Rails, Trails, Bicycles and Buses

What will Durham be like when gas hits $6/gallon? That's a question I've been contemplating for some time now, but one which used to get me a lot of funny looks prior to the last two months.

There's been a big push in the region to convert old railbeds to walking & bicycling trails, like (much of) the American Tobacco Trail. Rails-to-Trails is a national phenomenon, so I'm not trying to unfairly burden Durham or even Raleigh on this one. However, it doesn't take a lot of foresight to realize that Norfolk Southern may not be as quick to sell off perfectly good tracks anymore. One of the "unfinished trails" often discussed by those who follow such things in the Bull City is the Duke Beltline: a rails-to-trails project encompassing the trackline that runs through Old North Durham and near the DAP. Trails aficionados lament that NS has asked "too much" for the property. Yet I am coming to the opinion that Durham may be better off in the end for it NOT having been sold off, as it may be one key component of revitalizing the rail infrastructure of Durham for a post-Peak Oil world.

While many of Durham's best and brightest are struggling to get NCDOT to remove turning lanes from the proposed Alston Ave widening project, I'm thinking ahead to the time when such automobile-centric projects are revealed as the grandiose boondoggles of waste they are at the core. Automobile-based commuting is nearing its End Of Life, to talk in software-geek terms. Every extra dollar per gallon is going to start exponentially increasing the outcry for bike lanes, better buses, and commuter rail. More than likely, it will be the rail infrastructure that was NOT converted to trails that will be pressed into service to host that commuter rail. It will help - but it can't carry everybody and every THING everywhere.

Even if we striped bike lanes on every street in Durham, even if we somehow resurrected the long-departed downtown streetcar system, we still have another problem: RTP is ten miles away from most of Durham, but it's even farther from most of Raleigh. And because it was built long after the car became King, the infrastructure there is pedestrian- and mass transit-unfriendly. Every building has a sea of parking around it, padded by a ring of "managed green space." (managed usually meaning controlled monocultures carefully cultivated by low-wage-paying corporate landscapers, but thats another story) It could take half an hour to walk to your building from the closest bus stop - and what about trying to get to work on rail & foot alone? Eeep.

Not to mention, those who are forced by poverty or misfortune to have to ride Durham's currently available public transportation are nearly unanimous in their condemnation of the system. It's barely adequate for basic transport today, and is probably going to be unable to cope with the massive increase in ridership we are on the verge of seeing. It's much more likely that we will start to see more "underground" transportation resources emerge, like private buses, along with major increases in bicycling as a daily necessity rather than a weekend pleasure activity.

As those who moved to the exurbs but work in RTP are faced with skyrocketing fuel costs, I expect many will try to move closer to their jobs. That means Morrisville and Durham will be in line for a lot of growth, even if the economy itself isn't doing so well. A lot of expensive exurban houses are going to be foreclosed on, and a lot of currently-cheaper housing in town is going to become a lot more valuable.

Durham's push to bring businesses back into downtown will pay off handsomely, I expect, as more people seek to live near where they work, and shop near where they live. It's no wonder Cleveland-Holloway is the Neighborhood To Watch right now - it's so darn close to downtown, and so much of its infrastructure was built prior to the Auto Era, that it looks better and better all the time.

However, this sort of "gentrification" may very well lead to more class- and race-based tension in the city, as the really poor inner-city urbanites left behind by discriminatory policies of the 60's & 70's are forced to compete for housing, food, and public transportation with the (formerly?) middle-class newcomers.

Durham is going to have a lot of work to do if we are to manage this transition with any sort of aplomb. We are going to need skilled community leaders who can bring multiple parties to the table, who care about the people - ALL the people - more than lining their own pockets or stoking their own egos, and who can see far enough into the future to understand that massive change is headed our way. More exurbs are the LAST thing Durham is going to need in ten years. It's time to disconnect "development" from "bulldozer" and recouple it with "community."

So, I'm told by my Chatham County friends that planting marigolds around tomatoes will keep pests away. I'm wondering if this is also true for squash, as it appears i may be at the beginning of an issue with squash borers. i sure dont want to lose all this nice squash! marigolds. tonite.

