Class Reflection

This is one of my absolute favorite classes I've taken at SPEA. I love blogging as a way of submitting work and showing progress throughout the semester. I think it is a very creative way to get the class to interact with one and other, while allowing students to be creative and write about what they want. Plus its a lot more fun to post a blog for an audience instead of writing a paper for one set of eyes.

I also loved the books we read. My favorite classes have been those that look at a different topic each week. I find it creates an over-arching knowledge base which is very helpful for understanding a broad topic like sustainability.

I learned so much about topics I haven't studied before, and some of those that I have. Such as understanding the issues with sustainable water sourcing and conservation. It is a subject matter I didn't think I was interested in until we began to study it. And doing that blog post about sustainable water appliances helped make me aware of what's out there and what works.

I also really loved reading about transportation and seeing other student's blog posts on that subject. That was another cool thing about this class; my personal project connected with the reading, which connected with the blogs. I learned so much from reading other people's blogs - and I thought it was so cool to see examples on the topics we read about.

This semester, I've learned creating a functioning, sustainable community is very difficult. However, there are so many resources to reach out to for support, knowledge, and idea sharing. Many cities and planners before us have dealt with issues I might face in the future. It is so beneficial to see communities problem solve issues I haven't even thought of as problems yet.

I really, really enjoyed this class. I learned a lot about sustainable communities from it, and through the group project about Bloomington's own progress towards sustainability. Thank you!

Personal Project Reflection

This project was challenging for me, but not in the ways I thought it would be. I was hoping to ride around town every day and gain lots of insight about the challenges and benefits of life on a moped. But in reality, most days it wasn't working. It was in the shop a lot this semester unfortunately, so that kind of stumped my personal progress on this project.

However, it gave me insight into how difficult travel with motorized vehicles can be. I worked tirelessly for hours on the moped, the guys at the shop worked for about 20 hours pro bono just because they were interested in why they couldn't get it to run properly, and it is still having problems.

So the moped was driving me crazy, but I wasn't driving my car. I was committed to using alternate means of travel until I got the moped running. But then I ended my relationship with my partner, and moved out of our house (explaining some absences and absent-mindedness, I hope). And I realized, it is extremely difficult to go through a breakup and not have easy access to independent travel! I could've really used the moped in those weeks where I was in limbo, not fully living in one place or the other. In the end, I used my car far more than I hoped this semester.

All this is to say, I've learned how challenging it is to deal with the ups and downs of life and not have reliable transportation. I hoped to show how using a high efficient moped is manageable and beneficial on a low-income, but I just found out how difficult it is to depend on motorized vehicles. I was trying to find a loophole in the system of modern transportation, or a way to work-around a flawed system that makes people dependent on cars, but what I actually did is prove how deeply flawed it is to depend on anything motorized, not just cars.

When I think about solutions to this problem, a few things come to mind: bikes, bus systems and walking. Of course, living in a walkable city would be a wonderful solution. And I can walk to many things in Bloomington, but not to a grocery store or campus. Or maybe I should say, I would prefer not to. I think that might be a bigger problem for me than I've realized in the past. It is inconvenient to ride my bike when its cold and snowing. It is inconvenient to walk to the bus stop and take a bus everyday. It is inconvenient to spend two hours walking everyday. But, it is far more inconvenient to have a broken moped in my garage and not know how to fix it. It is far more inconvenient to not know if my moped is going to run today or not. It is far more inconvenient to rely on unreliable means of transportation.

So, what I've learned this semester, is that my ideas of what is inconvenient need to change. I am far too reliable on my car, and I need to branch out and use my alternate and reliable means of transportation to get around more.

Or, maybe I just need to buy things that work! ;)

Thanks for reading!

Car vs. Moped

This week I'm going to compare and contrast my car and my moped on a number of metrics. I own a 2007 Honda Fit Sport and my 1986 Tomos A3.

2007 Honda Fit Sport

Miles Per Gallon

Car: The Fit is listed as getting 31 in the city and 37 on the highway. Because mine is a manual transmission, I'm listed as a bit higher, at 33/38mpg. I actually measured the mpg at 37.75 mpg on a road trip a few months ago, so this is pretty accurate. (Honda.com)

Moped: The Tomos gets 100 miles to the gallon. This would be in city, because I don't think I'll ever ride it on the highway! (TomosScooter.com)

Cost

Car: The Fit cost $10,000 on the nose when I got it in 2010. 

Moped: Cost of getting the Tomos to run was $467. 

Maintenance

Car: An oil change every couple of months cost about $30 in the shop and about $20 if I do it myself. Fluids that need to be refilled are about $5 a month. I need new tires soon, so that will be about $400. 

Moped: The Tomos is a little different because I actually mix the oil with the fuel that I put in. The ratio is about 40 parts oil to 1 part gasoline, so its a very small amount, about a few ounces per full tank. I bought a 16oz container for $5.

Retrieved from here.

