Can Kids Cut Pollution of 1000 Cars?

April 5, 2010 by

One school bus can hold up to 80 elementary students or 50 middle school students. That can reduce a lot of pollution caused by cars that wait in long school drop-off lines. And as school buses become equipped with more efficient exhaust systems, the benefits for cleaner air are even greater.

Definition: TrafFIX— 16 buses to FIX Traffic. Half are circling Green Valley, Vista Grande, and Los Cerros Schools in Danville, and half are circling Walt Disney, Country Club, Neil Armstrong, and Pine Valley Schools. If 97% of your friends and neighbors recommend it, why not give it a try?! What other services get that vote of confidence—your auto mechanic, your dentist, your legislator?!

“Unmitigated success.” These strong words are being used to describe our program to “fix” commuter entanglements in the school traffic around targeted schools in the San Ramon Valley. And yes, it is “our” program because all of us are paying for the program through the Measure J sales tax for transportation in the San Ramon Valley (Passed with over 71% approval in 2004). Less than two years ago, a joint powers agreement among four government entities (Danville, San Ramon, Contra Costa County, and the SRV Unified School District) forged a congestion relief plan that paints our town “green.”

If our 16 TrafFIX buses were full, they could replace up to 1000 single car trips. That congregation of trips would save parent stress, whisk kids through intersections more safely and reduce air pollution. Nothing generates more air pollution than our cars—idling at the Caldecott Tunnel, idling at untimed stoplights, and idling on our school grounds. Luckily, the Tunnel construction has broken ground, Danville continues to refine its stoplight signal timing, and the TrafFIX program took off with unimagined success.

The TrafFIX directors surveyed 579 parents—343 who use the TrafFIX buses and 236 who don’t.

Result? Over ninety-two percent are very likely to use Traffix next year and 97.2% are likely to recommend TrafFIX to other parents. So who doesn’t ride the bus? Forty-one percent of those who don’t ride TrafFIX cite the short distance between their home and school. The remainder are likely to give it a try next fall.

Look at the statistics that are important to moms and dads:
Satisfied with buses: 100%
Reliability of bus schedules: 98%
Location of bus stops: 95%
On time performance: 95%

We touted a program that is Simple, Safe, and Smart. Use our website to determine the “simple” part. At RideTrafFIX.com, 49% are viewing bus route schedules, and 21% are purchasing bus passes on-line.

Finally, we get to the crucial question because this is, after all, a traffic reduction program, not a school program. Indeed the benefits for the school are a wonderful byproduct of taking time to send kids to school safely—keeping YOUR kids away from dangerous, unpredictable intersections—like Green Valley and Diablo Road.

QUESTION: Since the beginning of the school year, do you believe that traffic congestion near the school your children attend has improved? 86% of users and 75% of nonusers rate it MUCH IMPROVED!

Next year, we offer “more of the same”—same bell schedules at school, same safe drop off zones, same very strong support by school leaders, and virtually the same available routes. When you offer great service, “more of the same” is our best advertisement!

Karen Stepper is Vice-Mayor, Town of Danville and Chair of Traffix Congestion Relief. You can call the Town of Danville Transportation Department for a complete copy of the survey. If you have any questions, please write to Karen at councilstepper@yahoo.com.

The views of the column represent the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the council.

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Filed Under: April 2010, Archives, Column

Fourth Bore Lore—No More!

March 4, 2010 by

You, the voters of Contra Costa, made this project happen. Over 71% of you passed Measure J in 2004, extending a one-half percent sales tax for Contra Costa County transportation projects. The first dollars to fund a project from Measure J, attracted a myriad of small amounts. But the light changed to green when we received the absolute largest single project dollars to come out of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act dollars. We were “shovel ready” when we acquired the final $200M to accumulate the $420M price to construct the fourth bore of the Caldecott Tunnel—not one new project but the first project and largest project in the country to come out of the Recovery Act.

For you history buffs, projects don’t just happen overnight. When Danville was named 152 years ago, people began talking about connecting Alameda and Contra Costa communities. Forty years later, the timber-framed Kennedy Tunnel opened in 1903. It was 220 yards higher than the current bores (that is, shorter) and was one lane wide—hmm, different types of vehicles back then!

Thirty years later, a new generation opened the Caldecott Tunnel—two separate bores—in 1937. Passenger train service had stopped in Danville, and cars dominated travel—through the tunnel from Contra Costa to Alameda and across the Bay Bridge one year later. In 1964, the third bore opened in both directions, just a year before the freeway whizzed through Danville.

