Moving Like Water

Lately here in Seattle there has been a lot of discussion about transportation issues and solutions. A lot of them surround a big transportation tunnel issue, which I hope to post on very soon.

All of this discussion got me to thinking about the right solutions for some of Seattle’s own issues. And, interestingly, it seems like so often in our cities, the most commonly used, cheapest, cleanest and healthiest system is forgotten: walking. In Tokyo, famous for squishing people into cramped trains at rush hour, walking is one of the best ways to get around.

Before I get to that, though, here’s how I think about transportation issu es. Basically there are four levels:

1. Movement of very long distances: Cross-country or between countries. In the U.S. this basically means flying. There is a car and a train option if you have a few daysto kill, but generally if West coasters feel the need to visit the East coast, they’re buying expensive plane tickets.
2. Then there are mid-range distances. I define these as distances you could drive, but would rather not if you had another choice. To me, that’s generally anything over three hours, but it’s a line everyone chooses for themselves.
3. Next you need ways to move across cities. Typically that’s going to be a subway or light rail system of some sort. Until recently, Seattle was strictly a bus or car city, which means a lot of people drive very short distances. Our light rail system opened this summer but until it expands, we’re still pretty reliant upon either cars or buses here.
4. Finally we have very short distance movement, or simply walkable distances. And, again in Seattle people tend to use cars for distances that could be walked. There are probably many reasons for this, but a few would include the weather (often wet) and it’s quite hilly here in places. It can also be rather slow as we wait at large intersections for cars to pass (in the rain). And goodness knows, a Seattlite would NEVER DARE cross an intersection when the red hand is showing.

It’s not hard to apply sustainability principles to these various levels and realize that a healthy, efficient transportation system would include high-speed rail between cities (like Japan’s). This covers your long-range and mid-range distances as the collection of mid-range jumps would take you very long distances. Then, in cities, you must have a fast, clean transit system to move people from one side of the metropolitan area to the other. Finally around each stop, you need an easy way to move people around that small vicinity. And walking is the best way to accomplish that.
Of course, there is a possible gap between the subway stops and distances that could reasonably walked (it can be pretty hard to get a subway or light rail to go everywhere you need it to). That’s the role of buses (hopefully electric) in my opinion: Relatively short, simple runs, fleshing out some of the gaps to give everyone good access to each area of the city.

The pictures above are meant to help illustrate what I think is a great vision for cities supporting a walkable environment. These are all from Tokyo and show an innovative way to look at moving about the urban environment.

One of the things I really liked about this approach was that it took the sting out of some of the hills. Often rises that grew over a long horizontal distance were crossed in a series of platforms so over some distance you wouldn’t realize how much you’d climbed. In other areas, gentle slopes let you stroll along naturally as you went up some height. There were also some escalators and elevators that helped you along and often these were inside buildings and they seemed to use the escalator as the draw to get people near shops. Sort of the walking equivalent of putting your sandwich cart near the train station.

Now certainly there are plenty of typical cement city sidewalks in Tokyo. What’s interesting is how it’s all integrated together. So you might see a sidewalk continue down a street, with an option to go up stairs. The stairs could take you another direction or to a path that meets with a train station. Or that meets with another sidewalk network. It sometimes made it easy to get lost, but of course locals were loving it.

Often these walkways were like small parks. They would be very nicely landscaped and extremely pleasant areas to walk along. Lots of benches and at lunch time in business districts you’d see many folks outdoors enjoying the fresh air.

It was interesting to me how they integrated the sidewalks with the buildings. They’d wrap around buildings, dropping up and down to meet various entrances with lots of stairs down to the ground. You could walk along a level sidewalk as the ground drops away below you. You would then enter buildings at a relatively high floor. Take an elevator down or up to another area. Simple concept, very well executed.

My favorite part was that these elevated sidewalks didn’t stop for cars. Raised high above traffic, it made a huge difference how quickly you could cover long distances. Here in the U.S. we will typically build pedestrian bridges over busy streets or intersections. There’s a big one near the Rainier and MLK intersection, which locals will recognize. But I would say that well-intentioned pedestrian bridge is a failure because it’s still a nightmare of people running across the street. Taking the bridge is not done because it’s a lot of stairs and will definitely take longer.

Now the big negatives of these elevated walkways are probably the costs and the issues of integrating with existing buildings. On the other hand, retail business would welcome the extra foot traffic and the costs are obviously going to be much less than any transit system involving moving parts, such as a train or bus. So not only should we not compare the costs to those systems, there may be some savings by eliminating some other transit costs.

