With healthy eating in mind, don't forget to stop and shop at your local farmers' markets throughout the summer!

See below for a list of dates, times, and locations for Sustainable Long Island's partner markets. Also check out these listings in Nassau and  Suffolk for dozens of additional markets across the Island!

 

Flanders Farm Fresh Food Market

David W. Crohan Community Center

655 Flanders Rd.

Flanders, NY 11901

Open Saturdays from 10AM - 2PM   

 

Freeport Community Farmers' Market

Freeport Recreation Center

130 E. Merrick Rd.

Freeport, NY 11520

Open Saturdays from 11AM - 4PM   

 

Greater Bellport Community Youth Market

Boys & Girls Club of the Bellport Area

471 Atlantic Ave.

Bellport, NY 11713

Open Saturdays 11AM - 4PM

 

Spinney Hill Farmers' Market

125 Community Drive (parking lot)

Great Neck, NY 11021 

Open Sundays from 9AM - 2PM  

 

New Cassel Farmers' Market

First Baptist Cathedral

212 Garden St.

Westbury, NY 11590

Open Saturdays 11AM - 4PM    

 

Roosevelt Community Farmers' Market

Freeport-Roosevelt Health Center

380 Nassau Rd.

Roosevelt, NY 11575

Open Sundays 11AM - 4PM    

 

Shiloh Community Farmers' Market

New Shiloh Baptist Church

221 Merritt Rd.

Wyandanch, NY 11798

Open Saturdays 1PM - 4PM 

 

• Opportunities to work with public agencies to identify and inventory suitable growing sites and develop a process for partners to access these sites.
• Common types of agreements that govern the relationship between food-growing groups and public entities, such as leases, licenses, and interagency agreements.
• Common provisions in agreements, such as liability, utilities, maintenance, growing practices, contamination, access and security, and improvements.
• Special issues related to growing food on school district property.
• Sample agreements from real-world urban agriculture projects on public land.

• Examples of how to become involved with transportation, land use and built environment decisions at various levels in the community, region or state.
• Common ways in which public health professionals can become leaders in the development of active transportation policies.
• A brief overview of how transportation programs are organized and funded.
• Suggestions for ways to engage.

Transportation decisions affect our individual lives, economy and health. Everyone needs to use various modes of transportation to get to work or school, to get medical attention, to access healthy foods at grocery stores and markets, and to participate in countless other activities every day. However, too many people are negatively impacted by inequitable transportation decisions that are detrimental to public health. That is why transportation planning is an ideal place to promote better health through more active transportation.

(via urbanland.uli.org) - In the last decades of the 20th century, many of the projects undertaken during the golden era of railroad station restorations across the country involved anything except trains. Union Station in St. Louis, for example, reopened as an urban mall. Stations in Dallas and Jacksonville, Florida, became parts of convention centers. Union Station in Indiana­polis was packed with bars and nightclubs. The Cincinnati and Kansas City stations had museums created inside them.

 

Today, with train travel regaining ­popularity and high-speed passenger rail projects or improvements under construction, another era of railroad station construction is dawning. This time, nearly every station project includes intercity train service, and most incorporate other forms of transit, too. In this era, then, train service is returning to some stations that had abandoned it, and rail hubs once again are seen as magnets for real estate activity and opportunity.  

 

"What we're seeing now is a real resurrection of train transportation in the United States," says Rod Diridon Sr., executive director of the Mineta Transportation Institute, a public policy research center in San Jose, California. "We're going to see a wholesale return of integrated rail transportation and the return of the station as the iconic focal point in downtowns."

 

At Amtrak, the national intercity rail service, the station planning department has become so busy that it now monitors active railroad station plans and projects across the country. Its list is up to 150 facilities, according to John Bender, a program manager for Amtrak station planning. He says this activity level reflects surging passenger travel-from 21 million passengers in fiscal year 2000 to 31 million in fiscal 2012-necessitating new and larger stations to alleviate overcrowding in Amtrak shelters so tiny and dingy that some have come to be disparaged as "Amshacks."

All Aboard: Read on for the rest of this article...

 

(via thebigcity.net) - Depending who you ask, America's first gas station opened in either St. Louis or Seattle only a handful of years following the turn of the 20th century. The automobile was young, but already well on its way to driving straight into the heart of American culture. It didn't take long for gas stations to flood across the country, popping up along major arterial roads, prime hard corner locations, and highway off ramps-wherever traffic and auto access optimized a retailer's pro-forma. No city, no citizen was immune. The gas station became an aesthetically regrettable but compulsory compound in the refinement of modern urban development.

Drawing upon a handful of North America case studies, here's three strategies for refueling abandoned gas stations:

 

1. Reuse

There are a number of projects that have thoughtfully reused the footprint of former gas stations. Copper Star Coffee in Phoenix, Arizona is a noteworthy example. Once a small gas station, Copper Star still fuels city residents, but now it's by the cup, not the gallon. The unique architecture, signage, and often prime location of gas stations make them an intriguing adaptive reuse prospect for those with the creative wherewithal. Some have even gone so far as to turn them to private residences. Various states or programs tie targeted funding to gas station reuse, and a full quarter of the EPA's federal brownfield allocation is intended for petroleum brownfield sites.

 

2. Redevelop

Scraped and remediated, parcels formerly home to fueling stations are experiencing radical changes in land use across the world. These redevelopments mark a significant opportunity to transition prime real estate towards a better and higher use. In Vancouver, city officials and SoleFood have partnered to turn a former gas station lot into a 500 tree urban orchard that will produce fruits like apples, pears, and lemons. There's something particularly inspiring about turning a cog in the wheel of the carbon economy back into an urban greenspace.

 

3. Reposition

With recent growth in the use of electric and alternative fuel vehicles, as well as car sharing and burgeoning support for bike/ped options, some see gas stations of the future not as a radically different land uses but as multi-modal support stations that offer a little something for everyone. Imagine pulling up in your car or bike and being presented with a menu of fuels and services: gasoline, ethanol, propane, electric charge, biodesiel, tire pumps, bike tune-ups, and car sharing. Now imagine this place is also a stop along a transit line, bus rapid lane, rail line, or even streetcar system. It's not as crazy as you might think. In fact, Propel Fuels has already attracted both private and public funding to experiment with just this model in California.

 

Read more on the background of identifying these strategies for refueling abandoned gas stations...