What if something that is so common and universal as a bus stop could give a urban environment?
Green bus stops have been popular for the first time in the Netherlands and now appeared across Europe.
Last August, Boston, Massachusetts, installed its first 30 green bus stops along Route 28, a corridor with some of the highest bus drivers in the city, which also ends up in districts that are disproportionately affected by extreme heat.
It is a simple concept: Use the roof of a bus station without spring to compensate for the Hitze Island effect in urban areas without trees, to offer direct shade in bus accommodation, reduce flooding, improve the biological diversity of the local pollinators and see something more beautiful in the daily path.
Last year Boston wrote the first city in the United States in history, which are sometimes referred to as “living roofs” and has already won waves in other places.
According to the Washington Post Green Shelters, two cities in Maryland are planned in two cities in Maryland, with suggestions for the installation of Green roofs in Arlington, Virginia and New York.
While it seems to be like a small gesture for the bees of a certain city, the initiative is not a small performance.
If Boston would install living roofs at all 8,000 bus stops, the city estimates that it would be 17 hectares of green spaces or about 13 soccer fields.
“These green roofs in bus accommodation are not only a representation of Boston's progress in sustainability,” said Mayor Michelle Wu in a statement last year.
“You are a practical, scalable solution for some of the most urgent challenges that we face as a city.”
The installation of Boston was a team performance because the city with social impact collective, a Boston-based architecture and construction company in Boston, worked to work to imagine the roof gardens.
Weston Nurseries, a local plant kindergarten, made the plants available, and Youthbuild Boston provided an elbow fat. The non-profit organization supports sub-supplied young people when they enter the construction and design industry.
“The number of public and private partners involved in this project shows the all-of-government approach that this administration has pursued to improve sustainability, viability and justice,” said Oliver Sellers-Garcia, Green New Deal Director of Boston.
“We endeavor to set all of our resources for the work that improves daily life and directly participates in the residents, young people and local entrepreneurs. The climate investments in Boston are also quality of life and economic development investments.”
The living roofs of Boston consist of panels made of structural roofing under drainage layers. On the top there is a thin layer of soil on which plants such as sedum and local pollinating plants grow, species that are both drought -tolerant and able to adapt to Boston's winter.
While it is too early to say exactly what advantages Boston will see from the living roofs, Utrecht, a city in the Netherlands, could provide some important insights.
Green bus shelter were installed in the Netherlands to tackle a declining bee population. (They were even referred to as “bees lines”.) According to a “National Bee Census”, the population seems to have started with constant food sources for pollinators, which was released at the beginning of this year.
Studies in Montreal, Canada, have also used thermal cameras to prove that a bus stop with a green roof is significantly cooler than one without and for similar installations in Quebec.
Since Boston's pilot project continues to maintain and monitor its effects on heat, air quality, rainwater management and biological diversity, the city's stakeholders are too hopeful.
A precedent examination for living protection in Boston showed a reduction in surface temperatures by up to 30 degrees Fahrenheit as a starting point.
Zoe Davis, the high-ranking project manager of climate resilience in the Climate Ready Boston team, gave a tedx talk about the project and added that each living roof can absorb up to 1,500 gallon rainwater in a rainfall of 1 inch, which significantly reduces the drain to prevent floods.
“What if solutions for climate change did not have to be massive to do something? Given the rising temperatures and a larger extreme heat risk, what if the key to a cooler, more livable future can be found in the places where we pass every day?” Davis asked in her tedxtalk.
“There are small steps such as the cultivation of living roofs in bus accommodation that can be transformed into great impact on our cities, our municipalities and the environment.”
Φ
ΦYou can also like: Mayor of Boston commutes with the residents to learn how to improve public transit
Φ
Header image with the kind permission of Wallbarn