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As I waited to be admitted last year, I spent three hours seething at the hundreds if not thousands of vehicles around me, most of them running their fossil-fuel engines for no other reason than waiting to edge up another few feet. And this was in the middle of the night. At the "Green Man" burn!
There is a simple solution to this disturbing problem. Note that these vehicles are just trying to get to the gate, albeit in the most inefficient way possible. Why can't the gate come to them? Here's how it would work. The "pipeline" of vehicles stops, lined up at the gate. The admissions people GO DOWN THE LINE, admitting each frontmost vehicle in turn, which then motors off. Everybody else just sits there, engine off. After a couple hundred yards of vehicles have entered, the whole line wakes up and goes forward, frontmost to the original starting point. Everybody shuts their engines off again. Repeat.
Note that you can adjust the length of the "input segment" to trade off cycle time with the walk required of the "ticket takers". Note also that this doesn't add a burden to anybody; the ticket takers are walking around anyway. Can anyone see the problem? I think it just applies a bit of novel thinking to an onerous bit of convention (i.e., "We're meant to inch forward in traffic jams") from the real world, in a nicely BM way.
Now, how the HELL do I communicate this to the organization. I've scoured the Burning Man site, but I'm damned if I can find any contact information for passing this on. Also, whaddya think?
There is a simple solution to this disturbing problem. Note that these vehicles are just trying to get to the gate, albeit in the most inefficient way possible. Why can't the gate come to them? Here's how it would work. The "pipeline" of vehicles stops, lined up at the gate. The admissions people GO DOWN THE LINE, admitting each frontmost vehicle in turn, which then motors off. Everybody else just sits there, engine off. After a couple hundred yards of vehicles have entered, the whole line wakes up and goes forward, frontmost to the original starting point. Everybody shuts their engines off again. Repeat.
Note that you can adjust the length of the "input segment" to trade off cycle time with the walk required of the "ticket takers". Note also that this doesn't add a burden to anybody; the ticket takers are walking around anyway. Can anyone see the problem? I think it just applies a bit of novel thinking to an onerous bit of convention (i.e., "We're meant to inch forward in traffic jams") from the real world, in a nicely BM way.
Now, how the HELL do I communicate this to the organization. I've scoured the Burning Man site, but I'm damned if I can find any contact information for passing this on. Also, whaddya think?
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Re: Serious Burn-Greening Suggestion: How do I get it to the organization?
Sat, May 24, 2008 - 9:22 AMI thought the same thing over the last few years. Problem is if its daytime most people will turn on their cars to run a/c (fucking wimps!)
For me, we shut off the car and just pushed it every time we had space to move up. Got out and played hacky sack and greeted people.
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Re: Serious Burn-Greening Suggestion: How do I get it to the organization?
Wed, June 4, 2008 - 1:05 AMHey Steve!
I am moderator of this tribe and I also work for the BM organization full time. I like your idea but i can't speak for the gate crew. In general I would agree with anyone that proposed ways to get participants to turn there engines off. Though there is a wear and tear issue when you first start an engine, though I believe this is an issue more for diesel engines vs. gas engines, I think that once warmed up, and the oil circulated, an engine starts up without much wear and tear. I have heard that more fuel is used to restart and engine than to let it run. I have also read and heard more recently that if your engine is going to run for more than 2 minutes at idle, then it is more efficient to turn the engine off and then restart it.
If you would like to send and e mail to the gate leads, try sending to gate@burningman.com. Our e mails are generally easy to figure out as they are somealias@burningman.com like blue@burningman.com or anydepartment@burningman.com, like gate or recycle or greeters etc. etc.
I also think that a well thought post/plea to the community through the Jack Rabbit Speaks might be a good way to get participants to start thinking about this as a way that they have the power to Green the Burn, their burn, your burn, my burn, our burn. The single largest part of the overall impact of the BM event is everyone getting there and sitting in vehicles with the engine running is a large contributor to that. I think that the more that this type of education comes straight from the community, it is more powerful than if it sounds like another rule coming down from the BM organization. I will see to it that the word gets out from me as we get closer to the event but It would not hurt if you sent a post from you. jackrabbitspeaks@burningman.com.
Thanks for the dialog,
Bleu aka Blue
