How tree-lined streets and high-speed internet can help with a warming climate – Kitsap Sun
Kevin Walthall| Columnist
I hope yall are all staying cool out there. Heres some positive perspective: it could be worse.
Last week's "heat dome" weather reminds me of Texas, except in Texas we dont call it a heat dome, we just call it summer. Thankfully Kitsap has been spared the Texas humidity that turns the air into a sticky mosquito soup. That humid air doesnt get cool in the shade, and Texas breezes are just the state trying to suffocate you with a dank pillow. Add Dallas or Houston smog to the soup for subtle tasting notes of Exxon-Mobile byproduct. Yum.
Think you can escape the heat in a Texas lake like you can a Kitsap lake? For a good/terrible time, Google "cottonmouth snakes." Oralligator gar, a Cretaceous-era Satan-fish inexplicably still living in the tepid brown pools Texans call lakes.
So it isnt all bad. You can thank your lucky stars you arent in Texas.
With the heat wave giving a scary glimpse of our climate change future, it seems like a good time to think about streets built for heat waves and telecommuting.
Thats right. Another article about complete streets.
Complete streets are streets built for everyone. Wide sidewalks, bike lanes or shared lanes, bus pull-outs, and ADA ramps are common features of complete streets.
Theyre generally showcase streets, attractive boulevards with landscaping and public art. They arent just tools for getting from A to B, theyre pleasant places to be, destinations in their own right. They attract investment and redevelopment. They give people transportation options outside the car. Complete streets are beneficial to the people who live next to them.
The conventional wisdom for the last 50 years or so has been that streets are for moving as many cars as fast as possible, and nothing else. The result has been stroads, byways that dont know if theyre neighborhood streets or inter-city roads. Some stroads, like 11th Street through West Bremerton, actually handle a large volume of carsand legitimately need to be four lanes wide. Others, like 6th Street or Naval Avenue, dont. Stroads are dangerous and ugly concrete rivers that divide neighborhoods and suck the life (and property values) out of their surroundings with high speed traffic. Maybe that works for commuters who see Bremerton as an obstacle between themselves and work, but for the people who actually live with stroads and pay for them with their taxes, its not worth it. Transportation budgets are slowly becoming more about transporting people than transporting cars.
Sometimes, cities will call these road diets. I dont like that term. Complete streets are fun, diets arent. Sure, 6th Street is chonky, but I dont just want it to become slimmer, I want it to become an asset to the community. As Ive said before, I would like complete streets to be accompanied by some type of complete street zoning, which would create small-town Main Streets along complete streets, providing opportunities for employment and recreation within walking distance of neighborhoods, creating a non-motorized, low-emissions transportation network throughout the city and affordable market-rate housing based on that transportation network rather than expensive parking and parkings attendant traffic.
In light of Mondays scorching heat and the economic shifts from the pandemic, I think two aspects of complete streets need to come into focus: street trees and high-speed internet.
Perhaps by now weve all read about the effects of heat bubbles or heat islands in urban areas. Heat bubbles are caused by the suns heat being reflected off of roads, parking lots, and buildings. When all that asphalt and roofing heats up in a concentrated urban area, it creates pockets of extreme heat, as in the case of Seattle and Bremerton.
Theres no way to avoid having roads, parking lots, and rooftops in urban areas, but we can mitigate their effects to a degree with vegetation in various forms. Landscaping in parking lots helps with stormwater runoff, absorbing and purifying rainwater as it runs from oil-slicked parking lots into aquifers and seas. Trees extend their branches over asphalt, catching the suns rays and capturing its energy. We can even go so far as to have green roofs, which are specially designed to host moss and lichens, succulents, or grasses. Plants take the energy of the sun and pollution from cars and use it in photosynthesis to create the plants energy. Its the best deal in the history of deals.
The recent heat wave makes street trees seem like an essential component of complete streets. Street trees are pretty. Humans have a biological and neurological need to see trees and greenery. Trees improve property values. Trees are the Swiss Army Knife of urban improvement but theyre also essential to making Bremerton more resilient towards climate change. According to the U.S. Forest Service Center for Urban Forest Research, street trees can lower the temperature of streets by 6 to 10 degrees, mitigating the heat island effect. Street trees also absorb CO2 emissions, helping with the root causes of climate change. When planted in the right places, trees can even diminish home cooling costs by 30%, for those of you who have air conditioning already.
These can be trees planted in medians or by sidewalks, but if we want Bremerton to roll with the punches of climate change, we need to view trees as a necessity for combating the heat bubble effect. The good news is that trees are cheap, abundant, pretty, efficient, and easy to maintain. Deciduous trees shade us in the summer and let light in during winter. Its really quite a polite thing for Mother Nature to do, if you think about it.
