industrial military plantation. As one analyst in the movie noted, our military would grind to a screeching halt without the power packed punch of petroleum. And the protection of 'our way of life' is really about retaining the secure supply and flow of foreign sources of petroleum. The alternative is for the country to redirect its efforts toward the conservation of petroleum based fuels and reducing our reliance on petroleum based products.

"Why We Fight" deserves positive reportage by the American media so that our citizenry, particularly registered Republicans, can contemplate the import of the movie's message and act to restrain the influence of military contractors in the hall of Congress.

photo: Edward Keating/Contact Press Images