Environmental damage from plastic waste is a serious reality on California’s coast. Here’s an excellent article from Salon.com on waste in Oakland’s Lake Merritt.
Original Photo: Flickr user Patrick Gage. Used under Creative Commons license.
Provide incentives for homeowners and businesses to save energy and reduce carbon emissions in areas of the county that experience high summertime temperatures by painting the roofs of their homes and commercial buildings white.
Obama Energy Secretary Steve Chu has been promoting this as an extremely cost effective way to save energy and reduce air conditioning costs. A White Roof component could be added to the San Mateo County’s existing Green Building Program to encourage new construction and remodelling projects to include this initiative. Owners of existing homes and commercial properties could be offered a rebate to participate.
For more information take a look at these links:
Steven Chu’s White Revolution
Original Photo: Flickr user Architecture & Food. Used under Creative Commons license.
Revitalize existing commercial buildings in major business districts to add residential uses where feasible, encourage live/work facilities, make downtown areas more walkable and increase economic activity.
Many strip malls do not currently make the best use of available land. By redesigning these projects to include more centralized services and a residential component, individual community identity is strengthened and traffic decreases as more people conveniently travel on foot.
The Grand Boulevard project seeks to recreate El Camino Real using these concepts.
Build parallel trails for pedestrians and bicycles along major transportation corridors.
One example is Highway One on the coastside. Often clogged by traffic on weekends and sunny days, Highway One is no longer an efficient route for local residents and visitors to travel between communities along the coast. A parallel trail, separated from the roadway by a landscaped median, would allow pedestrians and cyclists to move easily up and down the shoreline while relieving automobile congestion. A trail would also provide a safe route for students to once again walk or ride their bikes to school, further reducing the gridlock caused by parents dropping off and picking up their kids during peak commute hours.
Original Photo: Flickr user Pepino1976. Used under Creative Commons license.
School gardens provide students with hands on knowledge about biology, nutrition, the importance of healthy eating, food preparation and the benefits of eating locally-grown foods.These programs can build support for improving the quality of school lunch programs and teach kids how to work cooperatively to achieve a common goal.
The HEAL program, currently active at Hatch Elementary in Half Moon Bay is one example.
For more information in school gardens, check out Get Healthy San Mateo County.
101 Ways to Change the World Along 101 is a collaborative community project of the April Vargas for Supervisor Campaign.
Our goal is to begin a dialogue on how to improve life in San Mateo County and shape the campaign going forward on ideas and insights from you.
Help us build the blog up to 101 ideas by voicing your suggestions on how to change to the world along 101.
We welcome your ideas on saving the environment, getting people working, helping our schools, making government more effective, and anything else that will make life in San Mateo County healthier and happier for everyone.
E-mail your suggestion to: aprilvargason101@gmail.com. We’ll post your idea and add an image to the site. Don’t be shy, you can also comment on other suggestions; this is an open forum.
For more about April and the work she’s done for San Mateo County, please visit AprilVargas.com
