Eco Friendly House And Garden

You may not think much of a tarmac cycle lane – but voles and bats think they are perfect!

With all the development that happens on the edges of cities and towns – there is less and less green space for mammals to live in.  And many mammals need to look for their own ‘home range’ once they are old enough – and that means they need to travel.

Needless to say a patch of countryside has a maximum number of a species that it can support in any year – so in order to survive the less dominant and younger individuals need to head off and find their own patch of countryside – but what if they are living in a green island – a patch of countryside totally surrounded by housing.

How will they get across it without getting run over, eaten by a cat or starving to death when it can’t find anything to eat?  And who is to say that there will be any countryside for them to find – what if they go the wrong way?

The Solution:
Small animals have very high energy demands, so must eat a considerable amount of food compared to their size – and so really need to eat on the move.  And cycle tracks and train lines will offer them the equivalent of motorway service stations.

As they move down the cycle lanes, they will be able to hide in and feed on the hedgerow plants bordering the track – and so travel further from their original starting point.  And hopefully this path will lead to another slice of countryside!

Old railway lines, closed roads and wide footpaths are perfect for changing into cycle tracks.  They will no doubt already have some established plant life and usually lead to or past green spaces.  Perfect for green development!

photo credit: LHOON

As part of an organised scheme – these corridors could all link up with other development projects and make a great rescue plan for native wildlife at the same time as making green travel and access to the countryside for humans a by-product.

Green Travel:
Cycling isn’t all that bad for the environment either – so by encouraging your councils to act on wasteland or create new cycle paths in your area can’t ba a bad thing.

Not only will it give children a safe route for cycling (rather than having to take the road to get to parks and woodlands), but it will also mean that you can ride your bikes all the way to the countryside rather than the chore of having to strap them all to the car!

So next time you see a council meeting or a local group getting together to discuss local issues – make sure you turn up and lets start getting things done around here – rather than waiting to see what other people are going to do and then moaning about it!

How would I cope getting a new job and volunteering without my own wheels?

I recently had to recycle my old car at the ‘breakers’ yard as it had come to the end of it’s life – but knowing that all the still working parts could make someone else’s car last a bit longer!

But this coincided with me having started to look for a new job and keep up with my volunteering for various charities.

Could I do it without a car?

I wanted to try to live without a car for a month to see if 1) It was possible, and 2) If public transport was really the way forward for everyone.

The First Problem:
Obviously I was either going to have to only apply for any jobs within walking distance of my home (great for the eco friendly approach) or apply for out-of-town eco friendly jobs that had easy public transport routes!

Both of which sounded hopeful – but what about the existing volunteering? 

Well, the Internet proved very handy for checking out bus routes to the more out-of-the-way reserves – but the transport websites were not always that helpful.  Some of them wouldn’t tell you every single bus stop on the route – or the prices; and others would only let your search if you already knew the bus number – not on locations visited!

Then I got a job – at a beauty spot away from all main bus and train routes!

Step 2: Public Transport.
Luckily this job coincided with the summer vacations so there was a ‘special’ bus time table in place for this particular beauty spot!  However, the first bus arrived at 10.30!

Not the earliest start, but my job was flexible hours – and this meant that I could miss ‘rush hour peak prices’ on the train (to get to the bus) as well. 

If timed perfectly, the whole journey would take just over an hour and cost £10 a day return.  However, if timed badly (or with train delays) it could take over 2 hours and cost around £16!

As you can see, it wasn’t a simple journey and was costing around £30 a week (as I am only working 3 days a week) but that’s £120 or more a month on transport – and it was only a part time job!

The volunteering was even more of a problem as the reserves and centres I was working for were all out-of-town – and the buses that served them were not regular or even all day. 

The Wildlife Trust bus was only every hour until 4pm and cost £6.80 return
The Orchard Surveying Day was a complete No-No due to timings and location
The Hedgerow Surveying Project will have to wait until I have a car due to location
The RSPCA is £7 return on the train plus a 45 minute walk
The Eco Open Houses will be £5 on the train plus 15 minutes walking

And anything else will have to be worked out as and when – or turned down!

The Rest Of My Life:
I know it has been all about work and volunteering at the moment, but the rest of my life is ‘suffering’ too.  I mean the first thing is that after work – I just have to go straight home on the bus – I can’t combine woking with visiting my family, friends, supermarket or anything – as I can’t get there if it’s off the bus route!

And on my days off – visiting local attractions, days out, buying or moving heavy or bulky items, horse riding, walking in the countryside – all out!

There is no way to do most of these things without incurring huge cost on travel or wasting a lot of time waiting around for buses. 

It is almost like you are trapped in towns without your own car!  I know getting into and around shops and stuff is all well and good with buses and trains every 10 minutes – but for country lovers – public transport fails us!

There is no way I could ever live without a car I have to admit.  Don’t get me wrong – I love public transport and it really is lovely to sit on a train and read a book rather than sitting in traffic – but I am missing out on so many more of the things I love without having a car.

