A week without 3E Links is like a week without sunshine. Urge your contacts to subscribe. Read 3E and be wiser--and more fun at holiday parties! To subscribe e-mail info@sustainablepittsburgh.org.

Events

Don't Let Pittsburgh Be a Loser

The impending next wave of dire cuts to public transportation is a grave threat to Pittsburgh's, and thus the whole region's, economy. Roads, bridges, highways, and public transportation are the basis of our productivity. They are the lubrication of our economy. In particular, public transportation provides a lifeline for workers and for businesses. With an unusually high rate of transit ridership, (51% of all downtown commuters use public transit) and the positive economic ramifications of a strong transit system, it is no surprise that long overdue transportation funding solutions finally have bipartisan support in Harrisburg. This presents a golden platter win win opportunity for the Governor. The many ways in which the state has been instrumental in Pittsburgh's resurgence as a global model of resiliency now stand in the balance. There is no upwardly mobile, rising sustainable city in the world with a failing public transportation system. And these systems rely on public support as public services. In the past several years, the Port Authority of Allegheny County has remarkably reformed its management and operations -- more than any transportation entity in the nation. It should no longer be the recipient of the public's ire. The locus is now squarely on Harrisburg with Governor Corbett holding the wheel to steer us away from the precipice. Absent a state funding solution, the Port Authority is forced to deploy draconian service cuts. This could be the beginning of the end of public transportation as we know it and thus the unraveling of Pittsburgh and southwestern Pennsylvania's progress.

Bill O'Rourke
Board Chair
Sustainable Pittsburgh

Allegheny Conference Statement on Proposed Transit Cuts
The Allegheny Conference is extremely concerned about the impact proposed transit cuts would have on our region's people, communities and economy. But there is a solution. We call upon business executives and civic leaders, elected officials and others to encourage Governor Corbett and the General Assembly to act now on the recommendations presented last summer by the Transportation Funding Advisory Commission (TFAC).
Read the full comments here.

View remarks from Steve Bland, CEO, Port Authority of Allegheny County, to the House Democratic Policy Committee.

Visit the Port Authority website for more information.

To reach Governor Corbett, use this link.

Following are news stories covering the issue:
Read the Post-Gazette article:
More Port Authority transit cuts ahead Port Authority CEO says rollback plan 'not a scare tactic,' pleads for state aid

Read the Tribune-Review article:
Port Authority buses may not roll for 45,000

Resources

REGISTER NOW: What Local Governments Need to Know About Woodsmoke & Outdoor Burners

Webinar on Woodsmoke Regulations, a program of the Sustainable Development Academy
Wednesday, January 25
12:30 pm – 1:30 pm
View Flyer

The Sustainable Development Academy is a partnership between Local Government Academy and Sustainable Pittsburgh. This particular webinar will be presented by GASP (Group Against Smog and Pollution). Topics include:
- New regulatory measures that start May 31, 2012
- Where and how to report complaints
- Environmental hazards proposed by Outdoor Wood-Fired Boilers
- Guidelines for adopting local ordinances that regulate the use of outdoor wood burners
- Effects of Woodsmoke Pollution

For more information including registration, please visit www.localgovernmentacademy.org

Attend the Green Workplace Challenge 1st Qtr celebration/Workshop #4

See who the leaders are!

Friday, January 27
8:00 am – 11:45 am
Fairmont Pittsburgh, 510 Market Street, Downtown Pittsburgh
FREE for Green Workplace Challenge participants; $25.00 for non-participants.
Breakfast Provided
For more information, including registration and agenda, please visit the registration page.

Come celebrate the early achievements of the bold cadre of companies and organizations that have risen to the call for action and competition through the Green Workplace Challenge (GWC)!

Learn from and interact with a panel of competing companies to learn what drives them to compete in the GWC, what actions they have implemented, and how different strategies are paying off.

The event begins with an inspirational keynote by Dr. Valerie Patrick, Bayer Corporation's Sustainability Coordinator, about the market opportunities, innovation drivers, and the financial returns that Bayer is pursuing in the spirit of competition embodied in the GWC. Dr. Patrick's remarks will be followed by a formal recognition of all competition participants.

For the second portion of the program, attendees can engage with a panel on innovative lighting and energy efficiency technologies that have direct benefits to energy savings (and GWC competition points). Lastly, workshop organizers invite attendees to share their concerns and needs about their own greening strategies with experts during a closing networking session.