Carrying Capacity

Car: The Fit is a hatchback, so although it is a small vehicle, it can store up to 41 cubic feet of stuff when the seats are down. I have fit mattresses, reclining chairs, two bikes at a time, even my moped in there before. It is small but mighty! (Honda.com)

Moped: Currently, just me. It's listed as carrying 220 lbs, although Paxton rode it and he is heavier than that. I'm confident I can carry whatever I can fit in a small basket or milk crate, but I don't think I'll be giving anyone any rides.

Environmental Costs

Car: The Fit is ranked as a Low-Emission Vehicle level 2 (LEV-II), which follows a stringent list of requirements. California began this rating system in 1998 through their Air Resources Board (ARB). The main elements are: "Significantly lower oxides of nitrogen emission standards... a reduction of 75% from current LEV standards; Increased emission control durability standards from 100,000 miles to 120,000 miles; Further reduction of evaporative emissions" (arb.ca.gov). The emissions are roughly 104 grams of Carbon Dioxide per kilometer.

Retrieved from here.

The Fit weighs 2,500 lbs. Although light-weight when compared to other cars on the road, this is significant weight to put on the roads and certainly contributes to road damage, leading to repairs. (Honda.com)

Moped: The Tomos emits about 1 gram of CO2 per kilometer (tomosscooter.com). This is literally 100 times better than the Fit. It weights in total, about 106 lbs, so its impact on the roads is very small (tomosscooter.com).

Retrieved from here.

Convenience

Car: Very convenient. Like I said earlier, it has a surprisingly large amount of room in the back, so I can lug around anything I reasonably can think of. I can drive it in all kinds of weather. It is fast and easy. There are very little restrictions on when or where I can use my car.

Moped: The Moped is very convenient in certain circumstances. I can park it anywhere there is a bike rack. This means I can pull right up to campus, which is a extremely convenient. In fact, anywhere I go, I just pull right up to the front. I never need to spend time circling around in search of parking spaces. However, if the weather is bad, I can't ride. The rule of thumb is if the roads are wet, it's too dangerous to ride. Nobody wants to be that guy to the left. However, this inconvenience keeps me from driving when it is unnecessary. For example, if I want to go to the store to pick something up I'm having a craving for, but its raining, it makes me rethink whether or not what I want is really worth it. How much do I really "need" ice cream? Why not just eat something I already have at home?

It also forces me to think about my spending. If I'm at the store, I need to be thoughtful about what I purchase because I only have so much space in the basket or my backpack. I am thinking twice about everything I purchase because I don't have the luxury of space like in my car. 

Overall, each vehicle has their pros and cons. Aside from the obvious benefits from significantly fewer emissions and fuel costs, having the moped has made me more thoughtful about my spending and driving habits, which was an unexpected outcome of this project. 

Bloomington Handmade Market

Today I went to the Bloomington Handmade Market at the Convention Center with some friends. I was really impressed with the quality and originality of the products.

There was a good sized crowd when we got there around 11:30 and by the time we left they were packed. I couldn't even talk to some vendors because they had a line of customers the whole time we were there. 

Lots of hoosier pride going on.

One vendor had some beautiful shawls, ponchos and accessories made of naturally dyed fabrics.

I found this room full of local vendors to be incredibly sustainable - most people used reclaimed wood or recycled paper or even dead butterflies to make their jewelry..

Another vender used entirely recycled paper for their products.

Everything was handmade, obviously, but so many vendors also seemed to have a deep-seeded respect for the environment and their community. Anything that could be reclaimed, they used. Anything that could be locally sourced, was. It was a very loving and creative community of folks and I was so happy to be a part of it!

The Urban Myth

I loved this week's readings in The Sustainable Urban Development Reader. They touched on many ideas that I had not thought about before. Specifically, I loved Dolores Hayden's "Domesticating Urban Space." I felt she gave me a new perspective on urban spaces.

"When nineteenth-centry men (and women) argued that the good woman was at home in the kitchen with her husband, they implied that no decent woman was out in city streets, going places where men went. Thus, it was "unladylike" for a woman to earn her own living. Because the working woman was no one urban man's property (her father or her husband had failed to keep her at home), she was every urban man's property. She was the potential victim of harassment in the factory, in the office, on the street, in restaurants, and in places of amusement such as theaters or parks."

- Dolores Hayden, 1984

I loved this excerpt because she's talking about 19th century culture, in 1984, and it has lost no relevancy to modern society. Recently a video has gone viral of a women who secretly filmed herself walking around New York City for 10 hours to showcase all of the sexual harassment she faced.

This video has created quite the conversation around what qualifies as sexual harassment, but I think the message of this video is that a woman can't walk down the street alone without it being a spectacle. To me, it does not appear that this woman can claim any ownership over the city she lives in. It almost seems like she's a visitor in a man's city, and everyone feels the need to acknowledge that. "Because the working woman was no one urban man's property...she was every urban man's property."

This got me thinking about the effect urban spaces have on this preconceived notion - that a city is no place for a decent woman. It can't just be that the type of people who live in the city are the type of people to sexually harass women, can it? I grew up in suburbia and although sexual harassment existed, it was not as outspoken and public. But suburbs appear to be much more domesticated than the city - they are clean and spread out. Not many people walk because everyone has a car. They are sterile whereas cities are seen as dirty havens of crime and filth.