And of course – once you have a car, it isn’t financially viable to keep catching public transport!  I mean if I brought a car, once you add together the insurance, MOT, servicing and Road Tax – it would be rather stupid for me to still spend over £100 a month on travel to and from work, wouldn’t it?

Surely I’m not the first of the last person to have struggled with the car debate?

Finally, London has put some focus on a bicycle hire scheme in the City!

Rather than focusing on trying to stop heavy traffic – they have decided to focus on promoting and supporting a cycling scheme for commuters, locals and tourists alike!

Hopefully this is the first step towards changing the way we look at cities and transport for the future – and the more of us that support the scheme – the more likely further improvements are!

Tower Bridge - London

Why Bikes?
Well, the idea behind the current scheme is to allow people to cycle around London without having the initial worry and cost of buying a new bike – and then reducing the worry of securely storing these bikes in flats and on the street.

By offering the use of secure bicycles that you can hire for a small fee – these 2 worries are eliminated – and at the same time making the streets cleaner and safer and reducing the need for increasing other resources.

Over 12,000 people have already signed up for the scheme – so that’s 12,000 bikes that haven’t had to be made!  They will all be sharing the same bikes in the scheme making great environmental sense!

And of course, it is better for the environment to have 500 bikes trundling around the streets than 50 half-empty buses.  And it’s better for the 12,000 people to be cycling themselves from A to B than to have them just sitting on a bus or tube.

Added to this – bicycles are made for 1 – whereas car hire schemes will usually leave 3 empty seats!

How It Works:
At the moment you need to sign up online to join the scheme – then you receive your ‘key’ which allows you to ride any of the bikes around the city.

There are 2 separate charges for the scheme and they are explained below.  Once you understand the difference between these, it is so simple to use.

Charge 1) Access To A Bike:
You will pay a small fee to actually free a bike up from it’s docking station, which can be as little as 12p a day if you buy an annual pass, or up to £1 a day if you pay daily.  This Access lasts a full 24 hours from release of the bike from the docking point.

Charge 2) Time-Based Hire:
You will pay a set fee for the length of time you have a bike out of a docking station.  Fees range from £1 for an hour up to £50 for the whole day (a day = a 24 hour period).  If the bike is not returned to a docking station before the 24 hour period elapses there will be a steep fine to pay!

However, less than 30 minutes on a bike (ie – from leaving 1 docking station to being secured in another docking station) if totally free!  So you only pay the Access Fee – which could be as little as 12 pence!

Needless to say that the more you use it the more cost effective it is, and using it for short distances is the key to good value.

Using it for longer bike rides might not be as cost effective as using a standard bicycle hire store – but could be more convenient.

Either way – make sure that you support the scheme in any way you can, so that the Government can see that people want less traffic on the roads, we want better pedestrian and cycling facilities and associated safety improvements – and we want greener travel improvements across the country.

If you help make London a success – it could roll out to other large cities!  Imagine all that green energy being used up on pedal-power rather than petrol!

That quick drive to the store before dinner could cost you your open spaces!

I’m not talking about the cost of car pollution on the environment – although that is becoming a major problem. And I’m not talking about the amount of front yards and gardens being concreted over for parking spaces – although this is seriously affecting natural water cycles and causing localised flooding.

What I’m talking about is your single little car on your ‘quick drive to the stores’ being one of 30 other little cars on a quick drive to the store.

How Can 1 Little Car Cause A Problem?
Well, imagine only the people that 100% need to be on the roads at rush hour were on the roads.  People going to work, emergency services and buses are who I mean here – and they all know where they are going.  As a result of their A – B actions, they may well run smoothly with no snarl-ups – I mean traffic lights and roundabouts are designed to keep traffic flowing to avoid congestion.

Now, add dithering drivers to the mix.  They either drive too slow, can’t decide which lane they should be in, are too busy fiddling with something on the passenger seat to watch the lights or are not in a hurry at all so make bad driving choices.

All these people are responsible for causing traffic delays – and these traffic delays get noticed by the residents and they want the traffic sorted out.  This can involve a whole host of changes.

Who Decides?
If residents get annoyed about traffic issues, councils want to implement more traffic regulations and traffic lights to control the flow.  They want to ‘improve’ the roundabouts and dual carriageways – which all make it more difficult for pedestrians to get around – what with all the railings and extra lanes to navigate.

The worst case scenario here is unfortunately the best alternative to traffic in towns – and that is to build a by-pass!  Heavy machinery is used here to plough out fields and woodlands to make way for a super-fast easy-to-drive-on dual carriageway!

I know that this won’t happen overnight – but it could already be happening.  Has your town got any roadworks going on?  Any ‘highway’ improvements at the moment?  Do you already have speeding cars and multiple junctions?

If you keep driving in rush hour or when you really don’t need to – you are causing some of these problems.  And there is a simple way to slow this development down – and it involves forward planning, buses, trains, bikes and your very own little feet!