1st, Los Angeles

Dear Sustainability supporter:

Your address is on a separate list from our main mailing list.

Could you help by going to:

www.sustainabletransportclub.com

and signing on to that list. If you start to get duplicate newsletters

then all you have to do is return one with the word duplicate on the

first line and we will clean that up.

Thanks for your help.

In this Sustainable Transportation Club newsletter:

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Your support for a Green Depot in Santa Monica needed.

First letter to city - Creating a Sustainable

Transportation Dream City in Santa Monica

Meeting reminders

City Council meeting on January 24^th,

Report on Testing of Electric Scooters

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

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

with the row of XXXXX’s in this document.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Your support for a Green Depot in Santa Monica needed.

The Green Depot is approaching the City of Santa Monica to work

with the City and various schools to bring a Depot to Santa

Monica. This would be a great step forward for sustainable

transportation in the area and it needs your help. The following

letter gives you more information.

We need signatures of support for this project. The letter along

with a sign up sheet is posted on line in an Adobe Acrobat – PDF

format so you can print out a copy to collect signatures.

www.sustainabletransportclub.com

You can also sign the letter below and email it back to:

joe@greendepot.org

You are also hereby authorized to copy this letter to your friends

by email and have them sign it and forward it to their friends as

long as the signatures get back by January 23rd.

You may also send signed printed copies to:

Green Depot

PO Box 3096

Santa Monica, CA 90408

310.962.0488

This item is on the Agenda for the City Council meeting on

January 24^th along with the Circulation Element of the General

Plan we have been working on (see item below). That means we

have a dead line for the signature and two reasons to show up at

that meeting.

The Depot will probably take several months to bring on line so it

will make a good supplement to the new Bio Diesel trailer that the

Co-op has recently put in place near the Marina. If this gets

approved then we can really start promoting people to use bio fuels

right now.

Alternatives happen when people get in and do what it takes to

make them happen. Jump on in, the Alternatives are fine…

Here is the letter:

Dear Resident of Santa Monica,

We at Crossroads School for the Arts and Sciences in alliance with

Green Depot, a sustainable energy non-profit based in Santa

Monica, urge you to demonstrate support for biodiesel, an

environmentally responsible, domestically produced alternative

fuel.

Our goal is to strongly encourage the city of Santa Monica to join

us in our advocacy for the establishment of a "Green Depot"

Sustainable Energy Center which will feature an easily available,

public access biodiesel pump where our own school, as well as all

other Westside schools and the community can fill up their buses

and cars with eco-friendly, sustainable fuel.

Biodiesel is a cleaner burning alternative to petroleum diesel, and

it is made from renewable resources, like soybeans and other

natural fats and oils, grown right here in the United States. In

addition, biodiesel can help protect the environment by reducing

particulate, hydrocarbon, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide

emissions.

Biodiesel is not an experimental fuel. The American Society of

Testing and Materials has issued a full specification for biodiesel,

ASTM D 6751. During the last 10 years, biodiesel has been tested

in virtually every diesel engine type and application resulting in

more than 60 million successful road miles and countless marine

and off-road hours. After its own extensive tests, the Department

of Defense issued a policy guidance letter encouraging the use of

B20 in military vehicles.

I encourage you to demonstrate a commitment to the environment

and the U.S. economy by supporting our petition to get the city of

Santa Monica to agree to support Green Depot in their efforts to

establish a new environmentally friendly fuel station and

Sustainable Energy Center, so that we may pursue our ambition of

being part of the solution rather than contributing to our

environment's problems.

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to provide this input, and

we hope that you will aid us on our journey to provide a cleaner

earth for generations to come.

Sincerely,

The Biofuel Alliance

Students for Environmental Action (S.E.A.)

Crossroads School for Arts and Sciences

New Roads School

Santa Monica High School

Green Depot <www.GreenDepot.org>

Signed in support:

NAME LOCATION CONTACT

X_____________________________________________

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

First letter to city - Creating a Sustainable

Transportation Dream City in Santa Monica

Here is a copy of what we sent to the City of Santa Monica. The

item that would have covered this topic was put over to the next

meeting on January 24^th.

This was our first move of many to work with the city toward

building our sustainable transport future.

Sustainable Transport Club

9 Village Park Way

Santa Monica, CA 90405

310-450-7419

January 10, 2006

City Council Members

City of Santa Monica

1685 Main Street

Santa Monica CA 90401

Dear Council Members:

This letter is being written on behalf of the Sustainable Transport

Club to support you in your efforts to move the future of Santa

Monica toward a system of sustainable transportation.