Discover what regional impact the competition has already accomplished in just 4 months, recognize the achievements of the competitors, and learn how your organization can adopt what has worked for these leaders.

Who should attend: This workshop is ideal for representatives from businesses and organizations that are looking to gain insight on strategies that result in reduced costs, utility savings, and more sustainable operations. The media is invited to attend.

Building Value Chain Capacity: Sustainability's Role in Product Purchasing and Service Procurement for Healthcare

Thursday, March 8
8:00 am – 10:30 am
Regional Learning Alliance, 850 Cranberry Woods Drive, Cranberry Township 16066
Also available in webinar format-- details forthcoming.
Cost: $15 for Sustainable Pittsburgh/C4S Members || $25 Nonmembers Students: Special Rate
Breakfast Provided
More information and registration

Featuring keynote by Gary Cohen, Health Care without Harm: "Embedding Sustainability in Healthcare's DNA through Purchasing and Acquisition"

Given the scale and scope of Southwestern Pennsylvania’s healthcare sector, both supply chains and information technology emerge as important, regional areas for sustainability and opportunity. Come learn from regional leaders who are working to build the capacity for our healthcare sector’s sustainability through their supply chain and information technology strategies and practices.

Supply chains are a gateway to becoming more sustainable. Emphasizing the importance of green purchasing and its relevance to sustainability, Practice Greenhealth, a national organization for institutions in the healthcare community that have made a commitment to sustainable, eco-friendly practices, states:
"[H]ealth-care organizations can influence their upstream supply chains to move toward more sustainable practices by working with supply chain aggregators commonly used in health care, such as group purchasing organizations (GPOs). Collaborative efforts with such suppliers can bring safer and cleaner products into health-care facilities. Due to their scale, when large health care facilities and companies green up their supply chains, they have a strong positive effect, due to the sheer volume of their purchases." (The Business Case for Greening Healthcare, Practice Green Health, 2008)

This event is a "must attend" for professionals in the healthcare industry who are interested in gaining knowledge and how-to assistance on a variety of topics related to green and aggregated purchasing in healthcare.

Public Meetings for The Urban Forest Master Plan

Community Planning Meeting: EAST
Monday, January 23, 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm
Union Project, 801 N. Negley Avenue 15206

Community Planning Meeting: NORTH
Tuesday, January 24, 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm
Children's Museum, 10 Children's Way 15212

Community Planning Meeting: SOUTH
Wednesday, January 25, 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm
WYEP Community Broadcast Center, 67 Bedford Square 15203

Community Planning Meeting: WEST
Monday, February 13 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm
Banksville Park Shelter, Banksville Park

More information

As part of Tree Pittsburgh’s Urban Forest Master Planning process, the public is invited to give their input about the City’s trees at meetings beginning January 23rd. Participants who come to the public meetings will learn the details of the state of Pittsburgh's urban forest, and will have the opportunity to provide detailed input into the plan. All meetings are free and open to the public, and refreshments will be served. The meetings will be informative and interactive.

Additionally, Tree Pittsburgh is collecting Pittsburgh’s Tree Stories, and specifically opinions about City trees, their maintenance, and funding for the urban forest with a short online survey at www.tellusyourtreestory.org. Residents are encouraged to share the survey with their neighbors, co-workers, and friends as Tree Pittsburgh gathers more data about the city’s opinion about trees.

Neighborhoods and Housing Markets
Comprehensive Community Development in the Metropolitan Context

Monday, January 23
11:00 am - 3:30 pm
Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Pittsburgh Branch
717 Grant Street, Downtown Pittsburgh 15219
More information and registration

You are invited to participate in the second event in the Connecting to Markets Series. You will view a national panel presentation, streamed live from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. A question and answer session among participants and panelists at both sites will follow the presentation. After a brief break, a regional panel discussion, will take place at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland's Pittsburgh branch.

Foreclosures have hit inner city, suburban, and exurban neighborhoods alike.
· What does this pattern of distress portend for future development patterns throughout regions?
· Has the exurban development model failed?
· Has the foreclosure crisis erased all the gains that city lower-income neighborhoods have made in recent years?
· Many cities are investing in new or substantially upgraded rail corridors. Do these improvements promise to bring new investment into previously distressed neighborhoods?
· What do patterns of demographic change, including immigration or the entry of new age cohorts into the home buying market portend for patterns of regional development?

This panel will explore ways in which neighborhoods within metropolitan areas are linked to one another through flows of population and investment from neighborhood to neighborhood, and how regional policymakers and community developers can work together to influence these flows to produce better neighborhoods and regions.

