#car dependent infrastructure is cringe

[angmallen]

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[tamboradventure]

How to Become a Sustainable Traveler in 2020

Posted: 2/17/2020 | February 17th, 2020

After years on the sidelines, sustainable travel has made its way to the forefront of the travel industry. Environmentally friendly travel is now one of the fastest-growing movements in the industry, and I, for one, welcome this trend. It’s an incredibly important topic that I’ve been writing about for years.

After all, why destroy what you love? No one wants to see paradise paved over. We all cringe when we return to an overdeveloped, polluted destination. None of us want to contribute to that.

Being an eco-friendly traveler is simply being a respectful traveler.

As we strive to become more environmentally conscious, the questions for travelers become:

Just how do we “green” our travels?

What can we do to lower our carbon footprint as we travel the world?

How can we better interact with the communities we visit?

What changes can we make that are actually helpful?

Flight shaming people is not the answer, but do we all just stay home and quit traveling?

Fortunately, there’s actually a lot we can do as travelers to reduce our ecological footprint while contributing to the sustainability of the communities we visit.

Here are 13 concrete ways to reduce your environmental impact as a traveler:  

1. Stay Close to Home

Though the exotic is always appealing, travel doesn’t have to be about going somewhere far away. Travel is the art of exploration and discovery — and that can just as well be nearby. Find somewhere close to home you haven’t been, get in your car (or better yet, take the bus), and go visit. You never know what you’ll come across!

“X” is always the most interesting place on the map.  

2. Make Greener Transportation Choices

If you can, try to travel by train or bus. Not only does this reduce your carbon footprint but companies like FlixBus, Megabus, and Greyhound always have some cheap tickets, so you can save money too.

And when traveling by car, consider offering rides to other travelers to lower your collective emissions and cut costs. Many people will be happy to chip in for gas if it saves them time, which means you can save money and lower your carbon footprint at the same time. Win-win! That will cut your per-person transportation emissions in half (if not more). Use platforms like BlaBlaCar, Couchsurfing, and Craigslist to find rideshares near you.

Avoid flying or driving long distances by yourself whenever you can.  

3. Travel Slow

When we travel abroad, we have a tendency to rush around from place to place, trying to soak in as many sights as possible. I get that. After all, not everyone can be permanent nomads, and when you have limited time and aren’t sure if you’re coming back again, I can see why people “travel fast.”

However, not only does this raise your transportation costs since you’re moving a lot, you end up increasing your carbon footprint. All those trains, buses, and planes add up. The fewer you take, the better.

Additionally, being a good traveler not only means reducing your carbon footprint but also doing good by the communities you visit. Day-tripping brings in very little money to communities but impacts their infrastructure heavily (it’s why the city of Hallstatt in Austria is restricting day tours). So try to stay at a destination for a least a night.

Traveling to fewer destinations is good not only for your wallet and the climate, it’s good for local communities as well.

(Plus, slowing your travels will let you get to know places in a deeper way, since you’ll get to spend more time there. In travel, less can be more.)  

4. Pack Smart

While the specifics of will depend on where you’re going, there are a few things you’ll want to bring with you to help you travel more sustainably:

Reusable water bottle – Nalgene makes durable bottles that are BPA-free and made in the USA.

Water filter – Many destinations don’t have potable water, which means you’re going to be using tons of single-use plastic. Instead, bring a Lifestraw or SteriPen. These devices will purify your water so you can drink from practically anywhere, ensuring you can avoid single-use plastic bottles.

Tote bag/stuff sack – If you’re traveling long-term, bring a tote back or an extra stuff sack. You can use them for buying groceries and avoid plastic bags. At other times, they can be used to keep your bag organized.

Diva cup – This is a reusable menstrual cup. While I can’t speak from personal experience, it’s something our resident solo female travel expert packs when she travels, since menstrual products are not always available (and can also be quite wasteful).

