Re: Cohousing traffic studies - Nyland
From: Dick Margulis (dickdmargulis.com)
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 2021 06:31:04 -0800 (PST)
Hi Rozanna,

I'm sure that would be an interesting study, and good luck with finding it. But having watched the bulk of the construction at Rocky Corner over the last couple of years, I wonder if that 25% even matters anymore.

Consider:

1. We've had a year of training ourselves (by we, I mean all of us) to make fewer trips to grocery stores, fewer trips to stores in general, fewer trips anywhere. Yes, eventually the pandemic will end, but all of us will still spend less time driving to work, driving to meetings, driving to the airport to fly to a business conference, driving to a mall to shop for some doohickey we can find in an instant online.

2. The amount of diesel fuel consumed in land clearing, excavation, road building, and all the other work of site preparation and construction for a modest, 30-home community, not to mention the amount of sequestered carbon in vegetation and topsoil that gets released in the process, let alone the carbon footprint represented by the building materials, might equate to between ten and twenty years' worth of residents' gasoline consumption (maybe more; I don't have enough data to actually compute that). So in the big picture, that 25% saving is nice but maybe not a persuasive argument in favor of the local community's approving a new construction project.

3. The internal combustion engine, as a way to move individuals and families around, is going away. A decade or so from now, that construction equipment may still be running on diesel, but your car and your pickup truck will be electric. So how much less gas you use than the condo next door might no longer be a relevant comparison.

Again, I'm not saying it isn't a worthy goal. It just may not be one that's worth a lot of time and energy to document.

Dick Margulis
Rocky Corner
Bethany CT


On 1/6/2021 1:53 PM, Midcoast Cohousing wrote:
Hi, Friends,

I asked about this topic last fall for a new cohousing project I’m working on in 
Maine.  In the string of previous emails about this topic (see below), Sheila Braun of 
Champlain Valley Cohousing mentioned that she’d post a copy of an EPA study of Nyland 
in Colorado that found that residents made 25% fewer car trips per household than adjacent 
condos and single-family homes.

I haven’t been able to find the study on the website (but I have no idea how to 
do that!), so I wonder if someone could send me a copy?  My email to Sheila was 
bounced back.

And any other info on traffic studies in cohousing would be great.

Thanks!

Rozanna




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