Second, I want to update the notion of complete streets to include fiber optic cable for high speed internet. This has largely come across my radar since Covid due to the rise and apparent permanence of remote working. We should absolutely be jumping on this. Every major disruption is an opportunity to pivot faster than the competition, and Covid is no exception. We can come out of this thing on top if were willing to think outside the box and make lemonade out of these catastrophic lemons.
With so many working from home and daily commutes nixed, people are realizing they can live anywhere they want, so theyre moving. Theres an extremely silver lining to that reality: we no longer have to offer tax breaks to attract major employers in order to import wealth. Major marketing and tech companies now effectively have offices through coworking spaces in Bremerton (Spark Commons, Bremerton Workspace), Silverdale (Have-A-Space), Poulsbo (Vibe Coworks, The Creative Consortium), and Bainbridge Island (Knack Coworking). Quality, high-paying jobs are located practically everywhere.
The question now becomes is this the sort of place people with good jobs want to live? If Bremerton is awesome, people with high-paying jobs will stay and their salaries will circulate in the local economy. If Bremerton keeps betting that Sears Roebuck is making a comeback, theyll move on.
Being awesome has never made more fiscal sense than it does right now. And weve got a great start on that front, with miles of beautiful coastline, fantastic parks, a farmers market, craft breweries, and the upcoming Quincy Square. Add in some leafy pedestrian boulevards lined with townhomes and boutique shops and restaurants, and these are the things that attract the high earners of the new economy, who splurge on experiences.
I think were only going to see more co-working spaces, and their presence means any web-based employer can be in any neighborhood. All co-working spaces need to succeed is a building for commercial use and access to high speed internet hence I think high-speed fiber internet should become the next ingredient in any complete street.
If mayoral candidate Bill Broughton has one big idea to campaign on, its his proposal to make the City of Bremerton a provider of high-speed fiber optic internet in the mold of Chattanooga, Tennessee. He sees this as a way to attract traditional office-based employers downtown, but I think it also has the potential to open up new high-paying employment opportunities in outlying neighborhoods as well. Competition is always a good thing, and Im looking forward to seeing him compete with incumbent Mayor Greg Wheeler. I think the idea of using the City to spread high speed internet has legs.
While street trees are an important adaptation to climate change, bringing employers to employees has the potential to dramatically reduce auto emissions from commuters, which is the number one source of carbon emissions both nationally and in Washington. We need to be thinking now about a hotter future with more expensive resources.
Kevin Walthall is a Bremerton resident and a regular contributor tothe Kitsap Sun. He also writes for the blog Urban Bremerton. Contact him atkswalthall@gmail.com.
Read the original post:
How tree-lined streets and high-speed internet can help with a warming climate - Kitsap Sun
- Mozilla reclaims the Internet in new rebrand - Marketing Interactive - December 10th, 2024 [December 10th, 2024]
- Insights into the Digital Brand Registration Platform Market - openPR - December 10th, 2024 [December 10th, 2024]
- IPG sells Huge and buys tech: has digital been trumped by data? - More About Advertising - December 5th, 2024 [December 5th, 2024]
- Satellite Internet Market to Reach USD 15.07 Billion by 2030, Growing at a CAGR of 12.65% - openPR - December 5th, 2024 [December 5th, 2024]
- (PDF) WhatsApp Business Application as a Digital Marketing Strategy of UMKM - ResearchGate - December 5th, 2024 [December 5th, 2024]
- 20+ Must-have Digital Marketing Tools: Skyrocket Your ROI - Simplilearn - December 2nd, 2024 [December 2nd, 2024]
- Hindustan Unilever shares a glimpse into the future of Internet, Advertising and Traditional Media - CNBCTV18 - December 2nd, 2024 [December 2nd, 2024]
- Director of digital marketing vs. CMO: Which pays better in ecommerce? - Digital Commerce 360 - November 28th, 2024 [November 28th, 2024]
- Haoxi Health Secures RMB30M Digital Advertising Contract with Tengyuan Media | HAO Stock News - StockTitan - November 28th, 2024 [November 28th, 2024]
- 14 Benefits of Digital Marketing in 2025 - Simplilearn - November 28th, 2024 [November 28th, 2024]