Utensils – Travel cutlery (a fork, knife, and spoon, or just a spork or a set of chopsticks) can come in handy if you’re on a budget and plan on cooking your own meals. But they’re also useful for street food and eating out, as you can avoid plastic cutlery.

Additionally, bring a small Tupperware container for leftovers. I always find myself with extra food when I cook in hostels. This helps avoid waste and provides food for the next day. It’s an amazing travel hack surprisingly few people make use of.  

5. Fly with Fewer Connections

While I don’t believe in flight shaming, it’s impossible to deny that flying does have a hefty carbon impact. In addition to limiting your flying, try to use longer flights with fewer connections. Twenty-five percent of airplane emissions occur during takeoff and landing, which means if you fly shorter flights with more connections, your emissions will be drastically higher.

Flying direct is simply the better option environmentally, so opt for that whenever possible.  

6. Avoid Overvisited Destinations

If you can, avoid cities grappling with overtourism. You’ll find fewer crowds and lower prices, and you also won’t be putting as much strain on local communities struggling to keep up. (And, from a sheer personal-enjoyment point of view, who wants to deal with crowds or long lines? No one.)

If you do visit overtouristed places, such as Venice, Amsterdam, or Barcelona, pick a hotel or hostel instead of using sites like Airbnb. Apartment rentals drive up rents for locals and force them out of the city center. Unless you’re going to share accommodation with a local by renting a room from them (or using Couchsurfing), stick to hotels and hostels. Airbnb and similar sites really are detrimental to cities that don’t have a lot of housing.  

7. Take Public Transportation

After walking, public transportation is the next best way to explore new destinations. On arrival, head to the local tourism office to learn about the options (as well as any visitor discounts available for public transit).

If you do need a taxi, use ridesharing apps instead. Uber and Lyft have a “pool” option in many cities, which lets you split your ride with other travelers. While it may take a little longer to get to your destination, it will save you money and ensure that your ride is as eco-friendly as possible.

When it comes to longer distances, budget buses are your best way of getting around, since they usually pack in a lot of passengers. Megabus and FlixBus are two of the most popular options.

  8. Eat Local

Food that is imported has a much higher carbon footprint than locally grown food (and it’s usually not as fresh either). To keep your carbon footprint down, eat like a local. Stick to foods that are grown locally, and avoid packaged and imported foods much as possible. This will ensure that you’re eating seasonal produce, which not only is going to be the freshest but will also support the local economy. (Also, stick to organic food if you can.)

Sure, the odd Western comfort meal is not the end of the world, but the more you eat locally, the more you reduce your environmental footprint and the more you help the local economy as well. After all, you didn’t come to Thailand to eat a burger you could get at home, right?  

9. Cut Back on Meat and Dairy

I’m not saying you need to go vegan. I love meat and never plan to give up bacon. But if you’re concerned with the impact of your food, reducing your meat and dairy intake is extremely helpful. Over 25% of global greenhouse gas emissions come from food — and the majority of those emissions are from animal products. So by cutting back on your meat and dairy consumption, you’ll drastically reduce your carbon footprint. (Avoid Brazilian beef if you can, as lot comes from cleared rainforest land. Cattle ranching is the #1 cause of rainforest deforestation in the world. Same for soy too.)

Plus, it’s never been easier to travel as a vegan or vegetarian, as there are tons of amazing restaurants out there — as well as apps to help you find them (you can download the HappyCow app to find the best vegan and vegetarian options near you).

Even if you take meat and dairy out of one meal a week, you’ll be moving the needle in favor of a lower carbon footprint and a more ethical diet.  

10. Avoid Animal Attractions

Part of traveling green is helping the other creatures that inhabit his earth. That means you should avoid any and all attractions that use captive wild animals for entertainment. The most common offenders are riding elephants, swimming with dolphins, visiting captive whales, and petting (drugged) tigers. These activities require animal abuse and imprisonment and should be avoided.

Animals are best viewed in their natural habitats. If you want to see them, go on a safari, jungle hike, or whale-watching tour and see the animals where they belong, in the wild.