Final thought: It’s rainy here in Seattle, which discourages walking. But what if our version of this approach included a cover along the edges to keep you out of the rain? And, and while we’re at it, how about we throw some solar panels up there? Seems doable to me. When can we start?

OK, the last post on Japan, I promise. But since I alluded to this earlier, I should close the loop.

Japan’s reputation as a technology crazy country seems pretty accurate quite often, until you see something like this:

Yep, that’s a “Japanese-style” toilet. (pic stolen from the Internet) Before heading over there, I’d thought this was mainly a holdover from the old days found mainly in rural areas, but sadly no. These things are still everywhere there, particularly in public restrooms. Often, however, they have a choice of one “western-style” toilet and several of these holes in the ground. On the bullet train, I actually saw an old lady choose the Japanese style restroom, which involved climbing up on a platform and holding onto some handrails for balance. Maybe it has something to do with their seemingly innate fear of touching things that could have germs.

On the other hand, in all the hotels we stayed in and even in public restrooms, you also found these:

Where sushi goes to die

Yes, the famous Japanese high-tech toilet. Toilet techonology is the cutting edge here. Packed with gizmos and buttons, I’m not even sure how everything was supposed to operate. Seats are pre-warmed so your buns never have to touch cold plastic and the buttons include a bidet as well as a butt-cleaner that sprays warm water. Did I try it? The answer is yes. What does it feel like? Um, like a small hose being sprayed on your cornhole. I’m not sure if I felt cleaner afterward or just a little bit naughty. I definitely felt wet.

It’s certainly not a feature I felt like I need at home, but here’s my point: there’s definitely a disparity in toilet technology in Japan. Here’s what I propose: No one gets a gizmo on their toilet until everyone has a Western-style version first. So what’s it going to be Japan? Third-world holes in the ground or space-age butt cleaners? Make a decision, we’re at war!

So back home now and more or less recovered from jetlag. I was thinking on the way home about some of the interesting little things we could learn from while I was away.

In no particular order:

Turn off the bus

In Kyoto, where you’re pretty much forced to rely on their extensive bus system, the drivers switch off the bus every time they stop. In traffic, stoplights or just at regular stops. It must destroy starter motors, but apparently they figure that’s cheaper than all the fuel they’d be burning up. Given how many times they stopped during the times I rode the buses, the savings could be quite substantial.

Sensor-controlled escalators

I’d never thought about it before, but across America, escalators run continuously all day. In our hotel in Tokyo, the escalators switched off some minutes after riders decended. You’d walk up to what you thought was an inoperative escalator and literally with perfect timing, the escalator would kick on and take you for your ride and then shut off when you were down (or up). Very clever.

Florescent lighting

If you’ve ever seen a Japanese movie, you’ve certainly noticed the florescent lighting everywhere. It’s true. Hotels, train stations, restaurants. They all have florescent lighting. Now I hate the color and brightness (or lack thereof), but I have to admit, once I got used to it, it wasn’t too bad. Still not something I care for, but they’re saving massive amounts of energy (probably without even realizing it).

And, of course, a few things that weren’t so impressive:

Wrapping everything in plastic

Japan is known for its neat and tidy culture so maybe I shouldn’t be surprised at how much plastic they use, but really it was pretty shocking. The first jarring thing was the morning paper, yep, wrapped in plastic. It’s like vacuum-sealed in its bag. Weird! When we had our bags shipped from city to city, they arrived wrapped in a heavy plastic. Then, of course, you’ve got the handy-wipes they hand you before each meal (and even come with takeout food). It was nice having something to clean your hands with (see below), but the amount of garbage we were creating was insane. And, of course there was the bento boxes we got at the train station. Actually pretty tasty, but the garbage to food ratio was stupefying.

No soap

Why the Japanese are known for their clean culture, I have no idea. You’d think something like SOAP in a public restroom would be pretty standard in a place that wraps everything in plastic, but sadly no. More often than not, paper towels and other drying devices, but especially soap were nowhere to be found. But they do have a handy device to clean your butt (more later).

And, while I’m here, I might as round out the rest of the trip with a few more photos:

Hiroshima was an interesting visit, with its obvious history dominating the sights. There’s a robust museum dedicated to the bombing and this dramatic building which has been preserved in the condition from immediately following the attack.