Is it the fact that in cities there are more people walking around town, and thus more dirty and crowded, that make people more irritable or more comfortable catcalling? And if this is the case, is it the opposite effect in suburbs: less people walking around and cleaner streets mean less personal interaction and therefore less catcalling? 

Or is it that a large city has less governance and accountability, so you can get away with more. Maybe its that there are larger homeless populations in cities, and social issues in general are greater, so people are just grumpy and needy. Maybe there's just more people in cities and therefore more bad people who catcall. Or maybe the institutional racism that forced minorities to live in cities while white flight occurred, while not allowing them to work in high-paying positions or get a decent education, and then decades later moving back into the neighborhoods they occupy and increasing the rent so that they can no longer afford to live there, has finally taken its toll and created a hostile environment in cities.

What do you guys think?

I don't know what is is, and I don't have the money to do the research, so let's assume its any number of reasons why. But what is the solution? It's not just women who don't feel comfortable, either. Families and children are left out of many urban planning, too.

Perlman & Sheehan (2007) have many excellent solutions to making our cities feel more safe. Ensuring decent work and a basic income for all people seems to be the first step. More people working means less people in the street with nothing to do all day, which has got to be a net positive. 

Developing innovative infrastructure would be a great way to break up the monotony of city streets - give people something new to look at and change their ideas about who owns it, perhaps. Promoting intelligent land use is right along side this. The plaza from the video clip we watched in class belonged to all citizens of the city - not just the male or privileged. 

Fostering transparent governance is vitally important to securing a city's safety. In order to have any successful solutions, a city needs an effective governance set in place.

Overall, it seems the solutions come from changing up the infrastructure of cities and getting people out of their element a bit, while creating spaces for everyone in the city to live in together.

Fall Harvest Farmers' Market

On Wednesday I went to the Fall Harvest Farmers' Market at the Union. I found out about it from a listserv I'm on about food studies.

The flyer got my attention because of those two beautiful little words... "free" and "affordable". 

So I walked there with Sarah on my break and was impressed with the set up.

I'm sure many of you are in the same situation as me; I want to support local farmers and purchase fresh and organic produce, but I can't afford to shop at the Farmers' Market consistently. But this event was for the student population, so everything was discounted! From the fresh apples, pumpkins, cauliflower and other vegetables to the canned pickles, preserves, spreads and sauces - nothing was over $5! It was a steal and I wish I had brought a bag to take things home with, although I did manage to walk away with a can of pickles and raspberry preserves.

The cider and flatbread was delicious, too! It showcased how to use fresh veggies in a way that everyone loves - pizza.

Sarah and I were talking about how we would come to this every week if they had it. I'd like to know which farms these items came from. The canned goods came from Dillman Farms, but it doesn't look like they sell produce as I had originally thought. If IU could partner with local farmers and get them to provide discounted produce (perhaps what doesn't sell at market or if IU provides subsidies) I think it could raise awareness for local farmers and get people interested in understanding where their food comes from. Eating habits are formed in our childhood and are hard to break, but college is a very formative time for young adults and this forum could be very helpful in teaching healthy and conscious habits.

Step Three: Wiring

Rewiring the moped was the most difficult part of the rebuild and is actually what is still wrong with it right now. To begin to understand the wiring, I looked at several wiring diagrams. The moped is such a small bike that there actually aren't that many wires and connections to account for. What was difficult was tracing the wires to be certain full circuits were connected and dealing with the stater (I'll explain later).

This is what a wiring diagram should look like on a '86 Tomos.

 

When I purchased the bike the ignition switch was hardwired to "on", meaning the purple and yellow wires, on the left where it says "switch", were soldered together. This isn't a problem, it just means I need to lock it up with a bike lock because it doesn't require a key to start. What is a problem is that the speedometer didn't work. And the thing about electronics is that everything has to be on a complete circuit, so if one thing isn't working, the bike won't create electricity to start a spark to get the bike started.

So, I found a wiring diagram that more closely resembled the state of my moped and went from there.

This new diagram excluded the pilot bulb (speedometer) which was great, but it also excluded turn signals and the horn. My turn signals already didn't work but my horn was hooked up. So, I went through everything and corrected it to fit this diagram.

After getting that sorted, it still wasn't sparking. So now I had to look at the stater. The stater (called magneto in the images above) contains the points that create the initial spark. 

This is the stater, and as you can see on the left where the yellow wire connects, it has been soldered by the previous owner. This was concerning, but as it turns out what was wrong was the points weren't adjusted correctly. Now, what happens next was the excruciating process of adjusting the points. I will not bore you with the details, but if you are interested, the video below is a step-by-step guide of how I did it on my bike. 

After I finished that, it sparked! A few hours of tweaking later, it was running! I had officially rebuilt the Tomos by hand. This was a very proud moment for me.

...and then two days later it broke down. So it is now at the local moped shop, Wick's Wheels, and it should be finished next week. I am looking forward to posting about how life is riding it very soon!

Thanks for reading!