If you want to be an ethical and responsible traveler, stick to taking photographs and avoid direct interactions with animals.

For more information on animal tourism and how to avoid it, check out these helpful organizations:

World Animal Protection

Wildlife Watch

  11. Reduce Your Plastic Use

I hate plastic. It creates a ton of waste. From plastic bottles to toothpaste tubes to shopping bags, plastic sucks. I admit I’m not perfect, and I still use too much, but I’m always trying to reduce my consumption (both at home and abroad).

Avoiding plastic as much as possible is a great way to reduce your environmental impact. You can buy a reusable water bottle, use toothpaste tabs, carry your own cutlery, and travel with a canvas bag for starters.

Additionally, skip the plastic straws and cutlery and avoid getting take-out unless it comes in biodegradable containers. Straws can take 200 years to biodegrade, and plastic bags take 20. Don’t let a few minutes of convenience endanger the planet. Skip the plastic.  

12. Cut Back on Cruises

Cruises are one of the worst offenders when it comes to carbon footprints and overtourism. Taking a cruise has the same average per-person carbon footprint as flying from London to Tokyo — round-trip. That’s almost 20,000 kilometers (12,500 miles)!

Thanks to cruises, carbon emissions in popular port cities can be so high that thousands of people actually die prematurely every year.

And to top it all off, day-trippers from cruises visits are overwhelming local economies, driving up prices, forcing out locals, and creating destinations that are over-reliant on tourism.

Don’t get me wrong: cruises are a fun way to travel. But if you’re looking to lower your environmental footprint, you’ll want to avoid cruises as much as possible.  

13. Take a Nature-Related Trip

Travel is one of the best personal development tools there is. It opens you up to a whole new world and widens your perspective of so many things — people, culture, history, food, and so much more.

If you want to better understand and appreciate the natural world, try taking a trip with the sole purpose of connecting with nature. Head to the Australian Outback, go diving and swim around coral reefs, visit national parks, camp in the Moroccan desert, stay a few weeks in a town with little or no electricity, canoe down the Amazon River, or spend a few nights under the stars in a field close to home.

Do something that gets you in touch with the world in a way that sitting at home with all the electricity and free-flowing running water doesn’t. I promise that when you come home, you’ll have a new perspective on why we’re all so focused on being environmentally friendly these days.

It doesn’t take much to see that we are living unsustainably and something’s got to give. Going on a nature adventure can get you to think differently when it comes to the environment and how important it is for us to treat it well.

***

Traveling in a more green and eco-friendly way is something we should all aspire to. As travelers, it’s our responsibility to make sure that, while we explore the globe, we do so in a way that doesn’t harm the planet or the local communities that we visit.

With a few simple changes, you can all become better and more sustainable travelers. You just need to take that first step. Action begets action, and the more actions you take, the easier the other ones will be.

Book Your Trip: Logistical Tips and Tricks

Book Your Flight Find a cheap flight by using Skyscanner or Momondo. They are my two favorite search engines, because they search websites and airlines around the globe so you always know no stone is being left unturned.

Book Your Accommodation You can book your hostel with Hostelworld as they have the largest inventory. If you want to stay somewhere other than a hostel, use Booking.com, as they consistently return the cheapest rates for guesthouses and hotels. I use them all the time.

Don’t Forget Travel Insurance Travel insurance will protect you against illness, injury, theft, and cancellations. It’s comprehensive protection in case anything goes wrong. I never go on a trip without it, as I’ve had to use it many times in the past. I’ve been using World Nomads for ten years. My favorite companies that offer the best service and value are:

World Nomads (for everyone below 70)

Insure My Trip (for those 70 and over)

Looking for the best companies to save money with? Check out my resource page for the best companies to use when you travel! I list all those I use — and they’ll save you time and money too!

The post How to Become a Sustainable Traveler in 2020 appeared first on Nomadic Matt's Travel Site.