The main points we would like to encourage are:

· The neighborhood center concept provides a prerequisite

structure for sustainability

· We urge you to continue your support for developing

renewable energy sources as alternatives to fossil fuels

· We encourage city support for neighborhood transportation

vehicles and roadways to use them on, safely and

efficiently

· The Sustainable Transport Club can support the

development of sustainable alternatives

The Sustainable Transport Club is a community-based group

centered in Santa Monica that consists of people with a range of

interests in developing alternatives to fossil fuel based

transportation. We are deeply concerned about the threat to our

environment, to our national security, and to our economy from

our dependence on fossil fuels and from importing foreign oil.

We encourage you to emphasis the neighborhood centers concept

as outlined in the staff’s draft alternatives. This concept provides

the residents an opportunity to get their daily living needs met with

the lowest possible transportation impacts. This pattern would

reduce total miles driven in automobiles and make alternative

transportation more viable. This in turn would reduce congestion

and parking problems as well as minimizing the environmental

degradation.

It is our intension to further encourage the focus on sustainability

in the city throughout the process of revising the general plan.

There are two key areas that we can provide assistance in this

effort. One is in providing information about developing the use of

renewable energy sources for transportation and the other is in

encouraging the use of low impact modes of transportation.

The low impact modes of transportation include a range of vehicles

from human powered things like bicycle up to neighborhood

electric transport vehicles like the GEM. These have the potential

to reduce congestion and parking problems as well as the

environmental impact of moving people around. These can be referred to as neighbor hood vehicles that would be encouraged by

the neighborhood centers. There are a whole series of other ways

to encourage the use of such vehicles that will be detailed in future

reports and correspondence.

One of the main ideas is to create roads specifically designed to

make it safe and efficient to use these vehicles to move from one

community center to the others. These could be considered to be

neighborhood transportation routes that would be different from

the auto centric arterials.

Our group is also committed to developing the use of alternative,

renewable fuels. We have substantial experience and expertise

represented in our members and can help create ways to foster the

development of these fuels in our community.

There are five renewable energy sources that have currently been

identified as having great potential to provide sustainable

transportation. These are:

1. Human powered, using vehicles such as bicycles

2. Electricity from solar, wind and environmentally sound
hydroelectric generators

3. Waste oil and oil produced by growing crops and algae
converted to Bio diesel

4. Methane fuel converted from green waste biomass

5. Alcohol fuel converted from green waste biomass and from
crop bye products

It is our intentions to bring our experience and expertise to bear on

identifying the steps that can be taken toward using these fuels in

our community. This would include providing that information to

the city as well as bringing people together to support the effort in

that direction.

Thank you for your work in this area and for your continued efforts

toward sustainability. We look forward to working together

toward a sustainable, secure and environmentally sound future.

Sincerely yours

Russell Sydney

Organizer for the Club

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Meeting reminders

City Council meeting on January 24^th,

Tuesday at 6:45 Pm

Santa Monica City Hall 1685 Main Street

This meeting will be a chance to give support for the Sustainable

Transport letter and for the Green Depot. Details of both are

below. The city council members definitely respond to people

supporting such ideas, particularly when such people present

themselves and their ideas in well thought out presentations.

Your attendance will help get things going and provide support for

a sustainable future.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Status of current Electric Motor Scooter testing

The current tests have included working with three scooters. Two

of them have been testing the two speed controllers from china and

on is testing the 1000-watt brush less motor and controller. Here

are the findings to date.

The two speed controllers are problematic. They showed good

performance at first with good acceleration and range. They have

both failed under our heavy traffic conditions. There are

replacement controllers being sent for these 1500-watt brush less

motors that will simulate the gear change electronically and should

be more durable.

That will be the next round of tests, which will also include a

comparison between the gel cell batteries and the “Green Power”

silicon batteries (these are lead acid variations with higher density

and deep cycle).

The 1000-watt brush less motor is testing very well. It is smooth

and silent. It has a top speed of 22-25 mph and is suitable for use

in bike lane traffic use. It is not suitable for use in full speed

traffic. The range looks like it is around the twenty-mile range -

possibly more on newer batteries.

Things you can do to help.

1, Find someone interested in a 1000-watt scooter. It can go for as

little as $500. This would help to bring in the next model for

testing.

2, Decide to jump in and order the next model for testing. This

would be a new brush less scooter in the 1500 to 2000 watt range

with one of the new controllers from a second company. There are

two other companies we can check out.

Please call 310-450-7419 if you are interested in either option

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Please sign up to receive this newsletter by going to

www.sustainabletransportclub.com

This newsletter is produced by Speakers Press for the Sustainable

Transport Club. You are encouraged to contribute articles that

support developing sustainable transportation. Authors contribute

electronic first serial rights only and retain all other rights.

authorized to electronically forward all or part provided this