Wiley Coyote—step aside. No TNT here! Huge rotating bores will chip away at the rock and internal borings will support one section at a time before the next section is excavated. Many more details of the process are available at www.Caldecott-tunnel.org.

Aren’t you tired of the cone game? You know—the “game” that reverses the direction of the middle bore twice a day? With two tunnels in each direction, you may still encounter delays, but the journey will be so much more predictable. And we will definitely decrease the clouds of pollution that are created by the endless hours of idling your engines.

When you drive through the construction zone, Cal Trans reminds us to please slow down.

As a former CCTA commissioner, I put an optimistic August 2009 on my calendar as the groundbreaking date. In spite of the economic travails, congratulations on all of the partnerships that kept this project “virtually” on time and on track!

If you have any questions, you can contact me directly at councilstepper@yahoo.com.
The views of the column represent the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the council.

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Filed Under: Column, March 2010

Danville Adopts New Currency

February 1, 2010 by

We challenge you to circulate our coveted new coins. If you own a Veterans Memorial Building Challenge Coin, thank YOU for thanking our soldiers who have served tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. We just distributed an additional 15 coins at our Welcome Home Ceremony on December 27!

It has always been youth who have defended freedom for all of us. The average age was 26 in WWII but the average age to enter our current military is 19. We send off immature sons and daughters who return shortly as young adults, confidently leading us into the future. But there is a difference between those wars. Technological advances in medicine bring back many soldiers who would not have survived in earlier conflicts. Those who return, injured or not, have endured the stress of contact, missed years of their children’s lives and have returned to a poor economic climate, and more.

They return with needs to find new careers, bring skills up to date at school, or rehabilitate major injuries. The current Veterans Hall offers NO SERVICES. But our new Hall will include resource offices, small rooms available for counseling and health services, library resources, and job fairs. Your donations are a very tangible way to thank our veterans.

Our beautiful Challenge Coins feature our restored historical hall on the face and a majestic eagle soaring over Mt. Diablo on the reverse, encircled with a shiny gold braid. This collectible coin was designed by a wonderfully talented local artist, Linda Sada. (You can read the unofficial military history of Challenge Coins on Wikipedia.)

Just look at the new resources that our donors will provide to our veterans:

  • Multiple Venues: Our new auditorium will be enlarged and be divisible into three separate rooms for simultaneous activities.
  • Veteran’s Wing: The historic entry will provide entry into the separate Veterans Wing.
  • Military Library: Our new Hall will have an operating library of military history.
  • Storage: Our new basement will be expanded significantly to allow for storage of military artifacts, files for our veteran organizations, and equipment.
  • Displays: Our new Veterans Wing will have permanent cases available to display rotating veteran exhibits.
  • Accessible Facilities: Our new community space will feature modern, accessible restrooms in three locations for, say, a wedding, a Veterans meeting, and senior films all at the same time.
  • Offices: One small office will be replaced with separate offices available for scheduling, small consultations, operations, etc.
  • Green: Inefficient HVAC will be replaced with state of-the-art HVAC, including solar panels.
  • Multiple Kitchens: A tunnel kitchen will be replaced with a new catering kitchen downstairs and a small Veterans kitchen upstairs.
  • Quiet Conversations: An unattractive porch on Prospect will be succeeded by a glass-walled lobby where users can enjoy quiet conversations, reading, or networking.

    • Blank walls will now showcase a donor plaque to thank all of you who have shown such gratitude to our soldiers—past and future.

    In this New Year, let’s rejoice and be grateful for our freedoms in America. Here is a new opportunity to thank our soldiers on the front line—own a Challenge Coin.

    We hope you will be one of those who receive a Challenge Coin in exchange for your first $500 donation towards the Veterans Memorial Building. Then “show it off!” Put that coin in your right hand and “challenge” others to be part of this 100 year old tradition the next time you shake hands!

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Filed Under: Archives, Article, February 2010

Solid Waste—Teach Your Children Well

January 8, 2010 by

It’s the holidays! They are filled with battery operated remote toys, cameras, dolls and baby walkers. So where do YOU recycle your old batteries? Hopefully, you march behind the Energizer bunny to the town offices, to your local drugstore, or to an e-waste recycling day. P-l-e-a-s-e do not deposit batteries anywhere else!