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[bikechatter]

What does the Portland Business Alliance really think about Better Naito?

Make way for the job creators! (Photo: J. Maus/BikePortland)

What does the Portland Business Alliance think about Better Naito; the city’s reconfiguration of Naito Parkway to include a two-way protected bike lane and sidewalk? It depends on who you ask. Or more precisely, it depends on which of their positions will face more public scrutiny.

The PBA, Portland’s most well-established business lobby group with over 1,800 member companies, has issued two official statements on Better Naito. One came in the form of an op-ed from PBA Board of Directors Chair Jim Mark published in the Portland Tribune on Tuesday; the other came from PBA President and CEO Sandra McDonough in the form of a letter dated May 9th and addressed to Portland Bureau of Transportation Commissioner Dan Saltzman. I obtained that letter (PDF) via a public records request along with 12 other emails sent to Saltzman’s office regarding Better Naito over the past month.

“We do not support its implementation generally and this summer in particular.” — Sandra McDonough, PBA President & CEO

The differences in tone and substance between the two PBA statements is striking and illustrates why the organization is struggling to maintain relevance in our growing and changing city.

On Tuesday, Mark (CEO of Melvin Mark Companies, a commercial real estate firm) wrote an op-ed in the Portland Tribune titled, What happens when the ‘City that Works’ can’t get to work?. It was standard fare from an organization who still (in 2017!) thinks free-flowing auto access is the goal of a city that “works”. But while I was ready to cringe at the piece (given the PBA’s legacy of opposition to the City of Portland’s attempts to upgrade biking and walking access downtown), I came away thinking it was actually pretty soft on Better Naito. And in one key way, he (unintentionally perhaps?) even endorsed the need for less driving and more use of other modes.

Here’s an excerpt:

“… there are downsides when multiple construction projects happen at once. Top of that list is increased traffic congestion, and right now Portlanders are being squeezed to a breaking point. As more people and jobs are added to the city, congestion will increase unless there are shifts to other modes of travel. Portland has developed a well-deserved reputation as a multimodal city. With its light rail system, pioneering the return of urban streetcars, extensive network of bikeways and a well-known pedestrian friendly downtown, people far and wide come to learn from Portland’s experience.

But a vibrant economy and a high quality of life for all depend on an efficient multimodal transportation that works for all system users; that includes alternative modes of transportation as well as vehicles and freight trucks. It means everyone who uses the system must have a voice in how any proposed changes may — or may not — work for them, their businesses, families and employees. And it means it is imperative for the city to listen to everyone affected, including those who provide good jobs and keep the economy moving through vehicles and freight trucks.

That’s why the return of the “Better Naito” project, which has closed one northbound auto lane of Naito Boulevard for a bicycle and pedestrian path, is so puzzling — especially given the significant amount of construction activity and road closures in the central city this year. The traffic impacts are resulting in business delays and reports of complaints from employees.

Bicycling for example, is a great alternative, and one we support, that will work for some. However, it is a less realistic option for many including thousands of people for whom that is not an option because of proximity, health, parenting obligations or a host of other individual circumstances.

When implementing important changes to Portland’s transportation system, city leaders must take a more balanced approach and open up public input processes so the needs of individuals are met along with the city’s goals to keep Portland economically vibrant.”

Mark unfortunately equates “those who provide good jobs and keep the economy moving” with people who drive — which is insulting, makes no sense, and yet is a very a common way to insinuate that people who don’t use cars as being the opposite. (Also note that he wrongly assumes that only people in cars are the ones trying to “get to work.”) Despite his best attempt to not appear as if he is anti-bike, Mark can’t resist presenting auto and truck drivers as a separate class of people who are unfairly victimized when a street is significantly altered to improve access for bicycle users and walkers.

Overall though, Mark’s only major beef with the project seems to be that PBOT could have done more robust public outreach.

