We are getting results with the Santa Monica Project.
Congratulations to Kevin McKeown on getting reelected – thanks to those
of you who helped that effort.
Fun things going on as always-
Best Russell Sydney
310-450-7419
In this Sustainable Transportation Club Newsletter:
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Community based action
Get out your WISH LIST for Transport in Santa Monica
Report on meeting with city staff
WHO KILLED THE ELECTRIC CAR?
DVD Release Party November 17th, 8:30PM
ALT CAR EXPO and a chance for a
MASS BICYCLE RIDE at the opening rally
Outreach and Education
Green Ambassador outreach program getting moving
Wanna make your own biodiesel - November 18th
Busting the Flex Fuel scam
How flex fuels vehicles are increasing our use of gasoline
Getting your Sustainable Ride
Electric Bicycles are heating up
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You can find the subject you want by looking for the separator bars
with the row of XXXXX’s in this document.
Please send any relevant information for inclusion in this
newsletter.
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Community based action
Get out your WISH LIST for Transport in Santa Monica
Report on meeting with city staff
A core group of sustainable transport activist met with the new planning
director for the City of Santa Monica a week or so ago. This was a
fantastic gathering as it not only produced some great results but it was a
wonderful moment for the Sustainable Transport Club.
The wonderful moment was to do with the Club kicking in, with our
potential showing up as a reality. We had truly fine people representing
the electric vehicles, the bicycles and the renewable fuels as well as the
lightweight neighborhood vehicle interests coming together to support re-
localization and our respective forms of sustainable transport. We were
backed up by a list of people that might have included you who have
written to support our work with the City. That is community organizing
doing its thing and getting results. Very cool, my thanks to you all.
And We Got Results.
The results include building working relations with the city staff and
having the invitation to:
SUBMIT OUR WISH LIST for Sustainable Transport in Santa Monica.
This wish list can include every little detail that we see would help us get
our sustainable rides happening more easily and more safely in Santa
Monica.
You are the ones who know what it takes - so let’s get the information sent
in to one central place. We can sort the ideas out and submit them to the
city planning department for them to figure out how to get us what we
want. It is my intention to post this on a web site so we can review it and
build it into a comprehensive document.
This list is to get all the ideas and details for every form of sustainable
transport including but not limited to:
BICYCLES – get our safe routes, bicycle boulevards, parking and storage etc etc.
ELECTRIC CARS – get the charging infrastructure that we need.
Neighborhood ELECTRIC VEHICILES – charging and the right places to drive and park etc.
BIODIESEL – get the pumps and the services we need
Vege Oil – get the collection of all waste oil easy and safely
Alcohol Fuels – green waste conversions and more
LIGHT WEIGHT vehicles – safe places to drive, park and charge.
MASS TRANSIT – all the express buss services and rail services we need
tied into all other forms with the right storage/parking/charging
RE-LOCALIZATION- what does this mean, what does it look like to you?
You know what you need to get into, around, and out of Santa Monica so
lets get it all written down and submitted to the city. They cannot promise
anything and it will take time to get things sorted out but it starts with us
asking for what we want.
Please send your ideas to sustain@rsydney.com or call 310-450-7419.
FOR THOSE WHO DO NOT LIVE IN SANTA MONICA
This project will help the Westside and it can be used as an example of
how to get your town to go SUSTAINABLE.
We are developing a process of how to work with your city. The process
is documented in this newsletter and can be adapted to your community.
We would like to support that sort of effort and be able to report on all
such efforts through this newsletter. Get in touch so we can make this
happen all over.
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Community based action
"Who Killed the Electric Car?"
DVD Release Party November 17th, 8:30PM
This is a night to hangout with those who sing the praises of electric
vehicles. But be warned, this crowd likes to have a good time while being
passionate about EV’s. Show up if you are ready to get inspired….
What: Special screening of "Who Killed the Electric Car?"
And DVD Release Party
Who: with director Chris Paine and a bunch of the cast
Where: Vidiots - 302 Pico Blvd
Santa Monica, Ca. 90405
When: November 17th, 8:30PM
Those of you who cannot make this screening can order your copy and
support Plug In America by getting your copies at the web site
These will make great stocking stuffers and are a great way to get friends
and family on the sustainable transport bandwagon. The movie is so well
done that they will not even mind being given a documentary for the
Holidays. Feel free to use the DVD as an excuse for a social gathering so
that all you friends can view this at a private screening/party. It is that
time of year after all.