New data tabulations that explore some of the inter- and intra-metropolitan differences in housing markets will help provide a framework for both the national and regional discussions.

Sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland and the Pittsburgh Partnership for Neighborhood Development

Reed Smith Spring 2012 Lecture Series: "The Supplemental Poverty Measure"

Wednesday, January 25
The Supplemental Poverty Measure
Kathleen Short, Social, Economic, and Housing Statistics Division, United States Census Bureau

Wednesday, February 22
Inequality and the American City: Implications of the Neighborhood Effect
Robert Sampson, Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Sciences; Director of the Social Sciences Program at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University

Lectures are from noon to 1:30 pm in the School of Social Work Conference Center, 2017 Cathedral of Learning, at the University of Pittsburgh. More information will be available at www.crsp.pitt.edu

Green Roof Bus Shelter Workshop

How to create unconventional green infrastructure in your neighborhood’s public right-of-way.

Thursday, January 26
4:00 pm – 5:30 pm
East Liberty Presbyterian Church, Room 234, 116 South Highland Avenue, East Liberty 15206
Questions? Contact Maggie Graham or Loralyn Fabian
Information on Green Roofs

East Liberty Development, Inc. and Tsuga Studios are hosting this January 26 workshop. Until there is a concrete, regional plan for urban green infrastructure, it will be up to individual communities, on a very local level, to continue implementing such projects. It’s okay to start small. When you begin with small-scale, feasible projects, there becomes opportunity to create a large-scale, educational impact. As more and more small-scale green infrastructure projects are implemented throughout communities, they will work together to create a larger environmental benefit across Pittsburgh. To create true environmental change in this city, one must first create a change in mindset.

This project is supported in part by the Spring Program, an initiative of The Sprout Fund in partnership with The Pittsburgh Foundation.

Farm to Table Lunch and Learn

Friday, January 27
11:30 am - 1:00 pm
Pittsburgh Public Market, Smallman St & 17th St, Strip District 15222
Contact: Erin Hart, American HealthCare Group, (412) 563-8800 or ehart@american-healthcare.net
Register

Learn how to 'Eat Seasonal' with the Farm to Table staff. In addition to a presentation about local food resources, experts will be on hand each month to highlight or demonstrate the positive benefits of eating local. A complimentary lunch will be available from the food merchants, sponsored by Farm to Table and American HealthCare Group.

The January 27 event features Leah Lizarondo Shannon from Brazen Kitchen in a soup demonstration: Creamy Soups & Desserts...Without the Cream!

Farm to Table Pittsburgh is an educational program that provides opportunities for eating healthy local food in the Southwestern Pennsylvania region. Its goal is to bridge the connection between consumers and local food producers. Eating locally grown food benefits both one's physical health as well as local economic health. Farm to Table Pittsburgh is sponsored by American HealthCare Group, a local family business delivering wellness programs to corporations, school districts and community groups.

YERT Screening and "Take a Shot" Digital Media Contest

Sunday, January 29
2:30 pm
Heinz History Center, 1212 Smallman St., Strip District
Free and open to the public
Tickets are first come, first serve. To reserve free tickets, people are encouraged to call Steeltown’s offices at 412-622-1325 or email Rachel@steeltown.org.

"YERT: Your Environmental Road Trip" follows three friends on their cross-country road trip to all 50 states in search of the sustainable lifestyle. The screening begins at 2:30 pm, and is also open and free to the public. In addition, special guests include, Dr. Patricia DeMarco, Director of the Rachel Carson Institute, as well as Mark Dixon, filmmaker and star of YERT, who will both speak after the event. For more information about the film, please visit www.yert.com.

This event also kicks-off the Steeltown Entertainment Project’s 2012 Take A Shot At Changing The World Digital Media Contest, open to middle school and high school students in Southwestern Pennsylvania. Students can win up to $10,000 in prizes by making short films that tell the stories of how Pittsburgh and Pittsburghers have changed the world, or by making a short film featuring their own personal plans for social change. For more information about the “Take a Shot at Changing the World” contest, please visit www.takeashotcontest.org.

PA DEP Secretary to Discuss Marcellus Shale and Innovation

Wednesday, February 1
11:30 am - Registration and Networking
12:00 pm - Program and Lunch
1:15 pm - Adjourn
Rivers Club, 301 Grant St #411, Downtown Pittsburgh
$49 Pittsburgh Technology Council Member | $175 Non-Member
Register: Online or at events@pghtech.org

Join Secretary Michael Krancer, Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection as he outlines the Commonwealth’s strategy to ensure and promote the responsible development of Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale industry. As a key part of his presentation, Secretary Krancer will discuss the important areas where innovation and technology could improve the ways that we produce and consume energy in Pennsylvania.