Just before leaving the Hiroshima area, we stopped by the charming island of Miyajima where the deer run wild. I’d recommend anyone spend a day or two here, even more than Hiroshima itself.

From there it was on to Kyoto, home of the famous Kyoto Accords. Kyoto kicked our ass. Very hard city to travel in due to the lack of subway and higher expense. It’s a good place to see some of the old Japan, traditional and beautiful. We visited a great street market there, at the foot of a large temple:

And, of course a shot from the aforementioned bus:

We headed on over to Mount Fuji after Kyoto, which is quite a journey by (mostly) train. Unfortunately, after all that travel, the great and powerful Mount Fuji refused to show. Here’s what we ended up seeing. That’s Mount Fuji in the clouds, or maybe not, I wasn’t really sure what direction it was in. But then it didn’t really matter.

After the trip to the woods (and, oh yeah, there’s a giant amusement park right below the mountain, doesn’t really show up in the tourist photos), we headed back to Tokyo for the last day. We splurged on a nice hotel with a view of Tokyo Tower (yes, it’s an Eiffel rip-off, but a nice one). And so ends the journey, but here’s a parting shot from our hotel room.

We’re in Hiroshima now after taking the Shinkansen, or bullet train, across country to make our way to the little village of Koyasan and then back to Hiroshima.

In case there was ever any doubt that the rest of the world is kicking our ass while our infrastructure crumbles, come take a ride on the Shinkansen. I feel like the poor hick I was when cool city kid Robert Durbin walked into high school wearing the first-known pair of parachute pants. “Wow, the world has really passed us by here.” (Fortunately I could never afford a pair of the soon-to-be-passe pants so no embarrassing photos exist.)

It’s sleek. It’s unbelievably fast, moving at well over 100 mph. We need one in the U.S., but we’re still stuck with what’s left of rickety old Amtrak. Sad.

On the journey to Koyasan, we traveled on subway, city trains and subway. All interconnected and streamlined. Stations are a little confusing and chaotic but not nightmarish.

Unlike Mexico and Hawaii, solar power abounds here. At least visually. Most of their energy comes from fossil fuels, but a fair amount comes from nuclear as well. They’re also a big developer of solar, as several of the big solar panel producers are based here. These pics were taken from the train and aren’t any kind of solid data, but are an interesting look at the type of installations here.

The passive solar hot water system in that last photo is a very typical installation. I saw tons of those units. Notice the one on the neighboring house as well.

Overall, Japan has made pretty much all the same mistakes as the U.S. in terms of its sustainability. The main difference is that they’re recognizing the mistakes and correcting them. And we’re just not. Yet.

Since I mentioned it, I have to spend a few minutes on Koyasan. It’s an intriguing little village. It’s sort of half Buddhist enclave and half tourist-trap, but a tasteful one. Located up in the tree-covered mountains, it’s a beautiful location. We reached it by cable car after the multi-train journey mentioned above. Our residence for the night was a monastery/temple called Shojoshin-in. We sprung for the private ryokan, the traditional japanese inn. It included a dinner and breakfast and was a pretty fun experience, although we were constantly getting tsk-tsked for wearing/not wearing our slippers at the right time.

After the required morning service (40 minutes of watching a monk chant), breakfast (forgot to bring our cameras to dinner, which was much more dramatic):

Next door to our ryokan was an enormous mausoleum. It was so enchanting and enormous that I’m surprised I haven’t seen it featured on TV before. Light was fading quickly and the mosquitoes were brutal but you can get an idea from this pic:

The following day we headed into the other main attraction in Koyasan, a large complex of temples. Many are very old reproductions of truly ancient structures. The scale is hard to get from these pictures, but trust me, many are VERY large.

All-in-all, a fascinating if exhausting side trip out of the city.

There was a lot yesterday to stimulate the thoughts of someone (me) who does a lot of thinking about sustainability.

For starters there was the Nakagin Capsule Tower. I recognized it immediately from television and was delighted to see it in person. Good thing we tripped across it, too, because apparently it’s slated for distruction.

The building was designed by architect Kisho Kurokawa and is made up of small individual units that were designed to be combined replaced or upgraded as years went on. Like most utopian visions, this one never took off, but the concept remains a though-provoking one. From the streets signs of decay are very clear, with rust falling from the round windows and streaking along its pavement. Asbestos has sealed its fate, but it’s still sad to see a landmark like this disappear.