- Meet The Founder of a Black-Owned Digital Marketing Agency Devoted to Helping Black Businesses Thrive Online - The Citizen Newspaper Group - November 23rd, 2024 [November 23rd, 2024]
- Internet of Everything Market to reach a market size of USD 59.40 billion by 2030 - openPR - November 23rd, 2024 [November 23rd, 2024]
- 24 AI marketing tools your team should be using in 2025 - Sprout Social - November 17th, 2024 [November 17th, 2024]
- U.S. B2B CMOs' expected change in ad spend 2024 - Statista - November 17th, 2024 [November 17th, 2024]
- Meet the Founder of a Black-Owned Digital Marketing Agency Devoted to Helping Black Businesses Thrive Online - BlackNews.com - November 12th, 2024 [November 12th, 2024]
- Digital advertising spending in the United Kingdom (UK) from 2007 to 2020 - Statista - November 12th, 2024 [November 12th, 2024]
- MyOnlineMarketer.co.uk and The Funnel Guys Announce Strategic - openPR - November 12th, 2024 [November 12th, 2024]
- Digital Marketing Services Market Growing Popularity and Emerging Trends in the Industry - openPR - November 12th, 2024 [November 12th, 2024]
- Web Marketing Association's 23rd IAC Awards to Name Best Online Advertising Campaigns - PR.com - November 5th, 2024 [November 5th, 2024]
- All the tools of the trade: Digital Marketing Lab provides space for experience and experimentation - Bryant University - November 5th, 2024 [November 5th, 2024]
- Online payments and ordering company Tech 2 Success Acquires Supply Wizards - Vending Market Watch - November 5th, 2024 [November 5th, 2024]
- In Depth: AI Is Taking Internet Advertising by Storm, but at What Cost? - Caixin Global - November 5th, 2024 [November 5th, 2024]
- Reinventing the Digital Agency Model with a Global Marketplace of On-Demand Experts - GP Bullhound - November 5th, 2024 [November 5th, 2024]
- Top Affiliate Marketing Trends To Leverage This Year (2024) - Shopify - October 23rd, 2024 [October 23rd, 2024]
- Mobile Internet Marketing Market is Set to Experience a Revolutionary Growth | Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn - openPR - October 12th, 2024 [October 12th, 2024]
- IoT Internet Service Market Size and Industry Growth Analysis - News in Assen - October 12th, 2024 [October 12th, 2024]
- Below-the-Line Advertising: Definition and Use in Marketing - Investopedia - October 11th, 2024 [October 11th, 2024]
- Meet The 7 Most Popular Search Engines In The World - Search Engine Journal - October 11th, 2024 [October 11th, 2024]
- Agricultural Internet of Things Platform Market Business Insights, Key Trend Analysis - News in Assen - October 11th, 2024 [October 11th, 2024]
- New Trends of Internet Of Medical Things (IoMT) Market - openPR - October 11th, 2024 [October 11th, 2024]
- Teleoperation and Telerobotics in Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) Market Growth Factors & Key Statistics - News in Assen - October 3rd, 2024 [October 3rd, 2024]
- Is the word 'Google' losing its shine as search pivots? - Marketing Interactive - September 28th, 2024 [September 28th, 2024]
- My summer well spent: Studying digital marketing in the Czech Republic - Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University - September 21st, 2024 [September 21st, 2024]
- Why is the internet overflowing with rubbish ads and what can we do about it? - The Conversation Indonesia - September 21st, 2024 [September 21st, 2024]
- Juice Media Expands Mobile and Digital Marketing Capabilities Through Acquisitions of Mooko and MDG - PR Newswire - September 19th, 2024 [September 19th, 2024]
- In-flight Internet Market worth $2.1 Billion by 2029, at a CAGR of 5.7% - openPR - September 19th, 2024 [September 19th, 2024]
- AI and SEO: Shaping the Future of Content Optimization with Melih Oztalay - mitechnews.com - September 16th, 2024 [September 16th, 2024]
- Internet Advertising Market Valuation Set to Skyrocket to Reach US$ 6,088.57 Billion By 2032 | Cost Per Thousand Model to Remain at Top and Most... - September 14th, 2024 [September 14th, 2024]
- Why connectivity is key to the expanding in-car internet market - Vodafone - September 14th, 2024 [September 14th, 2024]
- Satellite Internet Market From USD 6.55 Billion in 2023 to USD - openPR - September 14th, 2024 [September 14th, 2024]
- Internet of Things in Automotive Market Set to Surge from USD128.09 Billion to USD 671.37 Billion by 2030" - openPR - September 12th, 2024 [September 12th, 2024]
- Cascade Web Solutions: Elevating Digital Presence for Local Businesses in the Pacific Northwest - openPR - September 12th, 2024 [September 12th, 2024]
- Unlocking Business Potential in India: The Power of Marketing in Indian Languages - Big News Network - September 8th, 2024 [September 8th, 2024]