Appointed by Gov. Tom Corbett in 2011, Secretary Krancer previously served as the Chief Judge and Chairman of the Pennsylvania Environmental hearing board, under former Gov. Ed Rendell.

The Pennsylvania DEP is charged with administering Pennsylvania’s environmental laws and regulations including those that deal with reducing air pollution, promoting safe water and ensuring that waste products are handled correctly. Additionally, the department is responsible for promoting advanced energy technologies and community revitalization.

For all of these reasons, don’t miss this opportunity to hear from a key member of the Corbett administration as he discusses issues that are important to Pennsylvania.

Webinar: Transportation Patterns and Impacts from Marcellus Development

Thursday, February 16
1:00 pm - 2:15 pm
Registration and more information
Contact: Carol Loveland at cal24@psu.edu or (570) 433-3040.

Featuring: Scott Christy, Deputy Secretary for Highway Adminstration, PennDOT, and Mark Murawski, Lycoming County Planning & Community Development

Resources

Public decries potential transit cutbacks

Court Gould, executive director for Sustainable Pittsburgh, said the city's efforts to revitalize itself and the recognition it has gotten nationally "puts us on the cusp, at a point where cutting transit pulls the rug out from under Pittsburgh, and as goes Pittsburgh so goes the region. Public transit is a public service and dependent on state support. A win-win opportunity sits squarely on the governor's desk at this moment."

Subsidies Spurn Public Transit Riders

After two brief, magical years in which public transit riders were treated as equals with drivers, the federal government is once again playing favorites.

In the first half of Obama's presidency the federal government took a multipronged approach to support the growth of transit ridership, including giving the same tax benefits to public transit riders as car commuters. However, 2012 has brought back the primacy of the driver in federal tax policy.

This year public transit commuters will have to pay an additional $550 dollars in taxes due to the elimination of equal pretax dollars for drivers and public transit riders. As Sarah Laskow writes, "Right now, the government is signaling that it prefers people drive to work, despite the negative consequences of car commuting—traffic, higher carbon emissions, and parking lots that suck the life out of entire city blocks."

Potential good news is on the horizon however, Senator Charles Schumer, Democrat of New York, and Representative Jim McGovern, Democrat from Massachusetts, are seeking to restore then commuter subsidy equality with new legislation.

Gas Prices and the Value of Walkable Communities

The average family paid 25% more in gas in 2011 than they did in 2010. With that trend expected to continue into the foreseeable future, the case for the importance of walkable neighborhoods will grow along with it.

After slow start, can bus rapid transit get rolling?

The area being studied for the feature makes up a large portion of Port Authority's ridership, says Darryl Phillips with Parsons Brinckerhoff. The Oakland core alone has 46,000 daily riders -- mostly via the 61 and 71 bus routes -- accounting for 20 percent of the system's total ridership. The rest of the corridor routes have 78,000 daily riders, and, combined with Oakland, account for 33 percent of the system's ridership. Those same areas, Phillips says, are also poised for significant growth in employment and population by 2040. "The question is how do you accommodate that growth?" he says. "People need options for getting around."

GetTherePGH

Accelerating community development through Bus Rapid Transit.

Climate Proposal Puts Practicality Ahead of Sacrifice

The current issue of the journal Science contains a proposal to slow global warming that is extraordinary for a couple of reasons: 1. In theory, it would help people living in poor countries now, instead of mainly benefiting their descendants. 2. In practice, it might actually work. This proposal comes from an international team of researchers — in climate modeling, atmospheric chemistry, economics, agriculture and public health — who started off with a question that borders on heresy in some green circles: Could something be done about global warming besides forcing everyone around the world to use less fossil fuel?

Help connect those in need with SNAP (Food Stamps)

The Southwestern PA Food Security Partnership has developed a flyer (see link below) to help reach out and inform people of the availability of SNAP (Food Stamps) and ways they can access the benefits. The flyer provides information about where to call for application help, and is meant to be distributed through waiting rooms, entrance areas, and by workers who may come into direct contact with consumers of service who may be SNAP eligible but not yet participating. According to the Partnership, over 100,000 people in Allegheny County alone appear to be eligible but not participating in SNAP. A large supply of the flyers is available for distribution. To order a supply of the flyers, please call Kim Dodson, (412) 466-7711.

