SWIFT – a modest proposal for transit

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about transportation.  Not just for Arcimoto (which aims to make a difference on the individual level), but also for mass transit.  Buses are nice and all, but all the cool cities have good light rail too.

So I thought I’d put out a proposal for how Eugene could solve many of its people transit issues (initially in west Eugene), fuel infill in the center of the city, remove the need for additional parking at the new UO arena, and collaborate with other local municipalities to remove the need for extra vehicle miles.

I call this proposal “Southern Willamette Intercity Fast Transit” or SWIFT.  Last night I put together a google map of the proposal… check it!

The first key to the proposal would be to utilize existing ununsed or underused rail- initially the line from Coos Bay to Eugene (and particularly the stretch from Veneta to Eugene) that is currently in the process of being abandoned by its owner, Rail America.

Right before this line hits the main rail line through Eugene, it could be diverted to run down Blair Blvd, and from there through downtown and to the university.  It’s possible (though not likely) that the rail lines currently buried under Blair could be reused.  See, Eugene used to have a street rail system back in the day:

Eugene on rails!

The next phase of the project would extend the rail service line to Springfield along either the EMX line, existing rail or otherwise.

Phase 2 of the SWIFT plan would call for a second line running from Oregon State University in Corvallis, down the existing rail along Hwy 99, adding a new stretch of rail between Junction City and Monroe, and linking up with the first SWIFT line.  An extension to this line would run from Glenwood to Cottage Grove.

This idea also calls for the creation of the Oregon Transit Research Center, a collaboration between UO, OSU and federal, state and local governments.  Sited at the rail junction in west Eugene, this would be a hub for engineers from OSU and designers and planners from the UO to craft forward-looking solutions to Oregon’s transportation needs.

Anyone who has an interest in getting involved in seeing what’s involved in developing an idea like this can drop me a line.

Five Months of Moderation Ahead!

Well July has been a month of incredible change for the bet between me and my mom.  I’m glad to post that it’s now in its final form, as our last amendment included a clause that prevents further amendments before the bet terminates January 1, 2009 at 12:00 AM.

A history of our agreement: In order to encourage each other to embody healthy lifestyle behavior and because we were both feeling the effects of moderate consumption of our vice of choice, my mom and I bet our vices against each other.  On February 3, 2008 we agreed that as of 2/4/2008 I would not inhale and she would not imbibe any happy grape juice.  We both held strong until…

Sometime in May this agreement was amended to apply only to the continental United States.

At my dad’s birthday dinner (7/9) the agreement was amended to apply to all forms of intoxicant, but allowed the bet participants 2 “instances” per month of single-substance consumption.  These instances could be “banked” if not used during the month.  Out of country immunity still applied.

On my birthday (7/19) the agreement was amended to allow 3 instances per month.

On Tuesday the agreement was amended to allow 4 instances per month.

Yesterday the agreement was amended one final time to allow 5 instances per month, no exceptions.  No banking instances, no out of country exclusion zone and no further amendments for the year.

Moderation in all things, including the amending of agreements.

It’s alive!!!

Monday, June 30th, 2008 at 2 PM PST the Arcimoto team got our alpha vehicle fully road worthy – fully working electrical system, drivable and fun.

Coincidentally Oregon Senator Ron Wyden was holding a town hall at EWEB at the same time on moving to an energy independent future… so we took the vehicle over to pimp Oregon as a hub for EV development.

Here’s a pic of the Senator sitting in the vehicle — the future’s so bright he should have been wearing shades!

Propaganda

Some images of words from my recent travels.

Aaarrr, Matey!

Welcome to Pipelineistan!

Canadians are having a shortage of small, entry-level cars… hmmm…

I was sitting at a cafe table when I noticed the sticker and the sign across the street.

This was in the place with the woman with shining eyes. I think it was all the raw food.

Ok, this is some serious B.S.

Not just survived… Thrived!

Duh!

Posted above the urinal at the hot yoga school.

The menu in the bar at the hostel in Victoria

On the bathroom door at a swanky place.

Welcome to the 3rd floor!

Little, yellow, different, better!

After long months hammering on the prototype design and fabrication, Arcimoto I is almost ready for road testing!  We rolled it out in front of 544 and covered it in plants for the opening of Living Art Botanicals on Friday night.  All electronic systems should be a go on Monday morning and then it’s off to the DMV to get this baddie street legal.  What does mine say? Sweeeet.

V is for Gardening

So I spent the afternoon digging in the dirt.  Charlotte from the Victory Gardens project came over with a ton of plant starts and we planted the side of my house with chard, lettuce, turnips and kale.  Then it was off to the back yard to pull up more of the carpeting (used by the previous residents to form the walkways between beds), followed by a lot of watering.

The Victory Gardens project is very cool — as we enter the age of peak oil, global climate change, wars for energy, etc, moving our food production back to a (very) local model seems to make a lot of sense.  If you have a yard or an interest in gardening I highly recommend getting in touch with them!  In addition to being fountains of knowledge and garden design, they’re also very cool and down to earth (yuk yuk!).

The web page for Victory Gardens is: http://www.victorygardensforall.org/

A meditation on progress and getting things done

We need to get

everything going

as soon as is

relatively convenient

A reminder I wrote to myself the other day in my journal while I was waiting for some food or beverage

No need to be afraid

The currency of the moment is ever changing

Stand where you are

Let go of the agendas

Fill yourself with what IS

Will the satisfaction of the idea bring true peace?

The sages of the centuries say no thing is ever good enough for perfection

Why does the universe manifest a pattern of thought that is inherently unsatisfiable?

