Archive for the ‘"Green" Dallas’ Category

The Dallas Arboretum is in the midst of the “Autumn at the Arboretum” festival now through 2 November 08. Special events for this weekend include:

For those that wish to visit during the less busy weekdays, click here for discount coupons.

Blazing heat, choking pollution and skyrocketing electric bills. What’s one way to combat all these problems at once? Plant trees.

Trouble is, compared to other large cities, the Dallas area doesn’t have nearly enough.

But a dedicated corps of volunteers stands ready to fulfill a mission that could make life better for us all: plant more trees and cool down our urban oceans of concrete.

They’re training to be “citizen foresters.”

To fully understand the benefits of trees in the city, you have to go where there are no trees in the city. When the outside temperature hits 100 degrees, the temperature on the pavement can hit 120 degrees. But where city streets are lined with trees, the temperature on the pavement can check in at 90 degrees. That’s almost 30 degrees cooler.

But how many trees should be planted? And where?

Other cities around the country have counted trees by hand. But that takes 10 years or more.

Eventually, a high-tech camera will fly over the city and identify the variety, quantity, and location of the city’s trees.

Armed with this information, the army of volunteers will be sent to places like Harry Hines Boulevard, where trees are few and far between.

And the planting can begin.

DART posted its best ridership numbers ever in June, when more Dallas-area passengers used its buses, trains and HOV lanes than ever before.

The increases were felt across the board. There were more trips recorded for light rail, commuter rail and buses in June, DART said Thursday. And in a change, the increases went beyond the higher weekday totals that have been seen in recent months. Ridership was up on weekdays, Saturdays and Sundays.

The Trinity Railway Express, the commuter line between Dallas and Fort Worth that DART operates jointly with Fort Worth’s transportation agency, provided 251,000 rides in June. That’s 31,000 more than in May and nearly 45,000 more than a year before.

The number of light rail passengers increased, too. In June, those riders took 1.69 million trips on DART, about 200,000 more than June, 2007, and about 100,000 more than an already busy May, 2008.

Average weekday totals for light rail — about 70,000 trips a day - and for TRE — about 11,000 trips a day — were each the highest numbers in DART history.

Rail ridership has been trending up for months, as commuters recoiled at the idea of paying $4 or more for gasoline. Weekday ridership has been sharply up, but the overall increases have tended to be more modest.

In addition, bus ridership — by far the biggest share of DART’s customers — had not increased so steadily. Indeed, May bus numbers were down from a year before.

But that changed, too, in June. Though about 3,000 fewer bus trips were made in June than in May, the June figure was still up 6 percent, or 220,000 trips, than June, 2007. DART buses provided some 3.8 million trips for the month.

Counting the 4.5 million passengers DART said were in vehicles using the HOV lanes, the total DART ridership for June was 10.3 million — the highest total ever for the 25-year old agency.

DART has steadily expanded its network of HOV lanes in the past year, however, making year-to-year comparisons that include HOV riders less useful than apples-to-apples comparisons of bus and rail ridership, for instance.

DART released the numbers after agency president Gary Thomas alluded to the double-digit increase for rail ridership to group of officials from Fort Worth who had traveled by train to see the Mockingbird Station development in Dallas.

Texas is moving forward on the nation’s largest wind-power project, a plan to build billions of dollars worth of new transmission lines to bring wind energy from gusty West Texas to urban areas.

Texas is already the national leader in wind power, and supporters say Thursday’s preliminary approval by the Public Utility Commission, will make the Lone Star State a leader in being able to move all that energy to the urban areas that need it.

Environmentalist and consumer groups called the move a critical expansion of the “renewable energy superhighway,” predicting it will spur wind energy projects, create jobs, reduce energy costs and reduce pollution.

Texas electric customers will bear the cost of the $4.9 billion plan over the next several years, paying about $4 more per month on their electric bills.

State officials, however, say those increases could be several years away, and the payments would be no different than the current system of paying for new transmission lines from power plants.

The 2-1 vote by the PUC, however, didn’t commit to as big of a project as some environmental groups and state lawmakers had wanted. The chosen plan would transmit a little more than half the energy some advocated.