Here’s a context shot:

On the other hand, new attempts at making a healthier city are taking hold. This picture is the Jaquet Droz store in the Ginza district. Sometimes called the “curtain wall,” the building was designed by Shigeru Ban and is meant to bring greenery and garden space right into the city. I find it a very clever way to turn something that is usually horizontal (gardens) and make it vertical. It’s like a soft, gentle rest for the eyes on the way through a dizzying tech-heavy city.

We also visited the Hama-rikyu Gardens, a former duck hunting grounds now a city park reminiscient of Central Park in New York. These spaces are the lungs of cities and this one, particularly lush and rife with birds and wildlife is particulary heartening. A little unfortunate that residents can’t freely enjoy the park (admission is required), but given the ancient temple and 300-year-old pine tree inside, they can be forgiven for keeping the crowds down.

Spiritual peace is also important for healthy city living and Tokyo has temples on every corner. The other nice thing about that is that temples are usually surrounded by greenery and become a great way to protect little slices of the city from the overwhelming juggernaut of Tokyo’s economic might. We visited the Shinjo-ji temple. A beautiful area and a peaceful place to take a bit of a breather and do some shopping.

I tried the stick fortune kiosk:

Here’s my fortune:

No. 44 REGULAR FORTUNE

The blake and white stones are scattered on the chess game board. One’s fortune are not decided yet. If you want to get win, you should step ahead always. Like a gold dragon shower down the sweet rain from the sky, the Buddha and the God will provide you mercy. Washing up those bad which stuck to the old root to refresh its life. The fortune comes appear to

*Your request will be ranted. *The patient will get well soon. *The lost article will be found soon. *Though it take a little time, the person you wait for will come. *Building a new house and removal are both well. *It is good to start at trip. *Marriage and employment are both well.

We’ll see…

Well, we made it safe and sound to a rainy Tokyo last night.

The trip has been planned for some time but we’ve been so busy planning and preparing that I haven’t had much time to do much research on sustainable living related to Japan before I arrived. Hopefully we’ll see more interesting stuff as the trip progresses.

When we landed, it was incredibly overcast and rainy. You can see how thick the clouds were.

I have to say the Narita airport is the most efficient and easiest of any I’ve been in. We were literally off the 777 and on the limosine bus in maybe a half hour. When we arrived at baggage claim, yep, there were our bags waiting for us. We had some debate about whether this was because of the very efficient Japanese or simply because we upgraded to Economy Plus at United. (My marketing brain was annoyed at that possibility because you have to TELL people if you’re going to give them extra value like that.)

The bus ride was painless even for those that don’t speak the language and it was very nice.

Our hotel, the Park Hotel Tokyo is very nice. Most interesting points: the LOBBY is on the 25th floor and the elevators are whisper-silent. It’s almost eerie how quiet and smooth they are. We found some food (tonkatsu) and tried to stay awake in an attempt to get onto normal time. Finally we couldn’t keep our eyes open any longer and passed out at about 8-9 p.m. local (something like 3 a.m. our time, I think).

Here are a couple shots from the room.

Well, naturally we woke up at 3 a.m. local (8 a.m. our time) and figured we could either do something or try to sleep for 3 more hours. We read for awhile and finally decided to head down to the Tsukiji fish market. It gets going at about 5 a.m. so we had to hussle. Good way to put jet lag to use, though.

The first fun part was the subway, also pretty easy for a foreigner to navigate. Of course, we only had to go one stop so it wasn’t too risky. I love seeing a quality mass transit system. It’s alarming how behind the times we are in the states. When the oil runs out, we’re screwed. Anyway, we ran into a couple from the east coast also on their way there so we talked to them for quite a bit as headed toward the market.

The market is very interesting. Lots of weird looking fish and chaos to keep the eye interested. Just watch out for the rushing carts and yelling fish merchants.

And check out this excellent example of recycling. Yes, that is a mountain of styrofoam.

There’s a neighboring market with lots of random little shops tucked away inside. We found chocolate croissants — beats sushi at 6 a.m. And, of course, coffee and tea from a vending machine. The rain hasn’t stopped yet, but it’s wonderfully warm and moist.

Now we’re killing time in the hotel until other stuff opens. Yes, we’ve packed in a whole day and it’s only 8:30 a.m. Whew!

And a parting shot of a Maneki-Neko (lucky cat) that I think looks like George W. Bush.

