Green Initiatives

Green Initiative is a form of action to make environmentally responsible decisions. The inner-city urban experience was "green" with the Jones Valley Urban Farm, the Dart, and green roofs. Jones Valley Urban Farm is a farm located near Park Place where organic food is grown and shipped and sold locally to restaurants and consumers. This is a green initiative because the fact that it is locally shipped and locally bought means less transportation by big trucks across hundreds of miles from a rural area. The amount of money saved by gas and the reduced carbon emissions certainly make this a worthy green initiative. The Dart is Birmingham's downtown transportation system. This trolley runs through downtown and is very affordable (only 25 cents the day we rode it). The trolley on the day we went on it, had people in it which means this mode of green initiative is certainly working. People are riding the Dart (*certainly not by choice). The last green initiative observed were green roofs, it was Jeremys parents' green roof. While we did not personally see it, I'm sure Jeremy did a fine job making this green roof effective by reducing heating costs, and the plant's job of recycling the air. The biggest downfall of these observed "green initiatives" is the Dart. The Dart is simply not reliable enough in its timing. Not only did we end up walking back to UAB, we did not even see one Dart run by us on the way back. The wait for the first Dart was also 30 minutes. The Dart would be increasingly more effective if it were actually on time (run by every 10 minutes). I am sure that the people who ride the Dart are very poor and have no other alternative of transportation as I'm sure they would choose anything but the Dart to get around.