I grew up in the capital of Illinois, in a small neighborhood that had gravel alleys running between the backs of houses. We took out paper and box waste and burned it in a wire cylinder, and dumped the rest in the traditional metal garbage can—banged up, of course. Now even our kids are learning better practices in preschool.

There are so many new ways to save our environment today that we all wonder about the threats that have not yet been discovered. So when I ask about your new ideas for practices that ensure better solid waste collection, our health may depend on it.

BRAND NEW: Danville has a new box in the police department—to collect those unwanted pills that damage life in our rivers and streams. EBMUD does not draw drinking water that has been through wastewater treatment plans, but other cities do so. And they risk contamination in their drinking water, from these unwanted pills—Mercury? Addictive drugs? Estrogen? The new collection box is much like a postal box. Just remove (or blacken) labels, drop them into a plastic bag, and drop them off in the police office at the back of the Danville offices at 510 LaGonda Way. The council just passed the resolution to collect these drugs, after assuring the Department of Justice that our box is secure from unlawful pilfering. (No needles, aerosol cans, infectious wastes).

As a member of the JPA (Joint Powers Authority), Danville, and the other five cities /county, are governed by laws that supersede those in individual cities to regulate waste collection, disposal, green waste, recycling, composting, disposal, and all of those products that fill our landfills.

As a new commissioner for the Central Contra Costa Solid Waste Authority, I want to share some best practices. So for fun….

POP QUIZ: Which plastics are recyclable? *See end of article.

A. Peanut Butter Jar
B. Plastic Pipes
C. Styrofam
D. Water Bottles
E. Plastic Bags

Landfills are not limitless. We can shrink it dramatically by reducing waste, reusing containers, and recycling usable items. In fact, legislation mandates that landfill diversion be reduced. The first mandate required a 50% reduction by 2000, and our cities are measured. Hazardous materials are implemented separately.

So use the website, or call me if you have questions about broken waste bins (yes, ours broke the day before Thanksgiving!), whom to call for each type of trash cart, needle drop-off locations, composting “how-tos,” or collection schedules.

And I’d like to hear your ideas for some new practices, beyond the authority’s current ordinances. Specifically, what marketing ideas reach you and which ones do you ignore?

*Oh, about the Pop Quiz? I could give you the answers, but then what would you do when you needed to decide if “drinking straws are recyclable?” You can find ALL of the answers with the speed of a mouse at www.wastediversion.org.

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Filed Under: Archives, Column, January 2010

Drought Resistant Water: An Oxymoron That Benefits You

December 10, 2009 by

“Purple” sprinkler heads dot the landscaping like small flowers in the grass—at Emerald Glen Park, in the park strip in front of my son’s town homes and at many golf courses. These highly visible colors are required by law to identify recycled water systems-so that thirsty hikers and picnickers won’t accidentally drink from the spigots.

Our soccer team (Tony and I coach under 13 girls) practices at Emerald Glen Park in Dublin. Despite looming drought conditions this year, the park was lush and inviting because recycled water is available, regardless of the availability of water for family uses. So recycled water is “drought resistant” because it does not utilize drinking water that must be cautiously rationed during dry summers.

DERWAis, at last, bringing recycled water to a park or green area near you. In 1995, DSRSE joined EBMUD to form a Recycle Water Authority – ok, that is FAR too many acronyms! The project received stimulus tax money to build the completely separate pipelines. However, pumping stations and storage tanks (also completely separate from potable water supplies) must be built before the project can deliver water to our valley.

Director John Coleman from EBMUD (East Bay Municipal Water District) touted some of the virtues of recycled water at our council meeting last month:

  • Re-using some water saves more of our “best” water for drinking.
  • Re-using wastewater stops that wastewater from being treated and dumped into San Francisco Bay.

This reclamation will soon become a discussion with some of the Tri-Valley cities to the south of us. Currently, those cities are not allowing EBMUD to use some of their unneeded water stores for our recycled water projects. Instead, that water is piped over the Sunol Grade and dumped into the bay. Those cities are presumably worried that they may need access to that water in the future. But contacts can allow usage only in times that do not interfere with those needs. EBMUD hopes to negotiate current usage that helps our environment while safeguarding times of unexpected needs by those cities.

So how safe is the water? EXPLODE MYTHS – NO ILLNESS: John has drunk some of it in public forums to illustrate that cleaning it three times over through treatments and filtering valves does indeed make it “safe.” Indeed, in virtually 100 years, recycled water has an unblemished record—”no harm was done to humans in the making of this recycled water!”