Then there’s Sandra McDonough’s letter. She didn’t mince words. She directly questioned PBOT’s values and said Better Naito is an example of decisions they’ve made, “that significantly impact the mobility of the many to benefit the few.” McDonough cited transportation surveys conducted by the PBA to make her case that most Portlanders are against better biking and walking infrastructure.

Here’s an excerpt:

When it comes to Better Naito, McDonough makes her position clear: “We do not support its implementation generally and this summer in particular.” “Naito is one glaring example,” she writes, “of projects that seem designed to inhibit mobility for the vast majority of system users.”

She writes that if PBOT wants to improve safety for festival-goers, they could just “close” the lane only during festivals or create an area in the park (not on Naito itself) for people to stand in line.

McDonough is a big fan of her own statistics, but only when they support her narrative. What about the traffic analysis gathered by The Oregonian last year that found the average, peak-hour increase in travel time for northbound Naito was less than two minutes? “It is inconsistent with what we hear from road users,” she wrote. Even the PBA’s own annual business census found that less than half of people who commute to downtown drive alone.

PBA’s own data shows that the “vast majority of system users” don’t drive alone on Naito Parkway. (Taken from PBA’s 2015 Downtown Business Census and Survey).

And while McDonough and Mark try to create an illusion of mass complaints about the project, the truth is much different. As we reported last summer, there was strikingly little opposition to Better Naito — even from people who drove on it.

And it’s those same “road users” that McDonough says are victimized by Better Naito because they aren’t “lucky enough” to live downtown or in the inner eastside and have no other choice than to drive: “It does nothing for the thousands of people for whom that is not an option because of proximity, health, parenting obligations, or a host of other individual circumstances.”

McDonough’s comments reveal clear blind-spots. Is she not aware of the high volume traffic that speeds through our city 24/7/365 on major freeways where only those lucky enough to own a car are allowed? Invoking health, income status, and land-use impacts to support driving and criticize a project that vastly improves cycling and walking is mind-boggling.

Fortunately, McDonough’s perspective on transportation isn’t shared by City Hall these days. In his response to McDonough, Commissioner Saltzman strongly supported not just Better Naito, but cycling in general:

“I don’t discount that delays on Naito have been exacerbated by the levels of road, transit and bridge work this season which have increased congestion throughout the Central City…

But I haven’t lost sight of the bigger picture and all the ways Portland has been a victim of its own success in terms of population growth, job growth and tourism. I understand the increased pressure to our roads and the funding challenges to accommodate that pressure. Balancing the growing demands on our transportation infrastructure is not easy and it is not a task that my office nor the staff at PBOT take lightly.

Looking at cities across the country facing similar challenges, it’s clear that there are no silver bullets. And while it might not always be apparent driving Naito at rush hour, Portland’s investments in active transportation are paying off tremendously. According to the U.S. Census American Community Survey, the growth in people biking to work in Portland is outpacing all other modes of transportation. Of the 54,673 new commuters we added from 2000-2014, biking accounted for the majority of those new commute trips. Of course, more people are driving to work as well but we must remember how much more congested our Central City would be if we had not laid this groundwork.

I also understand that it is the decades of public-private partnerships that have made our thriving downtown — with new industries, jobs, and residents — possible. In addition to your letter, we have heard from dozens of business on or near Naito who have expressed their overwhelming gratitude for what Better Naito provides them and their staff to make them feel safe commuting to/from work…”

Perhaps what we’re seeing with these competing statements from the PBA are cracks in their conservative armor. They’re likely feeling heat from the more progressive vision presented by the rising Business for a Better Portland — a group created in large part because the PBA is so out-of-touch.

And it’s worth noting that McDonough is on her way out the door. The Oregonian reported last month that she’ll leave the organization in August. “Portland is changing,” McDonough told The Oregonian, “so the PBA and its leadership will need to adapt.”

— Jonathan Maus: (503) 706-8804, @jonathan_maus on Twitter and jonathan@bikeportland.org

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The post What does the Portland Business Alliance really think about Better Naito? appeared first on BikePortland.org.

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