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This is exciting.  City Car Share is teaming up with Spride to develop a system that allows individual car owners to add their cars to the city car share fleet in their unused hours.  This is good in so many ways.  Non car owners get access to many more cars and locations, car owners get paid to help them with the costs of owning a car, yet have control over when they need the car, and life is better for everyone when less cars are owned.  (except car dealers).   People without cars are much more likely to take public transportation, even when the commute is longer and save greenhouse gases like crazy.  Case in point: I am writing this on the Dumbarton Express during my two hour commute to Palo Alto. Yet before this can go into effect, the law has to change so that insurance companies can allow this to happen.  Assemblyman Dave Jones, D-Sacramento has introduced a bill (AB 1871) that would amend state car insurance laws to allow personal vehicles to be used in car-sharing programs. Currently, auto insurers prohibit individual policyholders from renting out their personal vehicles.  Read more about this here or view the bill here. If you want this to happen, contact your legislators and let them know what you think: Assembly Senate Or sign this petition!

It started with Pear Ginger Muffins and Julia Child’s Omeletts (we ate them too fast to take a picture) Yes. That is a pad of butter on my steaming muffin.  Layer your pleasures people. Here’s the recipe, adapted from Nigella’s Pear Ginger Muffin recipe: -Preheat oven to 400. -In a large bowl, mix 1 cup white flour, 3/4 cup white whole wheat flour, 2 tsp baking powder, 3/4 cup sugar, 1/2 cup brown sugar, and 1 tsp ground ginger, 1/8 tsp of salt. -In another bowl, mix 2/3 cup sour cream, 1/2 cup vegetable oil, 1 tbs honey (warm), and 2 large eggs. Fold into the dry ingredients. -Fold in 1.5 cups peeled pears cut into 1/4 inch dice, 1/2 cup ground walnuts, 3 T minced crystallized ginger. -Divide batter among 12 muffin cups. Sprinkle 2 tbs total brown sugar over tops of muffins and bake for 20 minutes. *only comments would be that they still weren’t gingery enough for me – but that may be because my ground ginger was a little old, and I might try replacing the oil with something else – I don’t like the smell of oil in baked goods. Then we used one of our Extended Freedom Days from City Car Share and drove to Point Reyes. It always amazes us how rejuvenating hiking can be.  We get so stressed and cooped up right around the release of a piece and we could just feel that *junk* releasing as we walked and breathed actual fresh air. This picture captures the calm. Continue Reading »

In a study funded by the makers of Nalgene products, the habits of 3,750 individuals living in the top 25 largest U.S. cities were surveyed, finding that San Francisco is America’s least wasteful city.  (Hooray!–Oakland wasn’t surveyed) The study gauged behavior on waste, sustainability, shopping, transportation and more. The results were weighted to give more credit to behaviors that had immediate and significant impact on the planet (e.g., driving less, recycling or reducing trash) to small habits that are more indicative of a mindset and non-wasteful approach to life (e.g., reusing containers, limiting shower time or saving wrapping paper and ribbons). The study shows that more and more people are readily embracing small, everyday habits to cut waste, but convenience is still trumping prudence when it comes to significant wasteful behavior including transportation and personal conservation efforts.  (public transportation, composting, using a rain barrel and a clothesline, and avoiding using a car for trips under 2 miles) I found this sortof amazing: *60 percent of urban Americans that live in a city with public transportation and own a car, said they never use public transportation *65 percent of urban Americans are planning to drive for trips that less than two miles from home rather than taking public transportation, biking and/or walking *We’re still a car culture. 69 percent of those urban Americans surveyed do not plan on taking public transportation

And so you know:#2=NYC, #3=Portland, #25(last place)=Atlanta

Ok- obviously not art related at all, but I’ve looked all over the internet and couldn’t find anything helpful so I thought it might be useful information to put out there. As some of you know, we are using the car crash as a cue and trying out life without owning a car.  Unfortunately, we are not people who don’t need a car at all and so we have been using City Car Share as well as renting cars about 3 days a month.  We’re also renting a car for 5 weeks to drive to and around Utah. We also just learned a couple things about renting a car in California: 1. It’s illegal to drive a car without liability insurance 2. Car rental companies here do not include any state-required liability insurance into the base price of their rental cars.  Apparently, California, from what I have read, is the only state where this does not happen.  So, if you live in another state and have been buying liability insurance through your rental company, you should know that what you are buying replaces and adds on to what is already included in your rate.  I would still check with your specific company to find out if this is true, but it seems to be.  We use our credit card for our collision insurance.  Again, you still need to check with your credit card to find out what your terms are because they vary a lot.  We use Amex Blue (which we specifically got for it’s good rental car coverage) So- 5 weeks of buying insurance at $13 a day is a lot.  What other options are out there, you ask?  Well, there are Named Non-Owner policies.  These policies are for people who drive either rentals or other people’s cars.  It is an insurance plan for the person, not the car.  However, you can only do this for cars that you do not own. Continue Reading »