So I’m down in Los Cabos, Mexico for a little R&R. We’re staying a very nice private home just a couple kilometers out of Cabo San Lucas. It’s blissfully quiet and delightfully warm – basically a steady and sunny 80 degrees. The picture above is my view from the rooftop deck of this house. Notice anything missing? Yep, there are lots of roofs, no solar.

Again, like my trip to Hawaii, this is an environment that is filled with people from around the world who travel here to soak up solar energy. Why isn’t local solar generation more popular?

I have to guess that it’s the cost. I don’t know what rates they pay here, but I think the payback period just doesn’t make any sense. Add to that possible issues of theft and occasional high winds and I guess I can see its limitations. As always I have to add that I’m sure there’s a lot going on here that I’m unaware of as a visitor in a foreign land.

Now if you turn the camera 180 degrees you’ll see the other view from my rooftop deck: the local Home Depot. (And no there weren’t throngs of white people waiting around the parking lot for some work.)

That Home Depot does represent to me some opportunity. As solar power gets cheaper, the infrastructure here seems poised to take advantage of it. The developing world may benefit most from these technological advances as their power demands are kicking in just as costs are potentially dropping. That means many countries could dodge the bullet of oil-based pollution (at least more of it) and skip right to some renewables, saving money and their people in the process. Then again, this is a country where they still use leaded gas.

One additional thought is that warmer climates are also typically more in danger of hurricanes. To address this, I think home-based solar and wind power will need to feature easy-to-remove components to protect the investment. For example, that could mean panel units easily carried by an average person and easy to unbolt and secure in a garage to ride out a storm.

There’s a lot to do and we’re wasting precious rays in the meantime!

I visited two different islands over the past several weeks and both sparked some thought about sustainable living. Islands are interesting because they represent our planet in microcosm. They’re almost like big biospheres.

The island on the left is San Juan Island, a member of the San Juan Island chain here in Washington State. The island on the right is the famous Oahu, home of Honolulu and Pearl Harbor. I was on San Juan Island over the New Year’s holiday and was in Hawaii for just a few days in December.

Islands that were populated before the arrival of western society were great examples of sustainable communities. They grew enough food for their populations (and obtained seafood). They needed to keep waste materials under control. Because they were isolated, viruses were rare if not unheard of.

While we drove through some open territory on Oahu, it became oddly apparently how little (if any) energy production actually takes place on the island. And, of course, I began to daydream about the possibilities. Could they ban all gas-powered automobiles and switch to all-electric? The island is almost small enough that you could get away with it. If you supplied free electricity for everyone, would that be enough to make it happen? The state of Hawaii uses oil to generate 78% of its electricty, according to the Star-Bulletin (Note: data from 2001). In fact, it looks like Oahu generates none of its energy from renewable sources (there is some methane generation occuring, but in true MLW fashion, we’ll consider the burning of anything a non-sustainable solution). This is crazy. First of all, to be so reliant on oil tankers rolling into the home of some of the most sensitive ecological area in the world, not to mention the most beautiful beaches is just nuts. And don’t forget about those tourist dollars you’re risking. What’s more, there’s plenty of wind rolling across the islands. Oh yeah, and that thing so many of us go there to see — the sun.

Meanwhile, while I was on Oahu, I picked up an issue of Honululu Weekly, a free alternative paper. The cover story was about a controversy over Biofuel production. A company is interested in growing albizia trees to use for biofuel. The tree is apparently a non-native invasive species that grows quite well in Hawaii. Anyway, lots of politics of land use, water rights, etc. The unfortunate thing is that while biofuel might be an important part of the mix for Hawaii, wind and solar seem to be completely ignored. Instead of planting albizia, they should be planting windmills.

The other island, San Juan, was quite similar. I didn’t see any obvious evidence of renewable energy activities on the island. Their utility reports 84% of their power comes from hydro-electric, which tells me that they get power from the mainland. Basically a pretty standard grid buy. That’s pretty unfortunate because, like Hawaii, they have massive amounts of wind and wave possibilities available. Although, unlike Hawaii, they don’t have such a massive influx of tourist dollars to spend. There’s such an opportunity here to take destinies into one’s own hand, but it seems the cheap easy solution wins out every time. Perhaps the magic of high prices will get us there or perhaps bold leadership, but either way, let’s hope it’s soon.

UPDATE: Coincidentally, it looks like Hawaii is making a big investment in Solar Power. Greenbang says a BusinessWeek article points to the big investment, although I couldn’t find the link. But looks like good news!