CNT Update, July 2007
CNT Update, July 2007
Sustainability News
‘Healthy Streets’ are Safe and Walkable
Factoring Urban Sprawl into Climate Change Initiatives
Indiana Permits Regressive Water Quality Protections to Lake Michigan
CNT News
Transit Future Goes to Springfield
Ft. Wayne Looks at Leading the Sustainable Cities Movement
In Chicago, Bike to Work Week Can be Every Week
Staff Hellos and Goodbyes
CNT Tools
CNT in the News
Web Site Spotlight: Natural Resources
Job Openings
Save the Dates
A Salute to Jacky Grimshaw
Wangari Mathaai Garden Dedication
**************
Sustainability News
**************
‘Healthy Streets’ are Safe and Walkable
Warm, summer months mean more children playing outside, often in the street where drivers may not be alert or prepared to avoid an accident. Increased traffic crashes in Chicago neighborhoods have been an indicator of the increased risk in the summertime. Speeding and reckless driving make neighborhoods unsafe and unpleasant places to live and raise a family.
The Healthy Streets Campaign, with Aldermen Ariel E. Reboyras and Thomas Allen, has recently launched the Northwest Chicago Drive with Care program, with funding from the Illinois Department of Transportation. The goal is to reduce crashes by fifty percent in two years in a zone bordered by Austin, Montrose, Kedzie, and Fullerton. Approximately 25 crashes occur in this area per day. This costs the community $167 million annually in injuries, fatalities, and property damage.
To reduce the number of crashes, the Healthy Streets Campaign is working with law enforcement and neighborhood groups on street design, enforcement, and social marketing.
Promoting healthy streets also means creating walkable neighborhoods for children to use during the school year. The Northeastern Illinois Safe Routes to School Task Force created the Safe Routes to School program to focus on making walking and bicycling to school a safe and valued activity. CNT along with the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation and the League of Illinois Bicyclists, are under contract through 2009 to provide training, outreach and program development services for IDOT. The team will also assist in developing the state’s School Travel Plan template and application.
To learn more about the program or to volunteer, visit on the web at www.healthystreets.org. You can also help reduce car crashes by taking the Driver’s Pledge online at www.driverspledge.com.
Read more about the Safe Routes to School program at http://weblog.cnt.org/2007/03/22/safe-routes-to-school-for-all/
Factoring Urban Sprawl into Climate Change Initiatives
Some recent big-picture ideas at mitigating global warming are challenging archaic notions of planning and development, specifically the notion of managing growth by developing outward. Promoting CFL lighbulbs and green roofs are supplementary to the need for cities to look at the major sources of greenhouse gas and put into place methods that encourage large-scale solutions.
The transportation industry is one of these major sources. Cities like New York and Seattle are already at work creating initiatives such as congestion taxes and lower insurance rates for drivers who take public transit during peak congestion times.
Most recently, California is filing suit to hold cities and counties accountable for greenhouse gas emissions caused by poorly planned suburban sprawl. What is progressive about this is that it directly challenges the planning decisions cities make. Instilling regard for climate change impact in plans means that the building and development industries are accountable for GHG emissions that same way that the transportation sector is being made accountable.
California Attorney General Jerry Brown has sued San Bernardino County, the USA’s largest in land area and one of the fastest growing, for failing to account for greenhouse gases when updating its 25-year blueprint for growth. If the suit is successful, California cities and counties could be forced to take steps to limit sprawl, promote compact development, require builders to design energy-efficient houses that offer solar power, and encourage less driving, more mass transit and use of alternative fuels.
Read more about it in a recent USA Today article at http://www.usatoday.com/weather/climate/globalwarming/2007-06-05-warming_N.htm?POE=click-refer
Indiana Permits Regressive Water Quality Protections to Lake Michigan
Recently when Indiana allowed its BP oil refinery located in Whiting to bypass state environmental laws in its plant expansion, Great Lakes clean water advocates got together to fight this regressive plan. Signatures were collected on “Save Our Lake” petitions that ask Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels to reconsider the decision.
The refinery-already one of the largest polluters along the Great Lakes-will be permitted to release 54 percent more ammonia and 35 percent more sludge into Lake Michigan each day. An exemption in the permit also allows the plant to continue pouring small amounts of mercury, a toxic metal, into Lake Michigan for at least another five years.
Thought the wastewater permit for BP’s Whiting refinery fully complies with the federal Clean Water Act and assures the full protection of Lake Michigan, BP’s new permit marks the first time in years that a company has been allowed to increase the amount of pollution pumped into the lake. And a growing chorus of critics, including Mayor Richard Daley, Gov. Rod Blagojevich and members of Congress, argue that BP’s new state permit sets a bad precedent that threatens to reverse more than three decades of slow but steady progress cleaning up the lake.
