1st, Los Angeles

Happy New Year to one and all

In this Sustainable Transportation Club newsletter:

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Creating a Sustainable Transportation Dream City

in Santa Monica - The Planning Commission meeting January 4

- City Council meeting on January 10^th,

Sustainable Transport Club meeting January 7^th

Results from Calstart Meeting December 1^st

LA Bio diesel Co-op Update.

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You can find the subject you want by looking for the separator bars

with the row of XXX’s in this document.

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Creating a Sustainable Transportation Dream City

What would it be like to live in a city that gave you everything you

always wanted when driving or riding your favorite form of

sustainable transportation (bike, EV etc.)? A city that was

committed to making that transportation as sustainable as possible

rather than being dominated by imported oil addicted, four

wheeled beasts – otherwise known as gas cars.

We have an opportunity to work together toward that end. The

Sustainable Transport Club will meet to get this idea in motion on

January 7th at 10:00 to 11:00 am at the Unurban Cafe at 33rd and

Pico in Santa Monica. And you are invited.

The City of Santa Monica is working on revising the general plan

and that includes the Circulation Element. This part of the plan

will include specifications about how to handle transportation

issues in the city. We have a chance to request the plan favor

sustainable transportation elements. We can put together as much

detailed information as we like and get that considered by the City

Council for inclusion in the Circulation Element. The general plan

is revised every 20 years or so and is used to direct the

development of the city.

There will be people from the sustainable transport club at the

Planning commission meeting on Tuesday January 4th. This

meeting will review the status of the Circulation Element based on

the report that can be found on line at:

http://santa-monica.org/planning/commission/agendas/pc2005/PC_Alternatives.htm

The results of this meeting will be summarized at the Sustainable

Transport Club meeting on January 7th.

You have a chance to work with the other sustainable

transportation interests to layout what you need to make your

favorite means of transportation work as safely and effectively as

possible. Every alternative transportation method has needs and

requirements to get it working effectively. Bicyclists need to be

able to ride safely on roads that let us get everywhere in town

without having to run stop signs at every block. Alternative fuel

vehicles need filling stations for things like natural gas and bio

diesel. Electric vehicles need power outlets in garages to recharge.

Mass transit riders need to get across town more quickly and to get

to other communities at subway speeds.

What else do you need to make your ride work the best way it can?

It would be great to get information from:

Bicycle enthusiasts

Electric Vehicle People

Bio Diesel People

Motor Scooter/motorbike riders

Segway riders

Hydrogen enthusiasts

Fuel Cell advocates

Mass transit advocates

Rail and or sub way advocates

Natural Gas users, LNG and CNG

We already have people from some of these and welcome more.

We could then get people with interests in any of these areas to

sign the final document to support all of these interests. This

would show a strong base of support for when we submit the paper

to the city. It would be a chance to create a coalition of grass roots

support to change our energy dependent future. How many

signatures can we collect to get our politicians to respond to the

need for energy independence and security?

Please talk this up with the people who have similar transportation

interests as you do. The Sustainable Transportation Club is

working to bring the details together in one document that can be

submitted to the city council. Kevin Mckeown is interested in

presenting it. We have at least two other friends on the council

possibly more. This might even get all of them excited – to turn

Santa Monica into a shining example of how to free us from

imported oil and make America energy independent again.

The Santa Monica City Council will be considering the progress on

the Circulation Element of the general plan on January 10th. This

is a mid process review and a chance to get them to put the highest

priority on building sustainable transport in our area. We can

figure out what to do about this at the Jan 7th meeting.

If we can do this here that might just help get the idea to show up in lots more places. That is how to make a real difference.

Please contact the Sustainable Transport Club to help with this

project. Please feel free to submit your ideas and to contact us

prior to the meeting.

Sustain@rsydney.com

310-450-7419

Please make sure you keep up with this and other sustainable

transportation issues by signing on to the mailing list at

www.sustainabletransportclub.com

For more info on the Circulation Element start at the following

address.

http://santa-monica.org/planning/transportation/circulationelement/CircElementdesc.html

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Sustainable Transport Club Meeting:

Saturday January 7th, 2006 10:00AM

Everyone is invited to this meeting. Please respect the time

constraints, as there is a Westside Greens meeting that starts at

11:00

Unurban Café, 33RD & PICO (across from Trader Joes)

Santa Monica, CA 90405

The main topic of this meeting is the preparation of the dream

vision for sustainable transportation in Santa Monica. We will be

preparing something to be presented at the Santa Monica City

Council meeting. Kevin McKeown wants to read a statement into

the record on this subject and we can provide him with that as well

as more details to present to the staff.

Here is what Kevin indicates about this:

“As you and the Club work on this, the best format would be a

detailed document with a very focused executive summary at the

beginning, and an even shorter separate list of bullet points for me

to introduce verbally during the hearing itself. The written

document would go "on the record" and become part of staff's

resource material as the process continues.”