Because all options must be considered.

People, places and things

“I Survived the Volcano”

So says the black T-shirt hanging on the bamboo space divider.  Tiki masks, bamboo, low couches, parasols and spinning fans.  The warm lamps of varied sizes provide plenty of illumination.  I see adidas logos everywhere.

Each table has a volcano (a mix of digital and non) and for $5 an hour you can stay here; everything but the main ingredient is provided free of charge.

Very. Comfortable. Environment. Dude.  That people would be allowed to create and maintain such a space as this says something about a place.  Way to go, BCMP.

… time passes …

Back in Gorilla Food.  Seriously cool spot — the sign on the wall says, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”  Apparently I wish to see the world be eating raw food while stoned.  The colors here are alive!  Orange, green, sunflower yellow.

The hostess with radiant eyes recommends a smoothie I would never have chosen.  I order it.

The smoothie is … interesting.  Tasty but hard to classify – sweet, cool, refreshing, unidentifiable.  Mysterious.

A sign on the other wall says, “Welcome to Spring.  Like the seeds of our garden our menu will continue to grow into the summer.”

The Big Adventure took me north, eh buddy?

I got back on the train again.  I’ve been up to my eyeballs in projects and long overdue for a vacation, so yesterday I jumped on Amtrak at 5:30 in the morning.

Vancouver’s where my long haul transit ended — after switching to a bus in Seattle where I had to unscrew my pedals and put my bike in a box (more on that later).  I really like this city!  The weather’s been pretty awesome so far and it’s still quite light out at quarter after nine.

A chronicle of the adventure thus far:

4:00 AM Tuesday, alarm goes off.  Snooze.  Snooze.  Snooze.  Get out of bed feeling like I don’t have enough time to pull everything together before I go.  Punt on the fridge cleanout… doh!

5:00 AM Depart house by bicycle with two backpacks worth of supplies.  Bike and Mark get on train.

Watched Spiderwick Chronicles (pretty good) and Fool’s Gold (pretty good).  Both were free movies on the train.

12:45 PM Baggage dude at Seattle train station confirms that bicycle must be put in a box prior for bus portion of trip (protect other baggage).  Produces pedal wrench, allen wrench for deconstruction to make bike fit in box.  Mark and Bike in big box get on the bus.

Watched Stardust – (on the recommendation of Katie and Sam I rented this on iTunes.  It was Dope!)

6:00 PM Vancouver baggage dude informs me they have no pedal wrench or allan wrench.  Bummer!  Locked up my bike and caught a cab to the hotel (the Opus) my buddy Hans recommended I check out for Station research.  Ultra-swank!!  A bit too upscale for my tastes generally, but for the purposes of this trip it’ll do

7ish… wandered around the city — first towards the New Amsterdam cafe then to food at an underground super vegan raw place called gorilla food.  The parting instruction I got from the girls at the crepe place (yumm!) was, “Talk to strangers!”.  So I went back to the New Amsterdam and by doing just that was treated to a pretty crazy cool discussion that blew my mind.

Bed, sleep, 4AM false fire alarm (LOUD!) sleep, wake -> hot yoga at 9:30 (really HOT).  And that’s where I found the non-toxic, really-nice-to-walk-on, attractive rubber floor.  A flooring material I must learn more about and possibly integrate into the sand+pex geothermal floor concept.  (sweeet)

I ate breakfast at a pretty cool place called the Elbow Room.  They, like, insult you while they feed you.  It’s their schtick, and they schtick it well.  Fun!  After a stroll around town (which is actually a bit of a challenge with my hip currently), I set about to rescue my bike.

My first attempt had to be aborted because I forgot to bring my keys (almost got all the way to the station before having to turn back).  Finally got to the station, unlocked my bike and walked it like 25 blocks to a bike shop called “Our Community Bikes” — which ended up being this really cool spot where you fix your own bike and stuff; the girl bike shop mechanic person was sassy.

Sweeeeeet.  My bike was servicable again.  After much hiking and questing my ability to move about quickly and with much less effort was most welcome.  It sort of felt like when my halfling druid (Woodi) hit level 14 and could cast SoW in EQ.

Spent most of the evening cycling around the city – first back to downtown and then along the waterfront to Stanley park (wow, AWESOME – highly recommend cycling around this park on a nice day!).  I spent a decent chunk of the bike ride thinking about the best approach to the permitting process of 544 so we can get the plant store open.  Then talked to Eric L at length about arcimoto — (which after being in a big city I think there’s a gaping huge potential market we’re about to land in).

This has been a bit of a strange vacation — lots of inbound loose ends keep showing up on my phone or in my inbox – and it has been very satisfying to be actually more responsive to them… hmmm..  and getting out of the stress mode and into “vacation” mode has unblocked a TON of ideas about all the projects swirling around my mind/reality.

Blog post idea: “Whitey Has A Lot To Answer For: A mass media/Michelle Obama critique.”   In this article I examine the absurdity of making a big deal at all over whether someone used the word whitey in a world where whitey has caused a lot of problems to say the least.  Talk about the Real Problems and Solutions, Media People!  As an added bonus, the title also works as a bumper sticker.

Oh, and I’ve been programming quite a bit since Saturday morning — I re-wrote the scanner/parser as a python module, and have been learning the language in order to do all the compiler implementation in python instead of C++.  Wow.  Awesomely faster iteration.

It’s now 10:29 and I’m hungry and getting tired.  I will go forth seeking a food item, consume it and return in order that I may sleep.