If you’re still in the market for solar panels call Jeff Perlman at Brightpower: http://www.brightpower.biz. We have a solar hot water set-up on our roof (and in our basement) that he recently did for us. He could also help with a solar electric installation…

A few months ago. Mind you, that was a big few months!

It will be difficult for installers from elsewhere to work here, politics being what it is. I may have to work for all those condos to be finished and electricians to become available.

While I don’t recall what it was, however, the city did impose a bunch of paperwork and fees that installers claim made things impossible, and these may be subject to repeal. Another factor that may help next year. I’ll try again then.

When did you look for an installer? I suspect it was back when oil prices were around $140 per barrel, not after oil prices and the economy crashed.

I’ve saved up my money (we don’t do debt), waited until the roof needs to be replaced, and am ready to buy. But I found that it is just about impossible to get an installer for a residential project in NYC, let alone competing bids to assure a fair price. Several told me they no longer do residential; another promised to get back to me when he had time and never did.

A friend who follows this closely, and got panels installed before the squeeze, told me the availability of more lucrative large-scale commercial work, the limited number of installers (not many trained workers, electricians still building condos), and the enoromous red tape imposed by the city and Con Ed are all reasons. Solar installation is vastly easier and cheaper anywhere but here, so I’m hoping the roof holds up and waiting for conditions to change.

It isn’t that easy to create an industry from scratch. I just hope that (temporarily) lower prices and the credit crunch aren’t allowed to set it back a decade again.

Meanwhile, absent the ability of bicycle retailers and wholesalers to get credit at affordable rates, many who might like to try bicycle commuting next spring may find commuter bikes unavailable.

For just $600 million (that’s an m, not a b) the federal government could agree to be the buyer of last resort for 2 million fully-outfitted commuter bikes (ie. not road or mountain bikes, with lights, bells, fenders, rack, wide seat, upright position) at $300 apiece wholesale.

They would be brought into the United States and assembled in the spring. The federal government could lend the money for retailers to acquire the bicycles, spreading them around the country in proportion to population.

The actual expenditure under such a program, once the bicycles were eventually sold, is likely to be significantly less than the cost of just one NYCT station rehabilitation project, let alone the $50 billion-plus in auto industry guarantees. The health care expenditures saved by improved health alone would more than justify it.

“We lose more than 40,000 lives in car crashes on America’s roadways each year. This is a staggering figure and one that is a true plight affecting this country — yet we consider it to be an inevitable cost of doing business! Each and every one of us knows a family who has had their lives torn asunder by roadway carnage – often that family is our very own. I lost three friends in high school to crashes. Unfortunately my experience is wholly typical.

Given the tens of thousands of lives marred due to years of unsafe city and roadway designs I urge the Obama administration to make human-oriented transportation policy including pedestrian, bicycle, and public transportation a top priority. Electric cars are clearly important but a new drive-train concept will do nothing to lessen the staggering body count. Consider the model of the ‘vision-zero’ policy adopted in Sweden that aims to eliminate roadway fatalities by 2020. This concept is revolutionary in its pragmatism and universally acceptable ethos: prevent unnecessary suffering.

Of course, It goes without saying that investing in safe and active transportation infrastructure can create millions of jobs, revitalize communities, reduce pollution and oil usage — all while saving thousands of lives. We will all be safer, happier, and healthier as a result.”

Thanks to all the great streetsblog posts that have informed us over the years!

But how many ready-to-go rail projects are there in the country? We will need to do planning, design, and route acquisition before we can build much rail, and that means the building won’t start until after the recession is over. Virtually all infrastructure spending to fight the recession will be on roads, since there are ready-to-go road projects all over the country.

As an immediate response to the recession that will help the environment, I suggest increasing the tax credit for alternative energy to 80% or even 90% (temporarily, for say the next two years). Then lots of home owners all over the country will start hiring people to install solar panels. This could start almost immediately.