Please forward this information to anyone you think might be

interested even if they live away from this area. People with a high

level of expertise would be most welcome and should get in touch

as soon as possible.

Sustain@rsydney.com

310-450-7419

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Calstart Report – A Sustainable Transport Interpretation

Problem

Energy demand is increasing rapidly on global basis.

Oil production has increased twenty percent over last twenty years

and demand is projected to increase fifty percent over the next

twenty. Add the possibility of peak oil production occurring some

time in that picture and we have a really big problem.

Burning fuel that increases CO2 is clearly and scientifically

directly tied to climate change problems. Increasing the rate of

production based on the increased fuel demand will accelerate that

change. The science is very strong on this one, no matter who is in

denial.

One of the key speakers was former CIA Director James Woolsey.

It is interesting to ask why a former CIA director would be

concerned about energy. After all his work has been to do with

national security and global relations. Is this an indication that

energy is important to our national security and global peace?

Solutions

The best solutions are to reduce our use of energy by driving less.

This means mass transit and smart growth strategies. The

applicable smart growth strategies are those that give people the

ability to live, work, shop and play in their own communities using

minimal transportation (sometimes referred to as re-localization)

Other than that there is the potential to increase the efficiency of

vehicles and to switch to new technologies that do not rely on

fossil fuel. These new technologies can be called sustainable

transportation options.

The potential to increase the efficiency of the gasoline engine had

been identified as having a range of 10 to 30 % improvement. The

technologies are typically complex and expensive.

Improving your driving habits to save fuel can get you almost as

much improvement particularly when dealing with stop and go

driving.

Diesel engines are already 30 to 40 percent more productive in

terms of miles per gallon. There is a small potential to improve this

beyond the latest clean diesel technology. Bio Diesel fuels

improve the emissions even with the clean technology.

There are six options that have been identified for sustainable

transportation. These are:

1. Riding bicycles and other human powered vehicles

2. Electric vehicles powered by solar or wind generated
electricity

3. Bio diesel vehicles using waste oil and oil produced by
growing crops and algae

4. Vehicles using methane fuel converted from green waste
biomass

5. Vehicles using alcohol fuel converted from green waste
biomass

6. Vehicles using ethanol fuel from crop bye products

There are a limited number of steps we can take to start moving

toward these sustainable alternatives. Here are some of the ones

we can take now.

Bicycles etc

Ride them!

Join a bicycle group to promote their use

Get your city to build roads that are safe and efficient for bikes

Electric Vehicles

Get a neighbor hood electric vehicle such as the GEM from
Chrysler

Get an electric motor scooter or an electric motorcycle.

Get a Segway

Buy a hybrid that can be converted to plug in electric.

Help build a hybrid user network to make the move to plug in

more effective

Bio Diesel

Get a diesel car, the new clean technology is best and the old

diesels are better than gas

Organize or join a bio diesel co-op.

Learn how to make your own bio diesel fuel – its fairly easy

(quality control is an issue)

Get your city to support bio diesel fueling stations

Methane vehicles

Start with a natural gas car like the Honda Civic

Install a natural gas filling station in your home

(For more information on a potential good opportunity go to
http://automobiles.honda.com/models/civic_gx_phill.asp?ModelName=Civic+GX)

Encourage our local businesses and governments to use Liquid
Natural Gas (LNG) vehicles as much as possible.

Support efforts to get agricultural wastes converted to methane

Get your community and city to support processing green waste

into fuel

Alcohol Fuels

Purchase a flexible fuel vehicle that can run on both gasoline

and ethanol

Find a source for E85 fuel (85% ethanol)

Support efforts to get agricultural wastes converted to ethanol

Get your community and city to support processing green waste

into fuel

There is a lot more details about all this in the report that can be

found at:

www.Sustainabletransportclub.com

You can also sign on to receive our newsletter at that location.
That is one more thing you can do to help move toward a

sustainable future – join our network of concerned and involved

people.

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LA Biodiesel Co-op Update.

The new Bio diesel co-op is moving forward and is in the process

of getting their fueling trailer up and running. It should be in place

by mid January at a location near the Marina.

The Co-op is close to filling its initial membership goal but there

are still a few slots open.

Bio Diesel is not only a renewable energy source but it has the

potential to use waste oil from food sources and to keep it from the

landfill. It also reduces the pollution from diesel engines and

creates a zero net increase in greenhouse gasses. It is a step that

we can take now to deal with our need to import oil.

The clean diesel engines will be arriving in the US next year and

they can use the bio diesel to get even better results.

This co-op is also a great example of people taking individual

responsibility to live a greener life through community action.

Please send Rod an e-mail. Thanks

Rod Barshook

santamonicacreative@yahoo.com

LA Biodiesel Co-op Member

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