It’s not solely about water quality. The issue underscores the larger issue that is American dependence on oil. Multi-billion dollar oil refinery expansions mean that investment in clean fuel technologies lose out. Couple that with increased water pollution discharges and the environment loses doubly.
Fill out a petition to voice your disappointment with these plans at https://www.environmentillinois.org/action/protect-lake-michigan/bp-epapetition
**************
CNT NEWS
**************
Transit Future Goes to Springfield
CNT and other transit advocates have pointed out the importance of a sound public transit system in mitigating climate change. CNT has shown that the cuts in service resulting from the so-called “doomsday scenarios” will lead to increased household transportation costs throughout Northeastern Illinois. But the fact still remains-the Chicago region is at a crossroads for the future. If the region is going to remain a world-class city, it needs high-quality mass transit.
Unfortunately, with a record-breaking stalemate currently in Springfield, solutions and leadership are not what we can look forward to. Unfortunately, real mass transit solutions are not even close to the focus of Illinois’ lawmakers right now.
Read more about the Transit Future Campaign’s trip to Springfield last Wednesday to lobby lawmakers for mass transit funding, at http://transitfuture.cnt.org/
Ft. Wayne Looks at Leading the Sustainable Cities Movement
Recently Grist magazine released its “Top 15 Greenest City” poll, choosing cities, “for making impressive strides toward eco-friendliness, helping their many millions of residents live better, greener lives.”
Although the up-and-coming city, Ft. Wayne, Indiana, did not make the list, current development is all about doing it right the first time. Developing sustainably means capitalizing on the existing resources inherent in a built environment, while making conscious decisions about the future infrastructure and how it taps into energy efficiency, mass transit accessibility and less consumption, for example.
CNT recently partnered with Ft. Wayne to develop a series of recommendations for comprehensive urban sustainability that the City should incorporate into its plans.
CNT uses it cross-sectoral expertise to address issues of transportation and land use, economic development, and energy efficiency to recommend specific actions for sustainable prosperity for Fort Wayne. The recommendations combine CNT’s knowledge of leading national and international trends in urban sustainability with quantitative and qualitative research specific to Fort Wayne. Highlights include a streetcar system to increase transportation choice, and how to capitalize on Fort Wayne’s fiber optic broadband network for economic development and energy efficiency.
In Chicago, Bike to Work Week Can be Every Week
Biking as a viable means of transportation in the Chicago area is more and more real. From the Mayor’s ambitious plan to create 500 miles of bike lanes to the talk of opening the boulevards for Sunday bikers, Chicago is becoming a top biker-friendly city.
There are so many reasons to bike in Chicago-and any city really. Concerns about global warming, unreliable public transportation options, and increased costs of owning and operating a car are universal issues for urban dwellers. The city of Chicago has been a great answer to those matters thus far by providing more bike lanes, racks and possible open boulevards for riders.
Another important element to promoting bike riding is the encouragement and education of riding one’s bike in a sometimes intimidating environment. During the Chicago Bicycle Federation’s annual Bike to Work Week, efforts are made at making commuters comfortable riding in an urban environment. And the Commuter Challenge during the week taps the competitiveness of organizations willing to encourage their employees to commute to work.
More organizations are realizing their role-by promoting bike commuting and providing infrastructure like bike racks and showers-to make the decision more reasonable for commuters.
CNT participated in the yearly CBF Commuter Challenge and for the fourth year in a row took first place in the category of ‘Business/Non-profit, 25-99 employees”. Integral to the buildings LEED-Platinum certification, there is access to bike racks for almost half of the staff as well as a shower facility. Having integrated bike commuting into the work environment means that staff regularly get to work by bike all year round.
Providing the means to bike in an urban environment is not just the responsibility of the City and other advocate agencies but also for workplaces to provide the ability to park one’s bike at the destined location or to have access to a place to ‘freshen-up’ post-ride.
Staff Hellos and Goodbyes
Amanda Escobar-Gramigna is the new Research and Outreach Associate for CNT Energy, assisting in the marketing, communication, operations, and research functions, including community outreach on energy issues. She’s providing valuable support for CNT Energy’s real-time electricity pricing program, Power Smart Pricing.
Metcalf Scholar Emily Carroll is an Environmental Studies major from U of Chicago, and will be working with CNT on a number of research and outreach projects.
Sofia Becker is has been working on CNT’s Transit Future Campaign, working on media and outreach.
David Schaengold is at CNT on a one-year fellowship through the Project 55 program, through the University of Chicago. David will be working on a variety of CNT’s transportation projects.