Texas already generates the about 5,000 megawatts of wind power, tops in the nation. The new plan would add transmission lines to boost capacity to about 18,000 megawatts.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas says one megawatt of power provides enough electricity for 500-700 average homes under normal conditions in Texas, or about 200 homes during hot weather.

Billionaire oilman T. Boone Pickens is putting his clout behind renewable energy sources like wind power.

The legendary entrepreneur and philanthropist on Tuesday unveiled a new energy plan he says will decrease the United States‘ dependency on foreign oil by more than one-third and help shift American energy production toward renewable natural resources.

“The Pickens Plan” calls for investing in domestic renewable resources such as wind, and switching from oil to natural gas as a transportation fuel.

In a news conference outlining his proposal, Pickens said his impetus for the plan is the country’s dangerous reliance on foreign oil. He stated that the U.S.’s dependency upon imported oil is killing our economy and is the single biggest problem facing America today. He went on to say that wind is clean, renewable power with a stable supply.

Pickens’ company, Mesa Power, recently announced a $2 billion investment as the first step in a multibillion-dollar plan to build the world’s largest wind farm in Pampa, Texas.

Pickens said Tuesday that if the United States takes advantage of the so-called “wind corridor,” stretching from the Canadian border to West Texas, energy from wind turbines built there could supply 20 percent or more of the nation’s power. He suggested the project could be funded by private investors.

Power from thousands of wind turbines that would line the corridor could be distributed throughout the country via electric power transmission lines and could fuel power plants in large population hubs.

Fueling these plants with wind power would then free up the natural gas historically used to power them, and would mean that natural gas could replace foreign oil as fuel for motor vehicles, he said.

Using natural gas for transportation needs could replace one-third of the United States’ imported oil and would save more than $230 billion a year.

Pickens stated that we, as a country, have to do something different as we cannot continue to pay $600 billion a year for oil.

His energy plan could be implemented within 10 years if both Congress and the White House treat the current energy situation as a “national emergency and take immediate action,” he predicted.

Pickens, a lifelong Republican, says he is not advising either presidential candidate, but is prepared to work with the next president.

The Web site for the plan urges people to sign up and help spread the word.

Dallas is among the leaders in Texas cities in recycling.

While Houston thinks 2% is impressive (bless their hearts), we are at a whopping 12% after just 18 months of utilizing the city-wide recycling program. The amount of recycled material has doubled since the city began its curbside blue cart program a year and a half ago. Initially the city anticipated 50k requests for the 96 gallon blue bins but were gobsmacked to receive 90,000 requests.

If you don’t have your recycling bin yet, you can order one at this link.

In order to participate, residents now call the city for a cart. A white truck with the words “Too Good to Throw Away” scrawled on its side picks up the recycled goods every other week. In a few locations, this now occurs once a week. The items are then transported to a recycling facility in Garland, compressed and resold.

The city gets 67 percent of the proceeds.

Dallas may never take up San Francisco’s Styrofoam ban or use all hybrid cars, but we could become Texas’ surrogate green city.

Dallas has the largest alternative-fueled fleet of city vehicles in the state. And it passed an ordinance in April that mandates environmentally-conscious buildings.

Watch out Austin – we’re coming up fast. And since this is a “Texas thang” you know we are gunning for the top spot!

Desperation from rising gas prices is propelling Dallas drivers online. Commuters, now more than ever before, are looking to Web sites to carpool and share high fuel prices.

Drivers are increasingly visiting these sites where they can connect with wannabe passengers, post their location and where and when they usually commute.

This is not a new idea, but it’s getting more popular now that gasoline is so expensive.

One growing Web site is Ridesearch.com, based in Carrollton. The founder, Brian Bass, says that site traffic has doubled over the past two months. The average driver is saving $50 per week by utilizing carpools.

Another site, eRideShare.com has seen site traffic go from 700 per day in February to 2,500 daily in June.

Other sites offering carpooling options include:
DART RideShare
CarPool World
Dallas CraigsList Ride Share
Mesquite Van Pool