Green Traveler: New York, New York

Photo credit: Inhabitat.com

A few green observations from a recent visit to New York City:

• Occupy Wall Street at Zuccotti Park was green. How green? When I visited the encampment they were generating electricity and heat from a stationary bicycle. The pedal power on display was part of a sustainability showcase that also featured the importance of plants to the ecosystem and a grey water recycling system.  

• New York has an aggressive public recycling program as evidenced by the blue and green recycling bins strategically located across the city. The green bins are for newspapers and magazines and the blue bins are for bottles and cans. 

• While riding the NYC subway I saw ads encouraging New York homeowners to "join the evolution" by switching to clean, renewable and homegrown bioheat. The Bioheat website states that right now they are capable of blending biodiesel with traditional heating oil at only 2-5% but that they are working on increasing the biodiesel blend. Here is a great video presentation on what bioheat is all about.

• The NYC Department of Parks and Recreation is greening their fleet and since 2006 has been operating trucks on a 20% biodiesel blend (B20) made from soybeans and 80% ultra low sulfur diesel. And the department has been conducting trials using a B50 blend. So B20 is only a stepping stone to using more clean, renewable biofuels in city vehicles.  

• One noticeable change I've seen over the years in NYC is the increase in hybrid taxis and hybrid police cars. The NYPD features a fleet of Toyota Prius patrol cars, Nissan Altima Hybrids, Ford Fusion Hybrid sedans and Ford Escape Hybrid crossovers. And as of July 2011 there were 4,980 hybrid taxis in service representing 38% of the total fleet -- the largest hybrid fleet in North America.

• NYC aims to plant a million trees throughout the five boroughs over the next decade as part of a public-private partnership. So far the city has planted 527,315 trees.

And if New Yorkers need to be reminded why there is such a sense of urgency among city leaders to make the Big Apple the greenest city in the world, all they have to do is take a trip to Midtown Manhattan near Penn Station and Madison Square Garden. At this busy intersection they will see a large billboard sponsored by Deutsche Bank with a rapidly rising number signifying the metric tons of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. I went on the website and the carbon counter is currently at around 3.92 trillion GHGs.

Green Traveler: Tel Aviv, Israel

For such a big city, it is surprising that Tel Aviv does not have a subway system. Even Jerusalem just opened a popular light rail tram line. But that will be changing in the years to come as the city builds a light rail system. The 14-mile (22 km) Red Line is under construction and will run from Bat Yam through Jaffa and central Tel Aviv and on to Petach Tikva and the Central Bus Station. The first line is expected to be fully operational by 2017.

But for now eco-conscious Tel Avivians walk, bike and bus around the city. Tel Aviv has hopped on the bike sharing bandwagon with Tel-O-Fun. The bike sharing system launched in May and features 150 stations and 1,500 bikes. The program is still in the pilot phase so it is only available to annual subscribers. The bright green bikes can be seen all over the city and are quickly becoming the preferred mode of transportation for residents. Expect the bike sharing program to really take off once it opens up to short-term visitors from around the world.

Tel Aviv has 43 miles (70 km) of marked bike paths to take advantage of, including bike lanes along Rothschild Boulevard and along the beach promenade stretching from Jaffa north past the Tel Aviv Port. 

The Port is where I rented a run-down mountain bike with the screechiest brakes in the Middle East. It was pure pleasure biking along the flat bike lanes with spectacular views of the late afternoon sun shining over the shimmering blue waters of the mighty Mediterranean Sea. I biked north past The Port and Sde Dov Airport to a scenic suburban beach that was less crowded than the packed tourist beaches in central Tel Aviv.

Besides promoting biking, Tel Aviv also encourages recycling with these large containers all over the city. The bins are aesthetically appealing with creative designs on the sides. It makes it easy to do the right thing with that empty Fanta plastic bottle you overpaid for and drank way too fast in the unbearable heat and humidity of a Tel Aviv summer.

Click here to read more observations of Tel Aviv on Josh's Travel Blog. 

Here is video of me biking on the beach trail next to Sde Dov Airport north of the Tel Aviv Port.

Here are more photos from Tel Aviv-Yafo. Click here to see the set on Flickr.