As part of Mayor Daley’s Kidstart summer work program, CNT hosted two of Lakeview High School students, Kierra Burrows and Alfredo Harris. During the 8-week program, the interns helped out in CNT Energy and the Development department.
Ruth Klotz-Chamberlain was a Fellow at the Community Energy Cooperative for the past two years, where she worked on many energy endeavors, including the Energy Smart Pricing Plan.
Emily Metz has been at CNT for a year, under the Project 55 fellowship program through the University of Chicago. Emily worked on various projects at CNT, including CTAQC, Transit Future and CNT’s Climate program.
**************
Tools
**************
CNT in the News
Introducing CNT Energy! As the energy landscape changes, the Cooperative and CNT are developing new ways to serve communities and to promote energy efficiency. This summer, the energy programs at CNT have been consolidated under a new name, CNT Energy. CNT Energy will help communities achieve sustainable, affordable energy solutions. Read more about the exciting new developments at http://www.cntenergy.org/news/?p=51
Its summer and high gas prices, concerns about global warming and all the other hassles of owning a car have resulted in more people giving up their cars and turning to I-GO for their car-centric errands. I-GO has made conscious strides to be accessible in as many neighborhoods in the Chicago area as possible. Cars are located currently in 32 neighborhoods (including Oak Park and Evanston). Read about how I-GO is helping the neighborhood of Austin go green at http://austinweeklynews.com/main.asp?Search=1&ArticleID=1330&SectionID=1&SubSectionID=&S=1
CNT has been working with the Presidential Climate Action Project, as part of a national initiative to develop a bold and decisive climate action plan for the next President of the United States. The report will give recommendations for an aggressive climate change agenda that the next President should take up in the first 100 days of office. Read more about the project at http://www.omniartsalon.com/oas-80-gary-hart-the-presidential-climate-action-project/
Web Site Spotlight: Natural Resources
The new Natural Resources page is a one-stop shop to learn about CNT’s work in promoting and demonstrating the value of Green Infrastructure (GI). Read about the recent meeting with the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago (MWRD), including recommendations for implementing green infrastructure into stormwater best management practices, use an interactive tool like the Green Values calculator, download a fact sheet that shows how other cities like Portland and Washington, D.C. are utilizing GI, read about the demonstration project, the Wangari Maathai natural garden at the Al Raby School for the Environment, or download a copy of “Water: From Trouble to Treasure” and start your own GI project. The new site is at: http://www.cnt.org/natural-resources/
Job Openings
Energy Performance Analyst
http://www.cnt.org/jobs?job=energy-performance-analyst
Chief Financial Officer
http://www.cnt.org/jobs?job=chief-financial-officer&nofoot=1
PIRG Public Transit Advocate
transportation-advocate-job-description-7-07.doc
STPP Executive Director
http://www.cnt.org/jobs?job=stpp-executive-director
A Salute to Jacky Grimshaw
Over the last 15 years CNT, under the leadership of Jacky Grimshaw, has helped drive transportation participation and policy. Jacky’s wit and intelligence, as well as her outspoken advocacy for affordable and reliable mass transit has recently given birth to the Transit Future Campaign to promote a system that benefits all residents of Northeastern Illinois.
Come join CNT and Jacky’s friends to celebrate past accomplishments as well as support for future transportation endeavors, including the Transit Future Campaign.
The event is September 20 at the Columbia Yacht Club. Tickets are $250 and can be purchased by contacting annette@cnt.org. More details to follow.
Wangari Maathai Garden Dedication
Back in May, CNT along with the Al Raby school community, from teachers and students to local neighbors, helped create a garden that will improve the school’s appearance while simultaneously increasing its capacity to accomplish its educational mission.
The front yard of the Al Raby School consisted of cracked and degraded cement paving. CNT helped the school transform its front landscape with the installation of a native woodland garden, named after the 2004 Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai. The garden will help to beautify the main entrance of the school, and help connect the students to a living ecology by providing a hands-on experience in landscape design, creation, and maintenance.
On September 22, a dedication will be held at the Al Raby School for the Environment while Wangari Maathai visits Chicago. The dedication will be followed by a book signing and reception.
To read more about the Wangari Maathai garden, download a fact sheet at http://www.cnt.org/repository/factsheet-AlRaby.pdf
**************
You can support our efforts in building more sustainable urban communities by making a donation online by clicking the button below.
You can also support CNT as part of Earth Share of Illinois workplace campaigns. For more information about workplace giving, contact Nicole at nicoleg@cnt.org. Thank you for your generosity!
Questions about anything you’ve read or interested in learning more? Contact Annette at annette@cnt.org