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Community based action
ALT CAR EXPO and a chance for a
MASS BICYCLE RIDE at the opening rally
We have been given the chance to make a critical mass type of ride
happen as part of the start up rally for the Alt Car Expo.
WHO: Everyone interested in sustainable vehicles from all
over the country.
The event needs bicycles to show up….
WHAT: A mass rally featuring the best alternatives available
WHEN: Gather at 10:30am Friday December 8th
WHERE: The Santa Monica Pier
WHY: To let California know bicycles, EV’s and renewable
fuels are happening now
– the media is invited and should show in force
What do you think of the idea of a critical mass ride in the middle of a
rally for alternative vehicles? Do you think the media will respond to a
rally that features a critical mass of bicycles in the mix with the latest
electric cars, NEV’s, LWEV’s biodiesel, ethanol, CNG, LNG Vehicles?
The Expo has lined up some great stuff including guest speakers and the
latest vehicles from around the state and the country. There will be Light
Weight Electric Vehicle (LWEV) present including:
Electric Cyclery from Laguna Beach with several electric bicycles
Crossbow Electric Skateboards
Skeuter.com with electric scooters
Segway
The Sustainable Transport Club will show with electric scooters and bicycles
But right now there is only one human powered vehicle vendor and that is
the Arbor Skate board people – no bicycles. LA bike coalition will be
tabling at the show.
The rally is a chance to create a strong bicycle presence and to let people
know that bikes are part of the mix for today and for the future after peak
oil. The only catch is that we need to keep the numbers down to around
fifty or so.
So WHO WANTS IN and who wants to help organize this?
In addition the Expo people really want a bike company in the showroom.
This means really attractive pricing for a booth. If any one knows a store
or a manufacturer that might want in please have them get in touch.
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Outreach and Education
Green Ambassador outreach program getting moving
Wanna make your own biodiesel?
Come to Environmental Charter High School's event hosted by the Green
Ambassadors, to learn how to make biodiesel from the
man who designed the Fuelmiester.
At Environmental Charter High School’s Garden behind
the green building called Yesterday's Treasure
10AM-4PM
4333 W. 147th Street
Lawndale, CA
Contact Sara at 310-940-1626 or saralaimon@yahoo.com
This would be a wonderful field trip for the neighborhood kids.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Biodieselrocks/
http://www.myspace.com/biodieselrocks
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Outreach and Education
Busting the Flex fuel scam
How flex fuels vehicles are increasing our use of gasoline
Flex Fuel vehicles have the ability to run on pure gasoline, gasoline with
10% ethanol (E10) and gasoline with 85% ethanol (E85) and a range in
between. Since Ethanol is a renewable fuel on some level that makes
these flex fuel vehicles sound like part of the solution. But is it?
A quick look at the actual models on the market shows them to be big gas
guzzlers like the Chevy Tahoe. Does that make sense? Why would a
green technology be used on low miles per gallon vehicles? If they really
wanted to hit the green market they would put that on high miles per
gallon vehicles.
This does not make sense until you realize it is all about selling big SUV’s
and trucks. That’s right, the flex fuel vehicles are actually helping make
the problem of oil dependency worse. This was reported in the November
2006 edition of Consumer Reports.
Here is how this corporate scam works.
Car manufacturers have to sell vehicles that meet the Corporate Average
Fuel Economy guidelines (CAFÉ standards). The large trucks and SUV’s
make lots of money for the manufacturers but they can only sell so many
before they get into being fined for breaking the requirements from the
CAFÉ standards.
Here is how you get around those fines. Put a couple of hundred dollars
worth of flex fuel technology in your biggest gas guzzlers. Sell this
configuration as much as possible. Each of these vehicles is rated on gas
consumption based on using E85 half the time. That means half the
gasoline consumption. This gives you cars sold under the standard and
credits that let you sell more large trucks and SUV’s that do not even have
the flex fuel ability.