NO SMELL: Sometimes our soccer balls gravitate to low, wet spots at the base of a hilly spot off the field. The dirty water that splashes up reeks. Is that from recycled water? NO. The smell of recycled water is the smell of “cut grass.” Any additional “fragrance” must be added by the fertilizers on the field.

“Proposed” uses of recycled water in our area include golf courses at Canyon Lakes, Crow Canyon, and Blackhawk; greenbelts and streetscapes at El Capitan and Tassajara Ranch; and school fields at Diablo Vista and Creekside. And San Ramon already has retrofitted 32 sites. (A complete list is posted at ebmud.com or call Lori Steere at 510-287-1631).

Future water shortages—for human needs, fish propagation and agriculture—dominate the headlines. Recycled water is a step in the right direction. So in 2011-2012, finances permitting, the first recycled water is expected to be delivered to a Danville area near you.

The views of this column represent the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the council.

ABOUT DANVILLE
KAREN STEPPER

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Filed Under: Archives, Column, December 2009

It's a Change in Culture: The Fight Against Unforgiving, Invisible Invaders

November 7, 2009 by

I heard an insider’s view of the swine flu last week from one of our valley leaders. Ok, he called it H1N1, but names are hard to change, especially abbreviations with no connection to the real world.

Dr. Muntu Davis, the Deputy Health Officer & director of Communicable Disease Control and Prevention for the Alameda County Health Department revealed new steps that we all can understand. His message transcends the Swine Flu and asks you to start changing your reaction to all communicable diseases.

Many communicable diseases have lifelong consequences. We even lost a favorite “son” of Danville last week to just such a communicable disease: Mike Shimansky, a 20-year councilman, 30-year friend, mentor, coach and community leader, succumbed to meningococcal meningitis. It could have been you, as Dr. Mantu made it clear that most such cases are never traced to a cause or human carrier.

In the face of such ferocious bacteria, what can you do to prepare for such “unforgiving, invisible invaders?” It demands a change in culture. Yes, you should get a vaccination, but you can do so much more.

Don’t go to work sick. What does that mean? Well, with ordinary flu, most people stay home two or three days. If you have a fever of 102 degrees, you are definitely communicable. Sleep at home, or work at home (if you must work).

While you might stay home two to three days, you may actually be sick five to seven days! That is, your coworker may return to work when he is still “shedding virus” with every sniffle or cough or sneeze. So change your response to your co-workers. Try to keep six feet away. Wash your hands much more frequently-before eating, after eating, before preparing food, after preparing food, after your stop in the restroom, after you cough. You cannot wash your hands too often because most people inadvertently touch their hands to their eyes, nose, or mouth. In doing so, you just carried the disease inside your body!

Wash is not the same as “sprinkle.” Dr. Mantu recomments 20 seconds of hand scrubbing to wash those viruses away. When I volunteered at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, we had signs everywhere telling us to wash for time periods up to a minute. It’s not difficult, but it is a cultural change!

By the way, “Purell” and other disinfectants are fine only if soap and water are not available. Overuse, can affect your body’s natural build up of immunities against disease.

How fatal is Swine Flu? The children who contracted it and subsequently died also suffered neural or muscular problems (such as cerebral palsy). For those born healthy, their bodies should be able to fight off this new flu. Inexplicably, this new flu occurs during the flu “off-season” and hits those between two and 49 the hardest. That makes symptoms harder to recognize quickly.

Who should get vaccinated? In priority order: ages two to 26, those age 25 and over who have chronic medical conditions, and health care providers with direct contact to patients.

What kind of shot should you get? Nasal sprays are live virus and shots are not. So it is currently recommended that you get two shots (one for this season’s flue and one for Swine Flu), or get one shot and one nasal spray—not two live viral nasal applications.

If you are an employer, lead by example. Stay at home. Add extra waste containers, Kleenex dispensers, Purell, etc.

Mike may have appeared to have the flu. So how can you differentiate? How do you decide to “treat yourself” or run to the emergency room? It can be difficult to know. Certainly if you also
have shortness of breath, when crying does not generate tears, or when a headache is more severe than normal, play it safe and see your doctor.

Concerns? Please contact me at 925-275-2412.

The views of the column represent the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the council.

ABOUT DANVILLE
KAREN STEPPER, Councilmember of Town of Danville

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Filed Under: Column, November 2009