A small step against climate change by widening a bridge in Lower Austria

Perchtoldsdorf Tower

Perchtoldsdorf is an old town in the Austrian province of Lower Austria, characterized by a millennium of wine making and trying to keep invaders from Turkey out, nestled on the hills West of the large and fertile Vienna Basin.

vineyards of Perchtoldsdorf

Today, Perchtoldsdorf, with 18,000 inhabitants, is one of the suburban towns forming a crescent to the South West of the Capital City of Austria, Vienna. This crescent is nicknamed "Speckgürtel" - "bacon belt" - for the wealth the inhabitants and business bring, while still keeping a focus on quality of life including Austria's famous "Gemütlichkeit" ("cosiness") and dedication to picturesque landscapes.

As with most suburbs worldwide, one of Perchtoldsdorf's challenges is providing quick access for the commuters to the big city of Vienna. Residents have the choice between an efficient and reliable commuter train that rides through on the Eastern part of town or the highway that runs outside of the city, beyond the Eastern part of town.

Busses provide access to the two major train stations, whereas a few arterial roads drain most of the automotive traffic to the highway, obviously clogging during rush hour. One of these automotive arteries crosses and bottle necks over a bridge spanning over the commuter rail line, which inconveniently separates  the Western and smaller Eastern part of town. Christian Apl was always bothered by that bottle neck bridge.

Christian Apl riding down a main street, a major artery  "draining" towards the highway

Christian Apl is town council member of Perchtoldsdorf and in charge of Mobility and Sustainability. As a member of the Green Party, he has made his agenda to take measures against climate change.

In 2007, he saw the opportunity to broaden the bridge and losen the bottle neck. His goal was not to give fossil fuel powered cars the opportunity to drive quicker through town and over the bridge off to the highway, but rather to add on a generous pedestrian and bicycle path, keeping the car lanes width intact. Studies showed that widening the bridge and adding a bike and foot path, would reduce daily car trips by 2,000.

 at car/bike/pedestrian round-about to bridge crossing rail road

Finally almost ten years later, bridge inspections indicated the bridge was no longer structurally sound. This was the opportunity to propose to widen the bridge during a comprehensive structural renovation. City council accepted the proposal. The bridge was structurally renovated and widened to include a bike and foot path in 2018.

While initial cost estimates were off and the project went way over budget, to the dismay of many town council members, Christian Apl was able to tap into subsidies from provincial government and national climate grants to partially cover costs for the widening of the bridge to add a bike/foot lane.

View from bridge onto the train station and bike/foot paths (planned to be widened) to small industrial park

Regardless of the costs, the new widened bridge definitely allows citizens to comfortably cross the bridge by foot, by bike, on stroller or wheel chair. This new infrastructure also lessens the divide between the East and West side of town; the 2,000 citizens who live East of the bridge now definitely have easy access to the commercial center, church and school on the West side of the bridge - and they can leave their car parked at home.

pedestrian on bridge walkway

Garbage Juice in Charlotte

written 2017

Pam and her belongings

North Carolina’s recent “garbage juice bill”, Bill 576, requires DEQ to allow spraying of municipal landfill wastewater into the air to help it evaporate. Clean Air Carolina explains that this bill allows “taking toxic landfill wastewater accumulating for years and then blasting it through a high-speed fan that turns it into tiny particles in the air is a public health concern”. Basic human instinct (at least mine) is to react with disgust at the idea of spewing liquid waste into the air. In comparison, sorting manually through solid waste - even before it has been sitting, seeping, and accumulating nasty wastewater for years - is gross enough.  Nevertheless, two years ago, Mecklenburg County Solid Waste Division contracted Gershman, Brickner & Bratton, Inc (GBB) to sort through residential waste. According to Brad Kelley, on-site project engineer of GBB, the local temporary workers were equipped with heavy duty protective gear; they were motivated with donuts, coffee and Gatorade. Nevertheless, despite incentives and protective gear, the task and constant stinging smell of decaying anthropogenic waste are so nasty, that the first few days, several workers just walked out on the job.The purpose of getting a crew to sort through residential trash was to develop a waste characterization study(http://charmeck.org/mecklenburg/county/LUESA/SolidWaste/ManagementPlan/Documents/Mecklenburg%20County%20Waste%20Characterization%20Study%20(2015).pdf), which will help improve the County’s waste management system which can help with improving recycling behaviors.
Brad Kelly concluded: “The main take-away from the sort is that (…) about half of all recyclable materials are still ending up in the trash.” While the county has engineered this study which showcases that Charlotte citizens can easily reduce their waste in half by simply recycling, some citizens are already privy to what goes on in residential waste bins, by simple observation of the volume of trash they produce vs. that of their neighbors.One of these people is Pamela Murray. She is a waste generating minimalist. Her mantra is reducing and re-using; recycling comes last. 

Pamela moved to Charlotte in 1989 after graduating from Georgia Tech. From the first Earth Day on, she has been concerned about reducing, reusing and recycling. Pamela is currently an institution within the bicycling community (see BikeFest, Charlotte Spokes People, Bike Benefits, PMTNR, Cycling savvy) – she has that same perseverance when it comes to reducing waste. 

Pam's treasure basket

Part of Pam's waste reduction regimen:

1)    She produces one 8 liter bag of waste a week.
2)    She recycles and composts hard core.
3)    She knows her plastics and typically avoids them – she always has her own shopping bags, she uses and reuses cloth rice and flour bags for grain, breads, tortillas, bagels. Any plastic that she does inadvertently end up with goes to the Harris Teeter recycling box.
4)    She plans her meals wisely and doesn’t waste food
5)    She buys heavy duty tin foil which she uses several times – for example for baking potatoes and brownies
6)    When she eats out, she does not use straws or lids, she declines extra bags for her food. 
7)    She travels with her own set of silver ware and chopsticks in a nifty container always found in her basket on her bike. 
8)    She scrapes out lipstick tubes and toiletries with a popsicle stick in order to use up every ounce.
9)    She shops wisely – always in bulk and uses up everything
10) Glass jars, old candle tins, bottle tops become plant containers
11) She avoids using too much dishwater soap (thus the bottles they are contained in!) by cooking with cast irons that do not need soap to clean them
12) She bikes to the grocery store with a Travoy trailer. Because everything goes into the trailer, she does not need (plastic) bags.  When she buys meat, she requests meat paper instead of styrofoam meat trays. For produce, she doesn't use plastic bags.
13) She buys durable bike tires (she gets 12,000 miles out of them and has ridden 28,000 miles since 2011) and durable clothing. 
14) Once she suggested cutting up old bike tires to use as rubber bands to tie ponytails!
15) She reuses plastic wrapping (especially from bulk toilet paper packing) to line her trash cans at home, from which she often pulls out the recyclables from her daughters’ rooms!

So, anyone who feels irked by the “garbage juice bill”, and wants to reduce their “garbage juice impact”, yet suffers of severe political fight fatigue, well, they can immediately make a difference by following Pamela’s lead of waste reduction by starting with an inventory of their waste production and instantly changing their waste producing and improving their waste minimization habits.