Last week my son Ellis started daycare at Jardin Magico, a bilingual daycare located near our house in Minneapolis. They teach kids in English and Spanish, serve organic foods, use cloth diapers and make sure kids get time outdoors every day. Perhaps best of all, we can get there by bike. I got the bike bug last year after visiting and biking around the Netherlands, and I am happy to be able to use my bike for everyday needs at home. I’m not the only one - every day there are are several bikes parked outside the daycare, with parents dropping off or picking up their kids.

The short bike commute to Ellis’s daycare is not pretty. In fact, it is a lesson in urban history and fraught with plenty of obstacles. I ride out my alley, up one street, into a driveway and on to a sidewalk, turn right, slow down to watch for trains, then stop at Hiawatha Avenue, a big highway that runs parallel to the light rail line. It is busy and imposing. At least you can push a button and get a walk signal, but is is not a comfortable crossing and there certainly isn’t a formal place for bikes. Once across it is again up on the safety of the sidewalks, if you can call them that, for they are a combination of crumbling concrete and asphalt adjacent to a former mill that is destined to become a nice TOD if the Gods cooperate. Then I cross four sets of active freight rail tracks and if traffic is light, I then descend down in to the street and continue the next two short blocks to the daycare, aware the entire way that cars coming from every direction may not see me. And all this towing kid in a trailer. It isn’t far, but it cuts through a swath of old and new (and future) Minneapolis. Nonetheless, it is the journey that counts, right? And beleive it or not, it is easier than driving!

Changing gears (no pun intended) from Minneapolis to Indianapolis - My friend and colleague Adam Arvidson, a Minneapolis-based landscape architect and writer, recently wrote in Metropolis Magazine about the new urban bike trail in Indianapolis. Read his article here. It seems as though the fair city of the famous car race is leading the pack in terms of urban biking. I’m sure the Dutch aren’t envious…yet, but be sure to bring your bike next time you are visit Indy.

Improved bike lanes and bike access in our cities is one of many keys to their livability and sustainability. It can’t just be recreation trails, either, although that is certainly important, as we Minneapolitans know. The entire city needs to be accessible on foot, by bike and by transit. The new path in Indianapolis will certainly be one to watch as it evolves and connects more of the city together.

Of all the talk lately in the mainstream media about how to be more “green,” the discussion is typically about how we live, not where we live. Rising gas prices have “fueled” the discussion of green even more, and thankfully today’s New York Times contains an Op-Ed by Paul Krugman called “Stranded in Suburbia” that finally brings the topic of “where” we live in to the discussion in to the mainstream media.

Everywhere you look, there is talk of green. My local paper, the Star Tribune, published a special section recently on how to be more “green.” It discussed the usual suspects of recycling, installing energy-efficient light bulbs, building or remodeling with energy-efficient materials (bamboo and cork are all the rage), and buying a hybrid car. Governor Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, as chair of the National Governors Association, has made clean energy his main topic. Of course, we are all familiar with the writings of Thomas Friedman and the Nobel Prize-winning efforts on the part of Al Gore to raise awareness of climate change.

But rarely, from my local paper on up to Friedman and Gore, does where we live garner a mention. Yet it must. True, our buildings are responsible for the greatest amount of carbon dioxide emissions, but transportation is close behind. Most Americans depend on an automobile for nearly all needs, and that not only creates CO2 emissions but also makes gas price increases more painful because they must drive. New York City doesn’t have the lowest per capita energy consumption because New Yorkers recycle and drive hybrids, but rather because of urban density and transit. Urban dwellers are more energy efficient because they occupy smaller spaces and because they meet more of their needs without an automobile.

Geography is destiny. True, we need to be a whole lot more energy efficient with our building practices in this country, but all the green buildings in the world solves only half the problem if they are accessible only by car. It is a mixed blessing that high gas prices are finally prompting this discussion, but Paul Krugman is helping us finally get there.

As Doug Farr notes in his recent book, Sustainable Urbanism, getting urban design right in order to mitigate climate change is this generation’s moon shot. It involves both how and where. The planning and development industry knows this, and knows how to get it done. But, as Krugman points out, it will take an educated public to accept higher density and push for increased transit funding, and simply more sidewalks. This may be our moon shot, but luckily it doesn’t involve rocket science to get us there.

Three years ago the talk at dinner parties was how much people made on their condominiums. Now it is the price of gas. We’ve had it good for so long, and now people are getting nervous when they have to spend upwards of $100 to fill their tank. All of this emphasizes the need for an improved transportion bill by congress next year.

Unfortunately, the discussion revolves around how to get the price of gas back down. Even our presidential candidates float the idea of a federal “gas tax holiday” for the summer, a ridiculous notion considering our literally crumbling and underfunded road system. Congratulations to Senator Obama for taking a stand against it. Still, there is no high level discussion of the future of transportation funding.

Luckily, there are several groups trying to push for a more enlightened federal reauthorization, which is due to occur next year. A recent article in the Washington Post by Judith Rodin sheds light on the issue. It was reprinted in my local paper, the Star Tribune. Link to it here.

Rodin discusses the lack of transportation funding, even for existing roads and transit, but also points to the Center for Housing Policy report that indicates working families spend nearly as much or more for transportation as they do for housing. For a link to a previous Joe Urban entry that discusses this study, click here.

We need to worry less about the price and source of more oil and more about simply reducing our dependence on it. As individuals we need to find ways to drive less, and entities all the way up to the federal government need to be on board in this effort. The last thing we need is a gas tax holiday. A progressive federal highway bill is imperative.