Urban Gardening: The Crash Course, part 2

Growing a garden has made my trips to the Farmers Market quite different. Before, I would just sort of wander around, buying whatever struck my fancy, or some days nothing at all. Now, I find myself looking at what the different vendors are bringing in, comparing it to what I'm growing, and pondering the discrepancies - why is their squash so much earlier than mine? He already has Beans!? Hm, could I grow turnips? Somehow, I think the next phase will be chatting them up for hints. What grows well for you, this variety or that one? There seems to be a lot of observation in growing a garden; I would think that some of it might result in communicable information.

Along those same lines, I used to buy only starter plants, never seeds; now, I'm a regular at the Stone Bros & Byrd seed counter, and I'm waiting anxiously for my copy of "Seed to Seed" to arrive from Amazon, so I can start experimenting with seed saving. (Sometimes, I remember how much of this my grandparents would have simply *known*, and I want to scream in sadness and frustration that they aren't still around to ask.)

Oddly, I've yet to encounter another urban gardener in Durham. Oh, sure, I know some people who have a few tomato plants in a pot, and one who even put in a small bed made of old cinderblocks, but none of them seem to have the same sort of... drive? motivation? joy? for the doing of it. I'm sure they must exist... but where? I have this vision of being in a room of old geezers in overalls, and I'm the only one under 50. Really, I don't want to reinvent the wheel, or the urban garden.

Last year, I bought a bunch of permaculture books, but they really just have not been the kind of resource I expected. It's all fine to talk about co-existing plants and such, but I need specific information. Growing food is about the most local you can get. My soil isn't like your soil, my compost isn't like your compost. If I ever wanted to get the dirt on Durham, well, the dirt of Durham is all over me now.

Urban Gardening: The Crash Course, pt. 1

How does your garden grow? Mine's a bit of a mess, but thanks to a lot of rain this spring, it appears we'll get a bumper crop of yellow squash, at the least.

Not long after the last thesis draft was sent off and the remaining stuff was just paperwork, I decided this would be the year I got serious about gardening. The last two years, I've borrowed a tiller from the guy down the street, tilled up a small patch of dirt at the end of the driveway, and planted a few random vegetables, none of which ever yielded anything we could actually eat. However, until either drought withered them or our absence on vacation allowed spoilage, we did get at least a few relatively healthy plants, so I knew theoretically that gardening in that spot was possible.

However, in reading about urban gardens, one of the most common problems for new gardens is the presence of lots of heavy metals in the soil, a result of exhaust fumes and other airborne pollutants sedimenting over many years. SO, I decided the fastest option would be to build raised beds out of fresh soil. I started by ordering 8 cubic yards of R3 topsoil mix from B&B Topsoil Mine, which was right around $150 delivered. In case you're bad with numbers, 8 cubic yards is a heck of a lot of dirt! Way more than $150 would buy you at Lowe's. I then built low raised beds out of 1"x12"s with metal L-brackets, and small 2"x2"x36" corner posts. The small posts not only provide extra stability for the brackets and screws, they also give you a handy place to attach wire, in case of marauding rabbits.

About a billion wheelbarrow trips later, we have four raised beds (two 12' long, two 8' long), planted in peppers, tomatoes, squash, beans, corn, broccoli, and strawberries. I rotated my plantings a bit, so that the squash plants would come to maturity at slightly different times throughout the summer; as they finish yielding, they will go into the compost and I will start planting fall crops. I missed the early spring plants, such as potatoes and carrots; hopefully, I can pick them up as late crops after the summer heat drops off a bit. I intend to try and keep something growing the entire year, even if it's just greens and a cover crop.

One thing I've realized about Durham, or at least my little part of it: we seem to be able to grow crops on about the same zone schedule that used to be used for Georgia. I put out stuff WAY before a lot of my printed information said it would be viable, and aside from one threat of frost that didn't materialize, it's been fine. And if I'd been prepared to cover them properly, they could have survived several light frosts, I'm sure. SO, I've decided to stop reading quite so much, and go with my gut a bit more on planting times.

To be continued...