- Global Satellite Internet Market Research Methodologies: Best Practices and Tools - Third Eye News - September 8th, 2024 [September 8th, 2024]
- 23 Effective Ways To Make Money Online (2024) - Shopify - September 6th, 2024 [September 6th, 2024]
- Your Guide to the Top Digital Marketing Agencies in New York for September 2024. - - VENTS Magazine - September 6th, 2024 [September 6th, 2024]
- The Best SEO Conferences For 2024-2025 (Virtual And In-Person) - Search Engine Journal - August 14th, 2024 [August 14th, 2024]
- Healthcare Digital Industry Growth Factors, Applications, and Forecast by (2024-2034) - - August 14th, 2024 [August 14th, 2024]
- Starlink innovates and forges partnerships, aims to dominate satellite internet market - DIGITIMES - July 15th, 2024 [July 15th, 2024]
- Healthcare Pay-Per-Click (PPC): Minimize Ad Spending Costs - AccessWire - July 15th, 2024 [July 15th, 2024]
- How AI is shaping the digital marketing landscape in 2024 - DM News - July 15th, 2024 [July 15th, 2024]
- Top 27 Sports Marketing Agencies Taking the Lead in 2024 - Influencer Marketing Hub - July 15th, 2024 [July 15th, 2024]
- In-flight Internet Market Set to Grow at the Fastest Rate- Time to Grow your Revenue - openPR - June 25th, 2024 [June 25th, 2024]
- Veteran Marketing Firm Screen Pilot Expands into the United Kingdom - Hotel News Resource - May 23rd, 2024 [May 23rd, 2024]
- Hilarious new TikTok advertising trend is peak Gen Z - Creative Bloq - May 1st, 2024 [May 1st, 2024]
- Sports partnerships in the era of streaming services - Optimising Digital and Offline Marketing - Indiantelevision.com - May 1st, 2024 [May 1st, 2024]
- The AI Revolution: News and Tools for Business with Melih Oztalay - mitechnews.com - April 8th, 2024 [April 8th, 2024]
- Top 100 Digital Marketing Interview Questions and Answers for 2024 - Simplilearn - March 28th, 2024 [March 28th, 2024]
- Connecting the Dots: The Role of Affiliate Platforms in Modern Marketing - Luxury Lifestyle Magazine - March 28th, 2024 [March 28th, 2024]
- Digital Marketing Spending Market size is set to grow by USD 353.53 bn from 2024-2028,shift in consumer behavior ... - PR Newswire - March 28th, 2024 [March 28th, 2024]
- Top 15 Digital Marketing Software Tools To Try Out - Influencer Marketing Hub - March 20th, 2024 [March 20th, 2024]
- Google Assistant's evolution: Is this the new search? - Napa Valley Register - February 6th, 2024 [February 6th, 2024]
- Overcoming Entrepreneurial Fear: Essential Strategies for New Business Owners - December 28th, 2023 [December 28th, 2023]
- Who Is Ross Kernez, the Internet Marketing Expert? - OK! - November 9th, 2023 [November 9th, 2023]
- Athletic Brewing Company Partners with Viral Internet Granny to ... - PR Newswire - November 9th, 2023 [November 9th, 2023]
- The Current State of AI - Elmhurst College - November 9th, 2023 [November 9th, 2023]
- The Tech Stocks That Will Eventually Become the New Magnificent ... - InvestorPlace - November 9th, 2023 [November 9th, 2023]
- Wilkinsburg tries to demolish 'deplorable' buildings, avoid ... - TribLIVE - November 9th, 2023 [November 9th, 2023]
- Atlas 5 launches Amazon Kuiper satellites for tests of space-based ... - Spaceflight Now - October 11th, 2023 [October 11th, 2023]
- Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) Market Size to Surpass USD ... - GlobeNewswire - October 11th, 2023 [October 11th, 2023]
- Federal Judge Throws Out $32.5 Million Win For Sonos Against ... - Slashdot - October 11th, 2023 [October 11th, 2023]
- [New Report] Internet of Things in Retail Market Set to Surge ... - GlobeNewswire - September 7th, 2023 [September 7th, 2023]
- Global Consumer Internet of Things (IoT) Market Size to Reach USD ... - GlobeNewswire - September 7th, 2023 [September 7th, 2023]
- Team Internet Group looks to AI initiatives to drive digital marketing ... - Proactive Investors UK - September 7th, 2023 [September 7th, 2023]
- The global internet of medical thing market is expected to reach an ... - GlobeNewswire - September 7th, 2023 [September 7th, 2023]
- How SRK's Jawan is winning the brand integration 'jung' - Exchange4Media - September 7th, 2023 [September 7th, 2023]
- Reshaping biopharma marketing with point-of-care messaging - MM+M Online - September 7th, 2023 [September 7th, 2023]
- The Truth About Gigs, Gs and Other Internet Marketing Jargon - Forest Grove News times - August 28th, 2023 [August 28th, 2023]
- Fall SCORE Webinars Can Help Keep Your Business Out Front - VISTA.Today - August 28th, 2023 [August 28th, 2023]
- St International Holdings Company Limited Announces Executive ... - Marketscreener.com - August 28th, 2023 [August 28th, 2023]