Innovative State and City Government Solutions to Watch in 2012

The next economy will be fueled by innovation and advanced manufacturing, so that the U.S. can stay on the cutting edge of invention and production. It will be powered by a next-generation workforce that’s well-prepared for employment opportunities in emerging fields. This will require the United States to take the lead in the clean economy, developing the renewable energy and energy-efficiency technologies necessary for a low carbon future. The next economy will also be export intensive, producing goods and services that are in demand in the global marketplace. And all this will demand a new approach to governance, predicated on public-private collaboration and cooperation.

Now Hiring: Project Coordinator (US DOE SunShot project, Pittsburgh)

Deadline: Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis through February 1, 2012.

Description: Citizens for Pennsylvania’s Future (PennFuture), a statewide public interest membership organization, seeks qualified applicants for a part-time position in our Pittsburgh office to serve as Project Coordinator, assisting on the US Department of Energy Solar Rooftop Challenge project. This individual will coordinate activities associated with execution of this project in order to streamline zoning, permitting, and inspection across 23 municipalities in Allegheny and Beaver counties as well as work with a team to develop creative financing tools for solar energy in southwestern Pennsylvania. The project coordinator will work collaboratively with the project manager, other project coordinator, partner organizations, consultants and municipal officials. The dates of employment for this position are from February 2012 through January 2013.

CMU awarded $3.5 million grant to develop technologies for transportation safety and efficiency

Get There PGH is advancing a plan to bring Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) to Pittsburgh, a mode of transportation that has emerged in recent years in part due to advances made in efficiency technologies.

Court Gould, executive director of Sustainable Pittsburgh, says his organization is interested in BRT because it utilizes such technological improvements, allowing for increased transit access, reduced congestion, and greater service to riders.

Reinventing Historic Assets

Consider the same urban site, but with a master plan that retains most—if not all—of the old mill’s structure, repurposing the plant as the centerpiece of a revitalization strategy. The mill is converted into mixed-income multifamily housing, designed and constructed sustainably while retaining and even celebrating the area’s heritage. In time, live/work lofts for artists, an assisted-living facility, and even luxury condominiums are added to the mix.

Find Your Foodshed California leads the way in a new type of planning.

The urban-rural roundtable model gave all three regions the chance to reach across disciplines and engage broader support for policy initiatives that touch on food and agricultural issues. The timing is right. Rural economies are in desperate need of support from urban markets, and planners are beginning to break through the barriers between urban and rural communities, caused in part by expanding urban development that threatens farmland and the natural resources that support foodsheds.

Home insurance rates rise with extreme weather

As an increasingly politicized debate over global climate change rages across the country, insurance providers are quietly readjusting for a new, more costly future. In interviews with NPR, insurance executives from major firms said that the industry is reassessing risk across the United States after a year of severe hurricanes, droughts and floods. Homeowner insurance rates could go up by as much as 10 percent this year in response to the increase in extreme weather patterns, they said. In the past, certain regions of the United States were targeted as having increased risk of weather damage. With weather patterns becoming less predictable, the executives said, regions formerly considered 'safe' were now being reassessed as 'at risk.' Extreme weather was responsible for $70 billion in damages last year, $35 billion of which was covered by insurance, said the president of the Insurance Information Institute.

For information on becoming a Member of Sustainable Pittsburgh, please visit our website.

3E Links is sent as a service to Sustainable Pittsburgh Members and interested parties and is being distributed for informational purposes. The information above was provided by or obtained from the organizing institution or one of its representatives. Our distribution does not imply endorsement. To unsubscribe, reply to this e-mail and type UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject line.

Click here to access the 3E Links Archive. Use "Search" on SP's homepage for a great resource.

Sustainable Pittsburgh affects decision-making in the Pittsburgh Region to integrate economic prosperity, social equity and environmental quality bringing sustainable solutions to communities and businesses.

Sustainable Pittsburgh benefits from support ($1,000 and up) in 2012 from:

Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation
BNY Mellon
FedEx Ground
The Heinz Endowments
Elsie H. Hillman Foundation
Richard King Mellon Foundation
Pashek Associates LTD
PNC Financial Services Group
UPMC


Special thanks to the SP Members

Sustainable Pittsburgh
425 Sixth Avenue, Suite 1335
Pittsburgh, PA 15219
(412) 258-6642
fax (412) 258-6645
E-mail SP