The only problem is that the flex fuels vehicles run on gasoline 90 plus
percent of the time as E85 is hard to come by. This means the flex fuel
vehicles are sucking lots of gas and they are letting the manufacturer sell
more gas sucking vehicles as well. The company not only gets to sell all
these low miles per gallon vehicles but it then tries to claim they are high
miles per gallon “based on EPA reports”. They even use this scam to
claim they are going green!
Now you know – pass the word along.
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Getting your Sustainable Ride
Electric Bicycles are heating up
There is a growing interest in electric bicycles. These have almost all the
advantages of a bicycle and solve some of the problems. The electric
drive motors help solve the problems with hills and extend the distance
people can ride. They make it possible to commute by bicycle without
having to get all sweaty – thus solving the need to change cloths etc.
The electric bike lets people use bicycles before they get back in shape
and they will help you get into shape so you can use your traditional bike
once again. They are also a lot of fun to ride.
There are several good electric bicycle available and they start at $500 or
less. Here are some web resources to check out some of the ones available:
For the Santa Barbara Electric Bicycle Company see:
or for the Currie and Schwinn scooters, see:
http://www.currietech.com/
and the eGO
http://www.egovehicles.com/
We also have a new company in town that is selling electric scooters that
you can drive much like an electric bicycle. They even have a pedal
conversion kit that will let you register these as electric bicycles.
SEE www.skeuter.com for more details.
The good thing about the Skeuter site is that they are right here in Mar
Vista on Washington with support etc.
There is a whole discussion of the legalities on electric bicycles going on
with the Cycle Santa Monica group right now so if you want to learn all
about that please go to: http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/cyclesantamonica/
Below is a little bit of that discussion to give you an idea of the issues involved.
From Cycle Santa Monica courtesy of Michael and John Breza:
"What determines the law is not the term "motorized bicycle" but its
speed and power(2 brake horse power) aprx 1500 watts) for mopeds.
So yes you can have a motorized bicycle that needs a plate and one that
does not depending on its power and speed.
For even more complication throw into the mix legal definition of
Motorized Scooters - which are different then both mopeds and motorized
bicycles (that go under 20 mph) . there is also a difference between CVC
and the California Driving Code. The CVC defines the vehicle the CDC
defines it's usage."
.
Please clarify what the "CDC" is? Did you mean the CVC? I just want to
be sure I got the information correct. Thanks.
>From what I understand, there are three things that, in various
combinations, determine whether a bicycle is determined to be defined as
a (a) or (b) bicycle.
One is, the quantity and type of power. And there appears to be two
types, by law, gas and electric. And the measurement of how much power
does it have in either "gross brake horsepower" for gas power or "watts"
for electric power.
The second is, does it have pedals or not?
And the third, what is the maximum speed the motor or engine attached,
can propel the bicycle on level ground.
However, this presents some issues, such as I have described in my
previous emails regarding which electric bicycles, as defines in
subdivision (b) of section 406 of the CVC are required to have license
plates, or whether the driver is required to have a drivers license, or
liability insurance.
One of the other problems I am seeing in the code, and perhaps not
foreseen by the original authors of the statute, is what about bicycles,
with no pedals, and a maximum speed of under 20 miles per hour. In a
sense, legally those would still fall under the designation of
subdivision (a), because they would still meet all the criteria of that
subdivision. Those types of vehicles would include a wide range of new
light weight bikes, or scooters, that have a maximum speed of under 20
miles per hour, such as the those made by Zap, Schwinn. Even the Segway
could fall under the category of subdivision (b)(ref:
http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/vctop/d01/vc406.htm ). One of the only
questions is how it may or may not fit, if it has 2 electric motors. And
it is unclear what the wattage that the electric motors (2 DC brushless)
the Segway have.
So, if people want the most flexibility in their mobility or
transportation choice of light weight electric vehicles(or AKA "devices"
in the California Vehicle Code), then having operable pedals for human
power, even if you don't use them, most of the time, or ever for that
matter, would suffice in making your two wheeled electric vehicle an
electric bicycle, if it has the other criteria listed in CVC 406(b), it
having an electric power motor, with a maximum wattage of 1000; 3 or
less wheels; can attain maximum speed of 20 miles per hour or less on
level ground,
It appears that whether your bicycle has operable pedals are pivotal on
making it a "406(a)" or "406(b)" bicycle.
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Getting Results on Sustainable Transport